NYC shelter migrants bombarded with 24/7 blaring recording telling them to leave

USPA NEWS - Migrants at a Staten Island shelter are being bombarded by a blaring 24/7 recording urging them to leave, claiming the site is rat- and mold-infested and that they “are being lied to by Mayor Eric Adams.”

The audio recording was being blasted from a professional speaker in five languages — English, Spanish, Ukrainian, Chinese and Urdu — at an ear-splitting level of 117 decibels Monday afternoon from the property of homeowner Scott Herkert next to the controversial former St. John Villa Academy-turned-migrant shelter.

A migrant who arrived outside the shelter with her luggage Sunday, when the warning first started playing, pulled out her phone to record it and then called an Uber and fled, residents said.

More than a dozen asylum seekers were seen leaving the site — the scene of previous large protests attended by hundreds of residents — as the audio blared Sunday and Monday.

“In my view, the use of legal psychological warfare is fair game,” said Newsmax personality and former Independent city comptroller candidate John Tabacco, who conceived the ploy, to me outside the shelter Monday.

The recording shouts at the shelter, “You are being lied to by Mayor Eric Adams.

“This shelter has 300 cots in one room. You will have no privacy, you will have no showers; you had a hotel room with privacy and a bathroom in NYC,” it says — giving the false impression that the shelter is outside of New York City.

“Do not get off the bus, tell them you want to go back to the hotel; this shelter has rats and cockroaches, this building has mold and is unsafe for you,” the recording says.

“You are being lied to, this building is not safe for humans. The community wants you to go back to New York City; immigrants are not safe here,” the recording continues, again falsely insinuating Staten Island is not a city borough.

The site had recently been plagued by sewage overflows, but concerns of mold and vermin have not been reported. The former school is equipped with outdoor showers for the temporary residents.

The same message being blared from the speaker also is printed on fliers that are being distributed at Manhattan’s migrant processing center at the former swank Roosevelt Hotel by volunteers that work for Tabacco, he said.

Tabacco said he came up with the campaign after interviewing migrants at the Roosevelt. “They were telling me that they were being lied to,” he said. “They’re being told, ‘Come! We’ve got air-conditioned coach buses for you. They’re going to take you to New York, put you in a nice hotel room and give you a debit card,’ and you know, they thought they made it, the American dream. “Then they’re finding out through friends or social media or you know just word of mouth — that they’re not really welcome and that they’re going to be sitting inside tents on cots inside these little schools in big rooms with no privacy, 300 cots to a room, with strangers. Going to the bathroom outside, taking showers outside,” he said. After two police supervisors were spotted checking out the scene, community affairs officers asked Herkert to turn down the incessant recording, which had approached the dangerous audio levels of a rock concert.