Malliotakis to introduce legislation banning migrant housing in national parks, including Ft. Wadsworth

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Most of the Island’s elected political delegation, led by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn), gathered outside Fort Wadsworth on Wednesday to decry the possibility of the site being used to house some of the tens of thousands of migrants in the city’s care.

Malliotakis said she’ll be introducing legislation, which she said has bi-partisan support in the House of Representatives, to ban migrant housing in any national park, like Fort Wadsworth, or Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, which city and state officials announced this week would be used for the purpose.

Mayor Eric Adams’ administration has set up more than 200 emergency sites around the city, including several on Staten Island at hotels and the former site of the Richard H. Hungerford School on Tompkins Avenue. The possible Fort Wadsworth site and a confirmed site for up to 300 at the former St. John Villa Academy have sparked a new bipartisan push from local elected officials.

At the Wednesday press conference outside Fort Wadsworth, which is controlled by the federal government, Borough President Vito Fossella, State Sen. Jessica Scarcella-Spanton (D-North Shore/South Brooklyn), Assemblyman Michael Reilly (R-South Shore), Assemblyman Michael Tannosis (R-East Shore/South Brooklyn), Assemblyman Sam Pirozzolo (R-Mid-Island), City Councilman Jospeh Borelli (R-South Shore), and City Councilman David Carr (R-Mid-Island) joined Malliotakis.

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