But at the Roosevelt Hotel, New York’s new Ellis Island, as one city official called it, there is no view of the Statue of Liberty, only the Men’s Wearhouse across the street. And there is no giant American flag to greet immigrants, as there was in Ellis Island’s Great Hall. Instead there is a smiling portrait of Guy Lombardo, the once-famous bandleader who led the hotel’s house band, watching over everyone. The Roosevelt — where Dewey conceded to Truman in 1948 — has become a symbol of the huge scale of the migrant crisis and a faltering government response.

Kelvis Jose Marquez, with his daughter, Keiliani, stopped in New York City briefly, but plan to keep moving soon.
A man in a maroon shirt holds papers next to his daughter, wearing pink, who hold her hands up to his face. Next to them is a sign that among other things says, “Successful people keep moving.”

In May, New York City began directing new immigrants to the hotel’s lobby, where they register with city officials upon arriving in town. By July, the doors closed for several nights, leaving immigrants to sleep on the sidewalk outside the hotel. The city could not keep up with their surging numbers. Dr. Ted Long, a public health official who is helping lead the city’s response to the migrant crisis, said he believes the Roosevelt Hotel is, ultimately, a hopeful symbol.

“We’re creating a new Ellis Island for New York City,” he said Wednesday afternoon after a new batch of migrants arrived: a Syrian man with a backward ball cap and a red roller suitcase, a family of four from Angola, a Venezuelan couple debating whether to stay in New York or find their way to Washington State, and dozens of others.

A ballroom with floral wallpaper and a nearly life-size painting of a woman in Victorian dress framed by green and gold columns. Migrants sit in chairs pulled up to tables at several points in the room.
The lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel has been transformed into a processing center for migrants, many who go on to stay here or in other makeshift homeless shelters around the city because they have nowhere else to go.

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