"There's Violence" New York's Biggest Migrant Camp (#178)

Welcome to New York I'm walking along the bridge to Randall's Island place that many New Yorkers never even go to but it's become the center of the migrant controversy and not just New York but the entire United States I'm about to go and talk to some people and see what's going on I have one skill that normally is fairly useless which is that I could speak a bunch of different languages not able to hire a translator going to have to go and do this myself excuse me are you guys busy right now you going to work huh are you busy you speak English I'm making a video about the situation I want to talk to some people no English where are you from okay oh come out okay guess all right all right so those guys were from a country called Guinea in West Africa finally putting the French skills to use here a lot of Americans probably think learning French is only good going to France and eating croissant or something but it's actually one of the most spoken languages in the world spoken all over Africa so this is randle's island randle's island I think typically doesn't have any residents there's a bunch of like soccer fields baseball Fields I think there's like a Wastewater Plant or something like that but what started to happen last year was they built the largest migrant shelter in the entire city here and it's now filled clearly to capacity thanks to the absolute show that is American politics migrants that arrived at the US Border in Texas were sent on buses all the way to New York City many ended up at the migrant camp that was constructed on Randall's Island but in recent months things have been getting ugly there's been stories of violence even murder inside the camp and with the migrants well at least a few sociopaths now getting so Brazen to attack the police public opinion is really souring on the situation who is the security the police or who no not the police the ones that you see there the entrance is like over here okay okay like down there and then come back I just jump over here where do you guys come from if you don't mind me asking uh differentes okay I've traveled a lot in Africa are you guys from Africa yeah we are which EMP okay I'm going to talk with her how'd your English get so good stud aot study a lot okay don't go far in America with that yeah all excuse me you told me you're the security here yes uh I'm just a simple YouTuber I was wondering if it's possible to film the camp a little bit show what it's like inside sorry no no yeah is there a way I could get some kind of permit to do that or not allow okay I see all right so there's uh apparently no way in the front door and they can't bring visitors into the camp so we'll just have to talk to the people walking back and forth but man there are a lot of people walking back and forth fourth um yeah okay ah about [Music] all right buddy look like your girlfriend was ready to have an interview but uh YouTuber ah YouTuber [Music] okaye [Music] okay St vene okay fore e Al [Music] all right so as you may have noticed it's really hard to talk to people here understandably nobody really wants to be on camera I have to convince them so I'm really proud of the people that actually did talk to me and shared their stories and I've gotten the understanding that most people here they're here for at most a month I met a few people like the Chinese couple the Africans have been here for a month and you also have people that are literally arriving now there's constant traffic over that blue bridge over there bridge that leads to randle's island people arriving people going people going off to work which is interesting because I believe they're not legally allowed to work but I mean hey this is America America we thrive on illegal immigrant [Music] labor [Music] fore okay so the funny thing about this whole situation is if you go past the camp basically at least 90% of the island is like this it's actually very quiet it's one of the quietest places in New York City and you would have no idea there's a giant migrant camp or violence apparently is breaking out every other night the camp is flanked on all sides by New York police cars of course many people watching this will wonder what the police are actually going to do if something happens there's a very famous video floating around where everyone in the camp rose up and brawled with the police and nothing really happened afterward and it's really bizarre because you know I think if you watch my videos you can recognize that most of the migrants are probably normal people that just want to work but I'm sure there's also some sociopaths among them as well and when they cause trouble you got to arrest them now I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that the topic of immigration in America is very heated in fact it's probably the most heated Topic in the country at the moment problem is you can't trust the media every source of media seems seems to have some kind of bias they're on the right they're on the left and everything gets filtered through that bias now as someone who does not identify himself as either a Republican or a Democrat this situation is very annoying and that's why I'm very happy that today's sponsor is ground news ground news's app and website gathers news articles from around the US and even the world in one place and it shows you where they lie on the political Spectrum it adds context it even shows you who is funding each Source let's take a look at this story about the city's lawsuit against the bus companies sending migrants it's very interesting to see the different headlines that each Source are giving to the story where a single word or phrase can influence public opinion for example this left leaning headline quotes the mayor as saying they acted with evil intent whereas this more Centrist publication says that they are Asylum seekers in today's world it's way too easy to get caught up in manipulative algorithms that control public opinion they just reinforce your own biases that's why I think what ground news is doing is important and I'm not just saying that I use it myself as a source of news you can get 30% off by using my link or try it for just $1 this month the link is in the description all right so that was the biggest migrant shelter in New York City not that easy to talk to people in there and they don't really like cameras snooping around why don't we go somewhere else why don't we go to some of the more established immigrant neighborhoods why don't we go to the neighborhoods where senales Colombians Mexicans Dominicans Chinese have been living in for 10 years 20 years decades it's like looking into the Future Let's go see how those neighborhoods are all right this is Grand Central Station and I want to show you something that actually doesn't have anything to do with immigration but it pisses me off you know I say this with no exaggeration I've literally traveled around the world at this point New York has the dirtiest most threatening looking Subway in the entire world it's ridiculous richest city in the world and look at this the stations all look like they're from 100 years ago and they haven't been renovated since then and that's actually true the stations were first designed in the 1910s and now because of mismanagement over the decades it would actually cost more money to fix the tracks to make them better than it would be to just tear up the whole system and start over the thing I don't get is why can't they at least uh touch up the stations make them look less like a place you're going to get [Music] shot hello is going on and but if the subway stations in New York definitely have character I just don't know why they still look so grimy and then you step in here and this is Grand Central Station here you find trains that take you upstate or to Long Island and have you noticed how much the atmosphere has changed look at this in here all of a sudden you've got platforms made out of marble you've got got a fully modern schedule over here on the screen this actually looks like a first world country train station and for some reason on these trains the whole system is different you have to show your ticket while you're on board they check it there's different rates depending on where you're going but again this is all by the same company the Metro Transit Authority of New York the problem with all this is that the migrant crisis is costing the city of New York not millions of dollars but billions of dollars and then people who live here pay extremely high taxes pay insane rent prices the wondering what is all the money going toward us going to Queens got to hop on the seven [Music] tree 34 Street stand clear up the closing doors please in New York City most of the quote unquote Latino neighborhoods are actually just Dominican neighborhoods with some Puerto Ricans thrown in yeah yeah but in Corona got everybody else people from Columbia Mexico Central America and probably also Venezuelans got some of my favorite food right here win and roll those are [Music] amazing as a New Yorker more or less from Island I can tell you you should not trust the quality of Mexican food anywhere except for in this neighborhood so this sign is saying that it has rooms for rent interestingly right here it says no papers as in you don't need to show any documents but I don't think this is for uh migrants that have just arrived in the country these are very cheap by New York standers but still a little bit out of the price range of most migrants $750 $850 up to 900 it's not bad for one room in this overpriced City might just move out here myself this is obviously a very immigrant heavy neighborhood but the people here most of them been here for a longer periods of time just like the lady at the taco truck she's been here for 30 years oh damn maybe I went to the wrong taco truck here we got the karanas Tomy this uh this street in Corona has a bit of a Infamous reputation I'll leave that to your imagination his travel agency is advertised izing all the countries you can send money back to Guatemala Honduras El Salvador Nicaragua Costa Rica Panama of course Mexico Mexico gets their own sign what was interesting was that at the migrant camp we didn't meet anybody from Mexico or anybody from Central America granted a lot of the central Americans and Mexicans prefer to go to California or Texas but the rates of migration from those countries are dropping Like a Rock many people don't know this but the birth rate in Mexico is almost as low as it is in the US now Mexicans barely come to the US [Music] where I don't know why but a senales dude com to the Mexican neighborhood to sell what are Goods of mysterious Origins I don't know where those headphones came from it's pretty [Music] funny a lot of different random stores on this street it's kind of wild there's so many Latin American immigrants here that literally feels like Latin America these are the same kind of Street side for all right old man over there was uh trying to start a fight with me cuz I was accidentally filming his stuff that fell off a truck got to keep in mind that Corona is kind of the hood it's not the hood hood but it's a little bit Hood all right now the interesting thing about this neighborhood the interesting thing about Queens is if you decide to go and walk that way you'll eventually get to a neighborhood you'll eventually get to a neighborhood called Jackson Heights which is pretty more or less that's like Little India little Bangladesh you'll feel like you're in South Asia on the other hand if you go in that direction and again this is all in the same street the start to notice that more and more of the stores start to have their names in Chinese and eventually you'll get to the largest Chinatown outside of Asia flushing place I took you to before but maybe we should go back again and then right here in between the two neighborhoods is City Field the met Stadium the Mets sorry baseball team if you're not American you don't really need to know that either way I don't know why the Mets exist and I don't know why anyone follows them literally got the greatest team in the history of sports across town in the Bronx but hey some people they'd rather drive a Prius than a Lambo [Applause] it's like we're at a different Universe now welcome to Flushing the reason I decided to come here this time is because strangely amongst all the other different groups that have been entering the USC legally over the past year a small but notable portion of them have come from China a a d okay nobody goes to now it's Village PR okay unlike some of the other immigrant groups the Chinese that have come to the US many of them already have money when they get here many middle class or above they don't have to go through this complicated route going through the daring Gap and South America riding on trains in Mexico now many can afford to sometimes just fly directly to the Mexican border cross over and then reach shelter somewhere in the US many are able to simply just get a regular visa and then fly over many are students you could still earn way more money the salaries are much higher here than they are in China I love this sign for some Reas says that it's selling nons say nonslip restaurant shoes and it even has in Spanish which is not proper Spanish as far as I know but you got to respect the Chinese hustle this sign is advertising various different kinds of weight loss for basically everyone children got AED weight loss to use their tactics you can go from looking like this guy to looking like that guy which is that even an improvement I'm not sure here we [Music] go on the day that I'm recording this the creator of Dragon Ball Z Akira Toyama passed away just came here to pay my respects we can all be super saiyan Spider-Man yeah almost 20 20 yeah no [Music] okay it is still wild to me how crowded this neighborhood gets but I've learned walking through flushing and trying to talk to people again is that I thought I was going to be surrounded by migrants everywhere I went in New York people were messaging me saying Tommy you got to get back to New York it's been flooded with immigrants place is completely completely changed and honestly not really flushing has always been like this Corona is Corona hasn't changed much in fact in fact it's actually really hard to find the migrants when you're walking around that is the ones that have just arrived within the last year they live in all different kinds of places it's a little too loud here to make a meaningful monologue but anyway what I'm trying to say is you know I'm not trying to sound like a giant hippie here you know the US it needs labor it's the same old story there jobs that Americans won't do oh yeah the wages are too low that's problem in of itself that should be changed but until then we need to bring in immigrants to keep the economy going do I think the system is perfect no I think it's messed up do I think the US is doing a good job on managing crime keeping the city safe no not at all but America was built on immigrants all right that's enough rambling I'm going to go find some uh soup dumplings some good Chinese food and then I'm going to get over to Manhattan I think we'll pick it back up tomorrow see you then all right come with me one last stop this is Inwood in uptown Manhattan we probably won't find many of the migrants that have just arrived in the city for the past year here I think this neighborhood has an interesting story to share as well I'll explain why let's [Music] go oh man the weather has gotten so much better off camera it has just been raining it has been windy it's just been a terrible week wewi then go outside but now it's beautiful for many people especially the outou of Towners in New York they would probably consider coming up into Upper Manhattan to be kind of dangerous they view this as the hood there yeah it's not that bad once you get to the South Bronx that's when things get a little a little dicey how you doing I don't get it where's the camera there's a basketball finally able to dunk trying to figure out why they put that sign on that tree people just pissing on it every night or something was it a drug dealing spot no can't even get a newspaper in English here so the reason I decided to come here is because about a decade before I was born my father my grandparents basically my whole family line lived in this neighborhood not just this neighborhood but this Street Sherman Avenue in uptown manhatt this is actually the first time I've ever come here and I don't think these buildings have changed much the last 50 years my dad would tell me stories about running up and down these fire escapes kept pigeons well except for one major change you might be wondering Tommy why did your family live in a neighborhood full of Dominicans are you a Dominican and the answer is well no as much as I love the Dominican Republic I am not Dominican no the story is a classic New York story this neighborhood used to be full of Irish and Jewish immigrants so my dad and then my grandmother actually right up to when I was born lived in this building all right I kind of just walked into this building Uninvited but this is what one of these old buildings looks like back in the day I guess the only foreign language you might have heard in here was maybe Italian now of course it's all Spanish Caribbean Spanish which isn't to say that might not change again in the future you have a sign offering free English classes funded by city of New York doesn't seem like anybody's taking up the offer though New York City has a whole in the 70s and ' 80s so start to get a lot more dangerous and stuff like the crack epidemic going on but in the 70s according to family Legend my father uh and my great a decided to bounce when the local liquor shop owner around the block uh kind of got shot the dude was armed dude got shot defending his own store and passed away my grandmother kept living here well into the ' 80s but on top of all the crime that she had to deal with she also had a money hungry landlord bearing down on her because of the rent controlled status of her apartment apparently she only had to pay $56 a month imagine that to live in Manhattan because of how cheap that rent was of course the landlord was desperate to get her out because I don't fully understand how the system works but you can apparently have both a rent control department and and a non rent control Department in the same building and if you can get the rent controlled client out of the building well obviously you can make a lot more money and so the old landlord decided to put pressure on my poor grandmother shutting off the electricity shutting off the water really dickheaded stuff man you could really see why people want to move here it's actually a really nice neighborhood got this beautiful Park actually got a lot of Green Space you're still on Manhattan the rents are a bit lower than they are in downtown yeah some nice place to live man that park right there forget about Hill Park there you go all the way up to the top of theof look down to the Hudson River look over to the Palisades down to the George Washington Bridge some Beau from the top of that just speaking with one of the uh older residents of the neighborhood who never left it's around the same age as my dad he was doing the whole thing where he was asking if I knew so and so but it was my dad who lived there not me but he said I should go and check out the park up here and I've heard something very interesting about that Park as well so let's go over there and I'll tell you apparently the spot where the Native Americans sold the island of Manhattan to the Dutch is not too far from here but how do we get to it I heard it's on like a rock they marked it on like a rock or something towards the really open field the salt marsh is going to be on this side yeah stay on the path that goes around the left Zone more or less straight yeah you're going to go straight into the park when you come to where the flag pole is take the path that's heading downhill towards the big open field sounds like quite the journey I appreciate it byebye sounds like we're going on like a Legend of Zelda Quest here I remember maybe half of the directions that that lady was telling me by from what I understood I got to go left also Google Maps exist so the hell is a glacial poth home do you know what they mean by glacial potholes you don't know what a glacial pothole is no no okay thanks anyway sounds dangerous it might be the rock over there Shak kopo according to Legend on the site of the principal Manhattan Indian village Peter minu in 1626 purchased Manhattan Island for Trinkets and Beads been worth about 60 gilders can some Dutch person translate that please this Boulder also marks the spot where a tulip tree grew to a height of 165 ft and a girth of 20 ft they put this sign up in 1954 which makes sense because I don't think anybody would describe a tree by its girth in today's day and age tend to think of something else with that going back even further in before all the immigrants started coming to New York City New York didn't even speak English New York was a Dutch Colony that's right it was the Dutch who first came to New York or the lands that became New York and took over supposedly the Dutch arrived here on the island of Manhattan and there were some Native Americans already living here relations were by all accounts peaceful and they worked out a deal to buy Manhattan for 20 $4 that's right $24 apparently even with inflation that's only about $1,800 so the Dutch got quite the deal right there those Dutch they're everywhere seram Indonesia even New York City the Dutch controlled New York City isn't that crazy well as cool and heartwarming as that story is uh the only problem is it's probably not true at least most people doubt it and if it did take place historians actually think that it took place probably in lower Manhattan near Wall Street or something like that that cool looking bridge over there leads to the Bronx a different bural the Bronx is a Dutch word I believe it was named after a Dutch general or a ship captain or somebody Dutch we've the name all the way till today imagine how it must have felt to be the Dutch back then in the 1600s thinking you had just founded a new country a new nation a new Colony you were building a new civilization where everybody was going to speak Dutch and then the English came in and gentrified everything most people don't think about Dutch very often when they think of New York City but there's one group that used to live here that nobody thinks of surprisingly you could ask nine out of 10 New Yorkers who are the lape they probably wouldn't know the lape were the original native American group that lived here on the island of manhatt there's a little sign over there that announces these are the Indian caves according to my great aunt even in the 1930s there were actually Native American people living in this park I don't know what happened to them but they used to make money off of like tourists showing the traditional lifestyle they even had like a teepee there I don't really know where I'm going at the moment just trying to get like a cool view this the first time I've ever gone rock climbing in New York City some dude sitting down there watching me climb up this thing like an idot there the big rock I didn't even know we had stuff like this New York City wild let's take a breather right here man just imagine forget being the Dutch imagine being the LPE native Americas and watching as everything you understood about the world radically changes the lape are long gone I'm sure there's still their descendants somewhere here in New York City but they've mixed in the rest of the population and there's no lape Pride day there's no lape celebrations there's not even a museum dedicated to them I think there's like a Native American Museum or something but it's like they've basically been erased what is that over there I think this is like some homeless dudes in Camp or something hello anybody Here oh can't tell if this place is still occupied or not this is like some homeless there summer home or something it's well hidden though fair play to you Mr homeless but with that said got to say I haven't seen too many syringes lying around here which is nice there's some broken glass I guess crackheads don't know how to climb mountains finally made it back to the path all right I'm getting hungry let's get out of here coming is that your receipt that's no probably not important whatever that is we need it that's not mine oh wait it was mine yeah it's like my of your hand JK J what neighborhood is this is this the Lower East Side like noita it's like near Chinatown I know so I'm here in the Lower East Side just made some new friends at a bar as you do uh do we is this the time your Chris Chris Chris subscriber of the channel really good dude love this guy best guy ever your name yeah what am I chopped liver I'm Libby Libby we also have Libby here liby from Brooklyn from Brooklyn there you go you can even hear it uh where's the pizza at let's go find it l you man it's tough to travel the world have mediocre Pizza thanks I'm back in Paradise the slice and the BAM marar slice get about that that's photo wory all right I've had enough drinks for this to uh be good no matter what all right these these I should ask oh okay this and that was delicious I'm going throw out another very controversial opinion here I think New York Pizza is better than the pizza in Italy no it's true it's exactly right I it's it's an established I'm not saying the piece in Italy is bad but it's like it came here and then it got on steroids you can take that home no give it the some acidic persons it's not Kosher definitely not ker I even felt a piece of earlier how is that wait how is that not Kosher um so many ways it could be not Kosher first of all the ingredients have to have a kosher ification if it's cooked in the Sameer I feel like it's way more complex than palow oh it is is just like you got to cut the meat in fact most observant Muslims eat kosher food but it doesn't work in the reverse okay it's much more restrictive you got you can't eat shellfish right no shellfish you got mix what about cheese how is that it has to be a kosher cheese some cheeses are oh so this is like Fu I think so you guys you got some intense rules oh yeah 630 rules that's a lot all right let's go got to catch the last train back to Long [Music] Island let's try not to fall asleep takes almost an hour to get back all right I am mildly intoxicated which puts me in the perfect State of Mind to wrap up this video about immigration America it's a country in case you haven't heard that was founded on immigration it's a place that has quite a few flaws and sometimes I'm ashamed of it other times I'm extremely proud of it it's a place that inspires a lot of mixed feelings in me this is a pretty cool Church foret the name of it some kind of Cathedral got off at the Garden City Station instead of the Hemstead one cuz uh anybody who's from the local area will tell you you don't get off in Hemstead at 2:00 in the morning you don't do that anyway what I'm trying to say is people around the world they love America forget what you heard America and its image is still going strong Des spite of some propaganda campaigns that we got going against us and people I got to continue the dream of coming here and being realistic they're going to continue to come here and it doesn't matter who the president is doesn't matter if it's Biden doesn't matter if it's Trump has immigration ever really stopped and so it is what it is people will keep coming most of them are just seeking a nice middle class lifestyle so you know there's no point in worrying about things you can't change anyway I hope you enjoyed this video I'm a little bit late to the immigration bandwagon but as a New Yorker I thought I can give my own unique touch I don't have the super fast-paced editing of the Mr Beast clones who have already dropped their videos but hopefully this gave you just a bit more insight into the situation I think we'll cut it here and I should probably get out of this intersection making videos in America a little more fun than I imagined maybe we'll do another one see you next time hey one more thing before you go if you like what I'm doing and you like all the work that goes into making these videos I'd really appreciate if you support me on patreon on patreon I put up some extra footage and videos that don't go on YouTube as a thank you I make all these videos myself there's no team so the support really helps with your help this channel will just keep getting better and better all right see you next time get out of [Music] here me

Channel: Sabbatical

Views: 519,717

Keywords: sabbatical, polyglot, new york, migration, migrant crisis, migrants in new york, illegal immigration, chinese migrants, venezuelans, african migrants, guinea, senegal, mali, ecuador, peru, randall's island, migrant camp, migrant shelter, corona queens, flushing, uptown manhattan, inwood

Id: TLuTMd7I-x4

Length: 53min 1sec (3181 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 20 2024