Police search huge NYC migrant shelter for 'dangerous contraband' as residents wait in summer heat

NEW YORK — Police searched New York City's largest asylum-seeker shelter for hours Friday for “dangerous contraband” as many of the 3,000 residents waited outside on a sweltering summer day.

Many details remained unclear about the search on Randall's Island, which houses people in large tents.

“They just came with dogs,” resident Clifton Arriste said as he sat outside the tents in the early evening, unsure what the animals were brought to sniff for.

Police Deputy Commissioner Kaz Daughtry said in a midafternoon social media post that there was “an operation” to “remove any dangerous contraband from the shelter.”

“The safety and security of all New Yorkers, and every single person in our care, is our top priority,” he wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

The police department didn't answer follow-up questions about the duration of the search, what it entailed, the impetus for it and any steps being taken to ensure shelter residents' welfare on a day when temperatures topped 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 Celsius) on a humid afternoon. By early evening, most people were back inside the tents.

Advocates for the migrants decried the search.

“Temporarily displacing and conducting a police raid on 3,000 new arrivals, despite today’s heat advisory, not only raises serious constitutional questions but is draconian and fuels dangerous xenophobic sentiment," the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless said in a statement.

Since the spring of 2022, about 207,000 migrants have arrived and sought aid in New York City, and about 65,000 remain in city care, Mayor Eric Adams said at a town hall meeting Wednesday. Adams, a Democrat, said about 1,000 migrants now arrive weekly, down from a peak of 4,000.

The city has housed them in hotels, empty schools and other facilities, including at Randall's Island.

Concerns about safety and violence in and around the city's various migrant shelters have flared periodically.

In a recent example, a woman was shot dead and two people were wounded early Monday in a Randall’s Island park where people had come together to react to Venezuela’s presidential election. Police said they believed the shooter was retaliating after being robbed at gunpoint earlier.

The mayor, a retired police captain, said this winter that metal detectors would be installed at the Randall's Island facility. He has also said, however, that troublemakers are few considering the number of people in the shelters.

Arriste, who is from gang-violence-wracked Haiti, said he had never seen drugs or weapons at the shelter but was concerned for his security at times.

“Sometimes people just can get fighting together, and when they get fighting, that’s when everything can happen,” he said. “We’re not safe in this way.”