Migrants Are Turning Down Free Rides to Leave New York
Sebastian Garcia, 30, came to the United States after a long trip that included crossing the treacherous Darien Gap on the Panama-Colombia border. A native of Caracas, Venezuela, he arrived in New York City in May 2022.
But as soon as he got to a Queens shelter, the staff offered him a ticket to move to another city of his choice.
He didn’t take it. “I don’t want to be moving around from place to place because I will never get stability,” Garcia said in Spanish. “I arrived in New York and I will stay here. I have nothing to do anywhere else.”
Garcia has applied for asylum and said he is less than 50 days away from obtaining his work permit. As he waits, he has already found a job selling low-cost tablets, making between $700 and $1,000 a week. His goal is to save enough money to move out of the shelter provided by the city and rent his own place. He also wants to study and become a police officer, the same profession he had in Venezuela.
Labor New York spoke to a dozen migrants like Garcia who said they were offered, or heard from friends about, bus or plane tickets by the city if they wanted to relocate — but decided to stay. They say they already found jobs and are making plans to rent their own places in the city. They also feel protected by New York City’s sanctuary policies.
Between April 2022 and April 2023, New York City spent about $50,000 on travel costs to resettle 114 migrant households elsewhere, according to a public information request made by Politico.
City Hall didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.
Since the spring of 2022, New York has received more than 130,000 migrants, and more than 60,000 are currently under its care. Mayor Eric Adams has said that housing and caring for the newcomers could cost the city $12 billion over three years.
Sanctuary city
Roxana Martinez, 24, a migrant from Margarita, Venezuela, has also received an offer to leave. She said that in early August, at the Roosevelt Hotel where she’s staying with her family, social workers asked her if she had extended friends or family in another city.
“They said that if I wanted to move to another city, they would give me tickets for me and my entire family. And I said that I wasn’t really interested,” she explained.
Martinez arrived in the city in May 2023 with her three children, ages 1, 4, and 6, and with her husband, Eudin Alvarado, 28. They are already working selling cookware for Royal Prestige. Though they don’t have a stable income, they want to stay in New York City.
“I go to meetings with an organization and some attorneys provide us with guidance,” she explained. “They said New York is one of the best places to apply for asylum because there are more chances to win the court case. Also, they said New York has a policy of sanctuary city.”
Adapting to the city and making a living hasn’t been easy. “There are many nights where we come back to the shelter, at 11 p.m. or at midnight, and we haven’t sold anything,” Alvarado said. “We work tirelessly.”
But he is enthusiastic about the possibility of getting better work. “We are looking for a job with a salary, where we can stick to a specific schedule,” he said. In Venezuela, he worked as a police officer and security guard, and also in restaurants and supermarkets.
Like Martinez and Alvarado, many migrants in shelters in the city know that if they want to leave, they could get a free ride.
“Here at the hotel, if you want to go to another city, they give it to you,” said Saier Castro, 48, a migrant from Anzoategui, Venezuela, who has been staying at the Roosevelt Hotel since May 2023.
“Thank God here in New York I am a bricklayer and there are excellent job opportunities,” he said. Castro says that he is making between $600 and $1,000 a week and that he is saving every penny so he can rent his own place. He hopes that once he applies for Temporary Protected Status (TPS) it will be easier to find an apartment. “I’m not here out of pleasure, but out of necessity because I can’t find a place to rent,” Castro said.
Junior Montilla, 29, has a different reason for wanting to stay in New York City. He has a 7-year-old boy with disabilities who has been receiving therapy, and medical exams with specialists.
Montilla, who arrived in May, works as an Uber Eats driver making between $800 and $1,000 a week. He pays $120 a week to borrow the Uber Eats account from someone else, as he can’t create one until he has legal status and a work permit. He’s hoping to rent an apartment where he can live with his partner, his son, and his 3-year-old daughter.
In the meantime, he says, he has food and a room provided by the city. “A social worker told me we could stay for as long as we needed, we just had to follow the shelter rules and be well-behaved.”
