Over the course of the Biden border crisis, New York City has established more than 200 migrant shelters at various locations. One of the latest is located at the former Naval Air Station at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field. That arrangement was worked out in a deal between Governor Kathy Hochul and the Biden administration. Not having suitable permanent structures on the field to use as shelter space, large tents were erected with portable toilets and shower facilities. The first busload of migrants was delivered there on Sunday, but they took one look at the facility and most of them turned around and left. There was reportedly no effort made to stop them, so they will likely join the throngs hanging out in the streets downtown. (Fox News)

The first batch of migrants was bused to a makeshift tent city in Brooklyn on Sunday and took one look and were ready to leave, according to reports.

Shortly after 12:30 p.m, Sunday, dozens of migrant families arrived at the remote housing site and wanted no part of it upon arrival.

The controversial tent shelter at Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, which has drawn widespread criticism for its remote location, among many other concerns, is set to house nearly 2,000 migrants, but the first busload abandoned the site after taking a view of it.

You can call the quitters ingrates if you wish and you would be correct in doing so. But the city’s inability to deal with migrants’ demands under New York’s “right to shelter” laws is a problem of the municipal government’s own making. As Mayor Eric Adams said recently, his city is simply “out of good options” for where to put these people.

One of the chief complaints of the migrants is that Floyd Bennett Field is located in a remote part of Brooklyn, far from downtown, and many of the services and opportunities that the migrants are hoping to find. Others were obviously disappointed in the facilities they saw at the field. Sleeping in a tent in New York with December approaching quickly probably isn’t anyone’s idea of “luxury,” but as the old saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers.

The situation at that tent city brings us back to the issue of setting expectations after extending invitations. We’ve discussed here previously how quickly the rumor mill spreads tips and gossip along the border and even in the countries of origin for many of these migrants. Even after Eric Adams began begging the migrants to stay away, the word had already gone out that people arriving in New York were being put up in hotel rooms with unlimited meals and resources. There were even rumors of work permits being issued.

When you thought you were heading for a five-star hotel in the Big Apple and you wind up in a drafty tent on an airstrip, you’re attitude probably changes pretty quickly. You have to wonder if Mayor Adams is now starting to regret not going to the tent solution first. They never should have started emptying the hotels and putting up migrants there. That news got back to the border and the gold rush to Gotham began in earnest.

Perhaps we’ll be seeing more of this. We recently saw that the conditions for migrants in shelters in Chicago are bad enough that some of them immediately turned around and asked to go back to Venezuela after they arrived. That’s a good start, but it’s not going to do anything about the six to eight million that have already arrived and settled in. If New York would start clearing out the hotels and shipping more people to tents, perhaps the word would start getting around and produce a similar result.