During a Fox News segment, an individual with insight into the New York City hotel scene discussed the significant impact that illegal immigration has had on the industry. The former hotel worker, Carlos Arellano, also exposed the role of NGOs and hotels in taking advantage of the massive influx of illegal immigrants.
The Fox News host introduced the topic, pointing out that a substantial number of the Big Apple’s hotels had converted to migrant shelters. This drives up the cost of lodging in the city as demand increases while supply drops.
“If you’re visiting New York City, be ready to shell out more for a hotel room, if you can even find one, with so many being used to house illegal immigrants. The New York Times finding quote, ‘the conversion of hotels to shelters has sharply decreased the supply of rooms about 135 of the city’s 680 hotels entered the shelter program’,” she said.
Arellanos was asked if hotels were financially benefitting from the heightened demand for shelter as migrants have poured into New York City. The former hospitality worker affirmed that hotels are enjoying the circumstances for “many reasons.”
He explained, “Oh, definitely. And for many reasons, when you walk into these hotels to work at them, the main hotel staff is is not doing anything. They’re standing around, but yet they still charge the city for any little thing they can. And when you see 10 workers on the first floor of the lobby of the hotel, only two of them are really working. Meanwhile, the hotel will still charge the city for all 10 staff members.”
Arellanos further expounded that several different parties, ranging from the hotels to politicians, are “loving this” because of how lucrative the situation is. He claimed that because the money keeps “going round and round,” nothing will change “anytime soon.”
He continued, “And you really don’t know what’s going on in there until you work in one of these places, but the costs just keep being driven up by the hotels. And I like to tell people, when you see someone like a politician on the news saying, Oh, we regret this. We wish this wasn’t happening, it’s all lies, everything from the politicians to the owners of the hotels. Everybody’s loving this because the money’s just going round and round, and they’re not going to want it anytime soon.” Watch the segment below:
Aside from local politicians and the hotels, Arellans illustrates how various companies and Nongovernment Organizations (NGOs) are also benefiting from the provision of shelter to the thousands of illegal immigrants. The former hotel added that the entire scenario is an exorbitant expense to the taxpayer.
“People like Salvation Army and the Red Cross are all on … they’re all inside of these hotels … Yeah, you see Salvation Army. You’ll see them on room 315, 215, depending where the hotel, how the hotel is structured, and they’ll be in there handing out vouchers. Each voucher will be worth $25 but when it comes to the city, they’ll sell it for $50 to the city, yeah, but the migrant can get up to worth $25 worth of stuff per voucher. So you think all these rooms are being used for migrants, but he’s using these also for different companies who are charging the city. Only person who’s left out on this is a taxpayer who’s funding all of this. But you think it’s just the hotel staff? No, it’s about eight to 10 different companies that are working together in each hotel, and all of them are providing services that they’re charging the city way too much for,” he added.
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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