Brooklyn Asylum Seekers Start to Feel The Pressure of Shelter Closures, Trump Orders

The planned closure of city-run migrant shelters, in addition to new immigration rules enacted by President Donald Trump, is leaving many asylum seekers unsure of their fate in New York City, including those at the Hall Street migrant shelter complex in Clinton Hill. 

“I don’t have any place to go,” said Ngagne Dieng, a Senegalese migrant who has called the Hall Street shelter home for the last six months. “Everything in this life is not easy – if you don’t have opportunity you have nothing.” 

Dieng, who currently works a a security officer and has stayed at three different shelters since coming to New York in December 2023, said he still hangs onto his faith in God through all of the difficulty. 

The city said the shelter closures, expected to be completed by June, are happening because fewer migrants have come into the city and many of them have relocated. There are currently under 51,000 migrants receiving city shelter services, down from a high of over 69,000 in January of 2024 and out of more than 229,000 that have arrived in New York City seeking city services since the spring of 2022. 

After stepping into office on Jan. 20, President Trump signed several executive orders to increase deportations of illegal immigrants. The administration on Tuesday said it expanded the definition of "expedited removal," which allows the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to deport migrants without due process, according to NBC News. This includes any undocumented immigrant who crossed the border within the last two years. 

The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday passed H.R. 29, a bill that would allow ICE to detain undocumented immigrants who are simply arrested or charged with – not found guilty of  – nonviolent crimes, including burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting. The bill now heads to President Trump to be enacted into law.

"The bill will not only reverse decades of progress in advancing the rights and dignity of immigrants across the country, it will ultimately escalate the mass incarceration of people of color, including children and youth, by enabling anti-immigrant law enforcement practices and profiling of individuals perceived to be undocumented," said Murad Awawdeh, the president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition, an advocacy group.

Diallo Bah, from Guinea, said he was not pleased to hear about the ICE arrests that have been made in other parts of the country this week.

"Your WhatsApp lights up," Bah said, who is unsure where he is going when the Clinton Hill shelter closes. "Everything feels scary."

Yet Bah said he still has hope. "In a few months, I believe things will be better. Maybe [the] president is trying to appear strong." 

Yoyo Lam, a recent arrival from Senegal, told BK Reader that his stay in New York would be aimless if the Clinton Hill shelter closed. Lam said this adds to the difficulty of finding employment in the largest city in the U.S.

“I might have to move to Las Vegas or Atlanta,” as it seems easier to get a job there, said Lam, who said he has family living in Georgia.  

The Hall Street shelter complex, one the the largest in the city, received loud opposition from area residents. Since its opening in the summer of 2023, residents complained, rallied and held local electeds’ feet to the fire about quality-of-life issues that occurred as a byproduct of migrants populating the area. 

"It was just unsettling because there were so many people just hanging around," said Karon, a Clinton Hill resident who chose to only provide her first name. "At one point it just seemed like they were all spilling out of that shelter and really, unfortunately, with nothing to do and nowhere to go." 

A new facility on Bruckner Boulevard in the Bronx is expected to absorb relocated immigrants, the city has said.

“They will have the same services available wherever they are transferred — access to case management services, the Asylum Application Help Center, etc.” said a spokesperson for Mayor Eric Adams in an email statement. 

Jennie Spector, a Fort Greene resident that assists with mutual aid support for migrants, said the interim period ahead of the shelters' actual closure feels chaotic. 

When the Jefferson Street shelter closed, several migrants were relocated to Randall’s Island, now also scheduled to close.

“Is that where you want to be in freezing cold and winter?” said Spector. “Knowing that this is going to happen, we can try to plan a bit better so we don't feel like it’s an emergency when it’s happening."