NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams celebrated the closure of the migrant mega-shelter at the Roosevelt Hotel after it shuttered its doors last month.

The hotel, which closed in 2020 during the pandemic and opened as a shelter in May 2023, served as the main entrance point for migrants entering the city during the peak of the crisis. Images from the outside of the hotel, where hundreds of migrants waited on the streets for shelter, were emblematic of the scale of the issue during that time. Deportations and a large reduction in border crossings led to a decrease in immigrants coming to the city.

“This is going to be one of the most important chapters in our books,” said Adams, who has been sharply criticized for his willingness to collaborate with President Trump, including on immigration enforcement. He added that “237,000 migrants and asylum seekers went through our system. Roosevelt Hotel was a symbol of that.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly slammed the hotel in recent months, falsely claiming it to be a hotbed of crime and the local base of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua — a characterization the Adams administration has pushed back against in court papers.

“The work that this city did to support so many thousands of families was amazing, and we’re proud of the part that we played,” said Molly Schaeffer, director of the city’s Office of Asylum Seeker Operations.

Anne Williams-Isom, who resigned from the Adams administration in part over concerns about the mayor’s alignment with Trump on immigration, also spoke at the press conference.

“We did it with the best that we had, with the care that we had, and I couldn’t be more proud,” she said.

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