ARDSLEY – Asylum seekers living in New York hotels say the food provided to them is unappetizing and in some cases inedible, with one woman saying her meal left her sickened and bedridden for days.
For migrants New York City placed at Ardsley Acres Hotel Court, a Westchester County motel off the Saw Mill River Parkway, meals have been a dismal affair, involving frozen, cellophane-covered trays of food they have to heat up in their hotel rooms. Prevented by federal law from legally working, they have no choice but to eat what they’re given.
One woman, a Peruvian mother who traveled to the U.S. with her 23-year-old daughter, told the USA Today Network in an interview on Tuesday that one meal left her sick in bed for three days, too scared to go to a hospital because of her uncertain immigration status.
Wilson Martinez, a 25-year-old migrant from Venezuela, said in an interview that he and his wife were served hot meals at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City after they arrived there with their baby son, just five days after crossing into the U.S.
But at the Ardsley motel, where they were bused two months ago, all the meals come frozen, including the scrambled eggs and meat patty provided every morning, Martinez said, speaking in Spanish through a translator. Once the food is warmed, he said, it is often too distasteful to eat.
Similar complaints have arisen at other hotels where the city has bused more than 2,100 migrants since May. DocGo, the contractor that’s being paid $432 million to house and feed them, now promises to do better, telling the USA Today Network in a statement that it’s getting feedback from migrants in its care and will seek new food suppliers at each shelter site that offer “culturally appropriate options.”
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DocGo’s statement defended the fare served at Ardsley Acres as “sufficient and…
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