22 Sep 2023 4:02 am
At least 400 enraged protesters rallied Monday outside a shuttered Catholic school-turned-migrant shelter on Staten Island — where they unveiled an enormous blue tarp with white paint that said “NO F%*KIN WAY!”
Neighbors of the 300-bed makeshift shelter at the former St. John Villa Academy in the borough’s Arrochar section seethed over what they described as the unceremonious dumping of unvetted migrants in their midst.
“It’s a clusterf–k,” a resident who lives a block from the school told The Post. “The city really screwed it up. Before we even talk about whether I want migrants here or not, the way it was handled was terrible.
“It was done in a cloud of secrecy.”
Local GOP state Assemblyman Michael Tannousis told The Post the area was “blindsided” by the new shelter, leading to stronger opposition.
“I found out about this location when it was already out in the newspaper,” he said, adding the city previously denied to him they were going to house migrants there.
Former GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa speaking at the rally.
Monday’s demonstration grew so fiery at one point that a Post reporter was harassed to leave.
More than 1,000 demonstrators had protested outside the makeshift Staten Island shelter last week, with cops saying they anticipated twice as many to converge on the former school Monday evening. Police beefed up their presence Sunday after erecting barricades at the scene.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/28/angry-nyc ... ic-school/
Neighbors of the 300-bed makeshift shelter at the former St. John Villa Academy in the borough’s Arrochar section seethed over what they described as the unceremonious dumping of unvetted migrants in their midst.
“It’s a clusterf–k,” a resident who lives a block from the school told The Post. “The city really screwed it up. Before we even talk about whether I want migrants here or not, the way it was handled was terrible.
“It was done in a cloud of secrecy.”
Local GOP state Assemblyman Michael Tannousis told The Post the area was “blindsided” by the new shelter, leading to stronger opposition.
“I found out about this location when it was already out in the newspaper,” he said, adding the city previously denied to him they were going to house migrants there.
Former GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa speaking at the rally.
Monday’s demonstration grew so fiery at one point that a Post reporter was harassed to leave.
More than 1,000 demonstrators had protested outside the makeshift Staten Island shelter last week, with cops saying they anticipated twice as many to converge on the former school Monday evening. Police beefed up their presence Sunday after erecting barricades at the scene.
https://nypost.com/2023/08/28/angry-nyc ... ic-school/