Immigration

Stories From the Longest Line in New York

By on • ( Leave a comment )
A few months ago, the writer Jay Bulger started noticing something at St. Brigid, a small church that abuts his apartment: hundreds, then, a few weeks later, thousands, of migrants lining up every day. So he started asking them what they were waiting for. As it turned out: beds. More specifically: new beds. Over the summer, the Adams administration capped shelter stays for single, adult migrants at 30 days in an effort to push them out of the system entirely. And those who wished to try to get a bed at another shelter after those 30 days were up had to trek from wherever they were staying to the East Village to wait, often for weeks, to talk to someone at St. Brigid. The city’s efforts seemed to have done little more than turn these migrants’ lives into an endless, exhausting loop: shelter, line, shelter. Over the last month, Bulger and writer Paula Aceves interviewed dozens of queueing migrants in great detail about their lives in the city. Their accounts demonstrate the confusing, exhausting, and almost-impossible-to-endure state of the migrant experience in New York in 2024.

—Katy Schneider, features editor, New York   

In Line at St. Brigid The city’s campaign to push migrants out has turned their lives into an interminable loop.

Photo: Philip-Daniel Ducasse
Read the full story
Enjoying One Great Story?
Subscribe now for unlimited access to everything New York.

More From Today
“There are moments of sadness, but then it goes right back to rage.” On the Cut, Rae Nudson speaks to IVF patients who are scrambling to get their frozen embryos out of Alabama and facing uncertainty at every turn. 
READ MORE »
Intelligencer’s Matt Stieb interviews former White House adviser Matthew Bunn about what he considers the most intense set of nuclear dangers that have existed in his adult life, from Russia to China to North Korea.
READ MORE »
Google’s new St. John’s Terminal headquarters, meant to lure workers back to the office, is a city within a building, writes Justin Davidson on Curbed. 
READ MORE »
Matthieu Blazy spent seasons trying to home in on a distinct vision of a woman, and three years in, he found her. Fashion critic-at-large Cathy Horyn reviews the Bottega Veneta show at Milan Fashion Week. 
READ MORE »
Meet the Cinematrix, Vulture’s new, daily grid-style puzzle that challenges players to identify movies that satisfy intersecting clues. Ready to reinvigorate your mornings?
READ MORE »
Our greatest writers’ greatest hits, from the New York archives, and for subscribers only. Sign up here.
Get The Newsletter

Categories: Immigration

Leave a Reply