ALBANY — Forty asylum seekers were settled into an Albany hotel Monday after arriving the night before, while the town of Colonie won a temporary court order to prevent any more migrants from being sent to the town.
“The City of Albany — a proud sanctuary city — welcomed its first bus of approximately 40 asylum seekers in search of freedom and a safe place to live last evening,” Mayor Kathy Sheehan said in a statement issued Monday afternoon.
“While we suggested several other hotels within the City of Albany, New York City has decided to contract with the Ramada Inn on Watervliet Avenue in Albany. The City of Albany’s committed community partners will work to ensure New York City provides these asylum seekers with food, shelter, everyday necessities, and the services they may need,” Sheehan continued.
At the nine-story Ramada, there was a woman wearing an identity badge with NYC in large letters and two women providing assistance to the migrants. The woman with the ID badge around her neck said that she was not allowed to speak to the media. A security guard asked a Times Union reporter to leave the hotel.
A call to New York Mayor Eric Adams’ press office to ask about the continuing situation in Albany and Colonie was not immediately returned Monday afternoon.
The Ramada hotel has some of the lowest rooms rates in the Capital Region, according to online hotel booking services. The lowest nightly rate was listed as $60 on Monday afternoon. The 153-room SureStay Plus Hotel by Best Western had a lowest nightly room rate of $74 listed Monday.
While the migrants on Wolf Road in Colonie had to take shuttles to a grocery store and other locations, those at the Ramada were less than a half-mile from the ShopRite grocery store on Central Avenue in Albany. Several of them walked back to the hotel after shopping. They…
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