NYC hotel employee sounding alarm on 'total chaos' as migrants trash luxury hotel
Row NYC employee Felipe Rodriguez joined 'Fox & Friends' to discuss how the migrant surge is affecting the once-trendy hotel and why some workers fear for their safety.
One New York City hotel employee is sounding the alarm on the "total chaos" migrant guests are causing as asylum-seekers refuse to leave free rooms and relocate to a migrant shelter.
Migrants initially placed at the Watson Hotel in Midtown Manhattan are camping outside after being evicted on Monday. The migrants, who are single men, are protesting accommodations at a new migrant relief center in Brooklyn.
Felipe Rodriguez, an employee at nearby Row NYC, detailed how his once-trendy hotel has spiraled into a migrant "free-for-all" riddled with drugs, sex and violence during "Fox & Friends" on Tuesday.
"Chaos, total chaos," Rodriguez said when Ainsley Earhardt asked him about the state of the hotel. "There's no accountability. The city's so-called running the program [and] allows these people to destroy these rooms. There is no daily supervision to show these people that… you don't destroy your hotel. You are only there temporarily. This is not your home."
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JANUARY 30: Migrants speak with NYC Homeless Outreach members as they camp out in front of the Watson Hotel after being evicted on January 30, 2023 in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images) (Michael M. Santiago)
"Unfortunately, the ones that are paying the price is the hotel workers, Local 6 union workers," he continued. "Those guys and those ladies endure a lot of disrespect from the migrants, and there [are] some nice migrants, but there's too much alcohol, too much drugs and too much violence, and you have teenagers… going into the staircases and making out like it's lovers lane… This is a free-for-all."
Rodriguez, who is a runner at the hotel, even sustained an injury while trying to navigate through a "cluttered" room to deliver a refrigerator.
He was placed on disability after the incident.
The Row is no longer open to guests and has become a dedicated migrant hotel for individuals who have completed the trek from the southern border to New York City.
But even though Rodriguez said "some" of the migrants were grateful they received room and board at the expense of New York taxpayers, the overwhelming sentiment has been anything but.
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"Their self-entitlement is beyond belief," Rodriguez said. "They believe that… the hotel is theirs, and they're going to do what will what they want, and our general manager really don't care about any of the workers' toxic conditions or hostile conditions. All he cares about is the money."
There are more than 38,000 migrants in New York City with 26,000 currently staying in Big Apple hotel rooms, according to Mayor Eric Adams' office.
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At the Row specifically, it is costing taxpayers around $650,000 per night to house the migrants, ringing in around $500 per night per room.
Rodriguez noted the hotel is making more money from the city than it would if it hosted guests, and suggested that is the motivation behind the complicity from hotel management.
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"They wanted more money, so it's easy money from the city," Rodriguez said.
NYC Mayor Eric Adams visited the southern border earlier this month, making it clear there is "no more room in New York" for asylum seekers as city resources have been overrun.
"New York has been a place where the humanitarian response of the migrant crisis has been really something that's a symbol of what we are as a country," Adams told a reporter during the El Paso press conference. "Making sure that people have a safe place to sleep, making sure they have medical care, food, clean clothing."
"Our volunteers, our NGOs making sure no one is without the necessary needs that they deserve," he continued. "We've done our job. Now it's time for the national government to do its job."