The growing migrant crisis facilitated by Joe Biden’s disastrous border policies has come to a head in many major so-called sanctuary cities. In New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and others, resources are stretched to the breaking point, and there simply isn’t any place to put all of the migrants.
Now, as Thanksgiving and the holiday season are upon us, there is little to be thankful for among low-income residents in New York City. Mayor Eric Adams recently announced massive budget cuts slashing education, sanitation, and police in an effort to divert funds for migrants.
More than 125,000 illegal aliens have arrived in New York in a little less than a year, and space is running out to house them. There have been reports of migrants being served free meals at the Roosevelt Hotel from a restaurant once open to the public and numerous reports of significant damage to the rooms.
Now, the migrant crisis is impacting the Thanksgiving holiday. In a Queens neighborhood, many residents are reliant on the weekly mobile food pantry to help keep their families fed. New York City Housing Authority’s Queensbridge Houses residents look forward to the weekly opportunity to keep their pantries stocked during the Winter season.
In recent months, over 8,000 migrants have moved into the area, straining resources and making food scarce for low-income Americans. Last Wednesday, those same residents were met with the ultimate disrespect and disappointment.
Residents were told to line up at 11:00 am to get the yearly free Thanksgiving turkey, a luxury most of these families simply can’t afford. When residents showed up around 10:30, instead of free birds, they discovered that migrants had come early and gobbled up all of the turkeys.
Resident Georgia Butler expressed what everyone was feeling. She said:“Why do we have to take the butt of everything. This community is already suffering.” Butler went on to describe the scene when she arrived for what she thought was going to be a Thanksgiving turkey. She continued:“[The migrants] were first in line for the turkeys this morning. They tell you to be there at 11 o’clock. You get there at like 10:30, 10:45, but they are already out there. The line is from over there to over here.”
Free food for migrants has become a hot-button topic in cities like New York, as residents don’t feel like people that broke immigration laws to get here should be put ahead of American citizens. Inflation has continued its chokehold on America, with poor people suffering the most, and the prospect of going hungry on a wholly American holiday like Thanksgiving so migrants can get turkeys instead has not sat well with New Yorkers.
Nor should it. Migrants continue to live off of a system designed to help struggling Americans, and many feel left behind by the Biden Administration. The impending cuts in services that will likely impact poor people even further only exacerbate the anger and resentment felt towards migrants.
Will things change anytime soon? Doubtful, as most New Yorkers voted for the same administration that is leaving them behind. perhaps in 2024 it will finally be bad enough, but that remains to be seen.
Featured image credit: By Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York – https://www.flickr.com/photos/mtaphotos/51890115405/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=116046687
