Brawl breaks out between illegal immigrants in NYC as hundreds wait in line outside East Village migrant center

On Saturday, a fight broke out in the East Village of New York City when one illegal immigrant attempted to cut in front of over 400 others to get into a local migrant center. 

According to the New York Post, two cops were injured in the fight, and two men were arrested as part of the melee on East 7th Street center. Witnesses said that one man attempted to sneak into the line of those waiting for access to the center, spilling his coffee on some in the process. 

One man punched the person trying to skip the line, and others jumped in. The two officers suffered minor injuries to their faces and knees when they stepped in to break up the fight and keep the crowd back. 

One immigrant from Mexico, Samantha Hernandez, 27, told the outlet, "People were punching each other and fighting, a lot of people." She added, "I think they were desperate about the situation – it’s very bad. There are too many people, and there’s not a lot of opportunities for us here. And [the city] treats us like animals."

New York City Mayor Eric Adams has been raising alarms over how bad the illegal immigrant crisis is in his sanctuary city. In an interview last week he told Fox 5, "We're out of room, literally." 

"People are going to be eventually sleeping on the streets," Adams said. 

"We have never witnessed this level of migration in this hemisphere," he said. "We are being inundated, and we have now moved to another phase of saying all of those services that you're talking about… we're down to food, shelter, clothing. That's it."

Adams has also complained that the federal government is not helping cities deal with the crisis. "Our insurance policy was the federal government. They're not paying us," he said. 

"We underestimated the impact of the migrant and asylum-seeker issue that’s impacting major cities in this country." When asked about getting help from the Biden administration he said, "I believe that we are not seeing that."

The Post reports that some of the immigrants had been waiting in line outside the shelter for multiple days with hundreds of others seeking shelter to escape the cold New York winter weather.