Loudspeaker message outside NYC migrant shelter warns new arrivals they are ‘not safe here’
A New Yorker upset that the city has been housing homeless migrants on his suburban block has set up a loudspeaker to deliver an unwelcoming message to his new neighbors: “The community wants you to go back to New York City. Immigrants are not safe here.”
The message, recorded in six languages, blares all day from a loudspeaker on Scott Herkert’s well-groomed front lawn on Staten Island, urging migrants brought to a temporary shelter inside a long-vacant Roman Catholic high school not to get off the bus. The message also claims the building has rats and cockroaches.
It is one of several ways some people have let shelter residents know they are not welcome on Staten Island, which, despite what the recording says, is part of New York City. Hundreds of protesters have also held a large rally outside the former school, urging the city to house migrants elsewhere.