STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A group of clergy and immigrant advocates hoped to bring a positive message to Arrochar Thursday about migrants, but a group of protestors who didn’t want to hear it mostly drowned them out.
Few of the 10 speakers at the press conference outside the former St. John Villa Academy, where the city has set up a migrant shelter could be heard over a group of about 10 shouting protestors across Chicago Avenue, including one who made sporadic use of a megaphone.
The Rev. Karen Jackson, of the Prince Bay Reform Church in Prince’s Bay, said after the press conference that they’d hoped to spread a message of welcoming, but didn’t address the reaction of the protestors.
“The local faith leaders here today are here to offer a voice of love and compassion and welcoming to everyone, because that’s the call of our faith to love your neighbor, whether that neighbor is a recent immigrant, an asylum seeker, a veteran, a longtime New Yorker or homeless individual,” she said. “We don’t have to serve one person at the neglect of another. We’re here to love all our neighbors.”
Jackson was among a group of clergy who recently published an opinion letter in the Advance/SILive.com calling on the community to welcome the new arrivals to the Island.
While they have the backing of each level of government, that message has mostly fallen on deaf ears among the most vocal members of the Arrochar community.
A protestor, who declined to share his name, shouts at clergy and immgirant activists Thursday, Sept. 7, 2023 outside the city migrant shelter set up at the former St. John Villa Academy. (Staten Island Advance/Paul Liotta)
The people across the street, many of whom have been present at protests outside the former school turned migrant shelter, declined to give their names, but one local resident reiterated his concerns about safety in the community.
“I got no problem with these people [migrants], none whatsoever, however, they broke the law,” he…
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