Migrant men reject transfer to Red Hook facility Metro Briefs

BCC to host 10th annual Amadou Diallo Youth Arts and Sci-Tech Day

Bronx Community College (BCC) will host the 10th annual Amadou Diallo Youth Arts and Sci-Tech Day on Saturday, Feb. 4, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., in Colston Hall. The event is open to the public. (Proof of COVID-19 vaccination is required to enter the BCC campus.)

“Once again, the global community looked on in horror as the senseless police beating and death of Tyre Nichols in Memphis continued to unfold. Systemic racism and oppression continue to eat away at the moral and ethical conscience of American society. Everyone must continue to resist,” said BCC Professor Gene Adams, BCC’s director of collaborative education and codirector of the science and technology entry program, who organized the event.

The Amadou Diallo Youth Arts and Sci-Tech Day will honor the memory of Tyre Nichols by engaging our youth in the spirit of Amadou Diallo. The BCC campus is at 2155 University Ave., The Bronx, NY 10453.

NYC Free Tax Prep

New York City officials kicked off the tax season and encouraged single-filing New Yorkers who earned $56,000 or less in 2022, or families who earned $80,000 or less, to file their taxes for free using NYC Free Tax Prep.

NYC Free Tax Prep provides free, professional tax preparation that can help New Yorkers keep their full refunds, including valuable tax credits, such as the newly enhanced New York City Earned Income Tax Credit (NYC EITC). The new NYC Free Tax Prep for selfemployed New Yorkers will also provide income tax services to freelance workers and small businesses.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) began accepting tax returns on Monday, Jan. 23, and will continue to do so until Tuesday, Apr. 18.

By TANDY LAU Amsterdam News Staff, Report for America Corps Member

By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO Amsterdam News Staff

The city’s migrant housing situation is in terminal decline—a Brooklyn Cruise Terminal decline, to be exact. Men sheltered at a Hell’s Kitchen hotel collectively opposed the Adams administration’s decision to move them to the new Red Hook facility.

“[Yesterday] there was a standoff between asylum seekers and the police at the Watson Hotel because they refused to reside in another temporary shelter that put them further away from the services they need to access to get on the road to self-sufficiency,” said New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC)

Executive Director Murad Awawdeh on Jan. 30.

“Rather than creating more unsuitable, temporary shelters, the city must support residents by moving them into permanent housing, especially those that have been stuck in our shelter system for years. New York City needs bold solutions to its affordable housing and supportive housing crisis, not half-measures that ultimately hurt the very people they are trying to help,” Awawdeh added.

Migrant housing concerns stem from southern border officials like Texas Gov. Greg Abbott chartering buses of asylum seekers to major cities like New York. The placement of the fifth Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center (HERRC) in Red Hook’s Brooklyn Cruise Terminal was announced recently and opposed by immigration advocates from the NYIC, the Legal Aid Society, and the Coalition for the Homeless due to concerns of flooding and distance from public transit. Those issues plagued the first two single men’s HERRCs, leading to the use of the Watson Hotel to house male asylum seekers. But now the city wants to use the building to shelter migrant families.

“This weekend, we began the process of moving single adult men from the Watson Hotel to Brooklyn Cruise Terminal, as we transition the hotel to meet the large number of asylum-seeking families with children,” said Mayor’s Office press secretary Fabien Levy in an email statement. “More than 42,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York City since last spring and we continue to surpass our moral obligations as we provide asylum seekers with shelter, food, health care, education, and a host of other services.”

This past Monday, migrant men outside the Watson Hotel told the Amsterdam News a move to Brooklyn—especially in Red Hook— would make it harder for them to hold down their jobs. A long line of bikes were parked outside the shelter, with former residents cycling in and out from their delivery app jobs as they await the city’s response to their holdout. Venezuelan migrant Rúben Fonseca said many of the shelter’s residents recently found jobs in Manhattan and are stressed about getting to work on time if they’re relocated.

“Sending us to Brooklyn though, we understand that as a problem because we are here to work and to get ahead and to become independent, not to live here off of the government and from whatever it gives us,” he said in Spanish. “So now they want to send us to where, well, we call it a tent, where in each

In-person services are available in English, Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Chinese, French, Haitian-Creole, Hebrew, Korean, Russian, Spanish and Urdu, and other languages are yet to come.

New Yorkers can call 311 or visit New York City’s tax prep website to choose the best filing option for themselves and find the most convenient location for in-person or drop-off tax prep. A checklist of what documents New Yorkers need to bring with them to file in person and multilingual information about the services are available online.

African American Association of Co-op City Black History Month Film Festival

The African American Association of Co-op City will hold its 26th annual Black History Month Film Festival via Zoom on Saturday, Feb. 4, beginning at 1 p.m. The event will offer a libation prayer/ tribute to the ancestors: Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts III, Mary Alice, Stephen “Witch” Boss, Traci Braxton, Irene Cara, Coolio, Professor Lani Guinier, Ramsey Lewis, James Mtume, Nichelle Nichols, Pelé, Anita Pointer, Sidney Poitier, Bill Russell, Pharoah Sanders, Bernard Shaw, André Leon Talley and Charley Taylor.

Invite your family, friends, and neighbors for an afternoon of edu-tainment and to support this organization that supports the community. For more information, call 718-6715957. Zoom meeting ID: 825 6179 3270; passcode: 072086 NY; dial-in: 1-646-558-8656.

Join your local community board!

Brooklyn’s Community Board application season is in full swing. What exactly does a community board do, what powers do they on page 27