On Tuesday night, ten Staten Island protestors channeled their inner Donald Trump and were arrested for temporarily blocking a bus carrying asylum seekers. They were charged with disorderly conduct, and a 48-year-old man was charged for allegedly assaulting an officer who was attempting to make an arrest.
Suggested Reading
The incident took place outside a former Midland beach senior living facility. Demonstrators learned that the building was set to house migrants and blocked the bus as it pulled up to the facility that’s being run by the nonprofit Homes for Homeless.
Since last year, more than 100,000 migrants have arrived in New York City. This has led officials to create 200 emergency shelters in all of its boroughs. On Wednesday morning, Mayor Eric Adams stated: “We’ve been left along as a city to solve a national problem.
“I need us to get through this together, and how we get through this is not what we saw on Staten Island last night — people are banging and using derogatory terms... That is not who we are as a city.”
Those who protested the arrival of migrants Tuesday night feigned fear as the reason for their disapproval—as opposed to straight up xenophobia. “Safety — who they are, where they’re coming from, if they have any diseases. They’re not being checked for nothing, things like that nature,” one resident reportedly said.
However, they weren’t advocating for accessible medical care for the asylum seekers—they were protesting their existence. Instead of taking your anger and aggression out on the migrants, you should perhaps evaluate how city officials are actually using their allocated government funds.
You should also ask why affordable housing has become all but impossible to obtain for New York City residents—native or not.
Straight From 
Sign up for our free daily newsletter.