Migrants forced out of Manhattan shelter deemed unsafe by FDNY, leaving some fearful they could wind up on the streets

More than 100 migrants were removed Monday from a Manhattan emergency shelter due to safety hazards at the site, leaving some of them fearful they could end up sleeping on the streets as staff told them they needed to return to the city’s crowded intake center to reapply for a bed.

The removals were ordered at the makeshift shelter operating out of an old Touro College building on W. 31st St. near Eighth Ave. after the FDNY found during a recent inspection that the facility lacks a functioning fire safety system, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The so-called “migrant respite site” has been housing hundreds of mostly male adults for months. Some of them started being moved out last week following the FDNY inspection.

On Monday, the Daily News observed dozens more being removed, and one of the sources briefed on the FDNY’s decision said the building was expected to be completely emptied by Monday. A City Hall official said 130 migrants were told to leave from the Touro site Monday.

Speaking outside the shelter, many of the migrants told The News they were instructed upon being removed to go to the Roosevelt Hotel asylum seeker arrival center in Midtown to reapply for shelter if they still needed it.

Sega Saleman, a 33-year-old migrant from Mauritania who has been staying at the Touro site for a month, worried he would not be able to immediately get a new bed by applying at the Roosevelt, where hundreds of new arrivals arrive every week to seek shelter.

“If we can’t find anywhere, we will sleep on the street,” Saleman said, speaking in Arabic.

Mohamed Baba, a 26-year-old also from Mauritania, agreed with Saleman.

“I don’t have a place to go that will definitely take me,” Baba, who has slept at the Touro site for the past three weeks, said in French. “I don’t want to sleep on the street, but if it happens I’m going to have to put up with it.”

Ulisses, a 24-year-old Venezuelan migrant forced to leave Touro, said he fears ending up on the streets, too. “I need to go back to Roosevelt to reapply for shelter,” he said in Spanish. “Tonight if I can’t find a place, I have to sleep in the streets.”

Over the summer, dozens of migrants slept on the sidewalk outside the Roosevelt for nearly a week as the Adams administration said it couldn’t immediately find beds for them in the city’s overcrowding shelter systems.

City Hall spokeswoman Kayla Mamlelak would not say after Monday’s evictions if the migrants removed from the Touro site would be prioritized for new placements. She said that Touro, like other respite sites, was never meant to be a long-term facility.

“Asylum seekers have undergone long and arduous journeys before arriving in New York City, and we are committed to keeping them safe while staying at emergency shelters,” she said. “When identifying emergency sites, we work with agencies to ensure we are taking the proper fire protective measures.”

The Touro facility is among several city-run sites the FDNY recently slapped with vacate orders due to fire safety violations. Other sites hit with vacate orders include St. John’s Villa Academy, a shuttered Catholic school on Staten Island where local residents have for weeks protested the administration’s decision to house migrant families with children.

Upon first opening them, Adams’ administration said its respite sites were only meant to house migrants for short periods before they could be placed in more traditional shelter settings. Many of the respite sites do not have access to showers and other basic amenities, as previously reported by The News.

The comments from Saleman and Baba confirm that at least some migrants have stayed at respite sites for lengthier periods.

The FDNY inspections come as the city continues to house more than 64,000 migrants, according to data from Mayor Adams’ office.

The Touro facility made headlines after Tim Pearson, a top adviser to Adams, got into a scuffle with security guards while making an unannounced visit to the site last Tuesday.

A municipal agency investigative document first reported by the news outlet The City cited multiple eyewitnesses as saying Pearson instigated the violence by getting physical with the guards after refusing to show his identification upon arriving.

The NYPD arrested Terrence Rosenthal, one of the security guards involved in the altercation, and charged him with obstructing government administration and harassment. A representative for the Legal Aid Society, which is representing Rosenthal, said their client was simply doing his job.

With Rocco Parascandola