Ardsley Acres sign shines as a symbol for support in a polarized world. In collaboration with the village of Ardsley, they have been housing refugees, providing much needed support to an increasingly marginalized group.
Disclaimer: This article does not include interviews with the asylum seekers themselves, although Tower attempted numerous times to secure their contacts and consent. If you or anybody you know would like to have your voices highlighted in Tower, please reach out to us at @towereditors.mastersny.org
On a cold December morning, families at the Ardsley Acres Motel gathered their belongings and prepared to move out. For over a year, the motel had been home to more than 70 asylum seekers, many of whom arrived in Westchester after being bussed from El Paso, Texas, to New York City, in response to Texas Governor Gregory Abbott’s Operation Lone Star border security program.
Their departure signified the end of a temporary arrangement, as local organizations and volunteers coalesced to help them settle into new jobs, shelters and communities, and their government-authorized funding came to a close.
This moment came just weeks before the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who has pledged significant changes to U.S immigration policy, including potentially the largest deportation operation in American history and scaling back birthright citizenship.
Abbot’s program brought nearly 46,000 asylum seekers by October 2024 to New York City from the Southern border, according to ABC 13.
The influx of asylum seekers overwhelmed New York City’s shelter systems, Mayor Eric Adams said in a speech, leading to their dispersion to surrounding areas. In June 2023, over 70 migrants, primarily from Mexico and Central and South America were relocated to the Rivertowns and sheltered at the Ardsley Acres Hotel Court.
“The majority of the people [in the Ardsley community] were very welcoming and very helpful… and understood that these were folks who were trying to find a better life,” Ardsley Mayor Nancy Kaboolian said.
Community Steps In
Since then, many local organizations have stepped in to help feed, clothe and settle the families in Ardsley Acres. Niall Cain, president and founding member of Rivertowns for Refugees, a community-driven organization dedicated to supporting and resettling refugees, said, “We helped put services, such as laundry services, into place, where we paid for all their laundry for a while. We gave them gift cards for items like toothpaste.” He continued, “You can imagine not having those kinds of things when you arrive. You just have a little backpack on your back with a few belongings.”
Additional organizations involved include the Dobbs Ferry Food Pantry, Neighbors Link and a number of religious institutions: South Presbyterian Church in Dobbs Ferry, Zion Episcopal Church in Dobbs Ferry, Woodlands Community Temple (WCT) and St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Ardsley.
WCT hosted the first Thanksgiving dinner in 2023 for the asylum seekers in the temple sanctuary and brought the same home-cooked meals to their farewell dinner at the end of 2024. The temple also provided the Ardsley Acres residents with hot meals.
“A basic foundation in Judaism, a line that gets repeated over and over again in our religious scriptures, is ‘protect the stranger,’ because you were a stranger in the land of ancient Egypt.” Rabbi Mara Young of WCT said. “And, if you live in a time where you have privilege and power to do good, you are religiously obligated to take care of people who are in this similar situation.”
The Moveout
In May 2023, Adams’ office entered a contract with DocGo, a mobile medical services provider tasked with caring for asylum seekers.
However, the agreement was terminated just a year later after the company faced a slew of controversial reports, including numerous allegations of mistreatment by its employees, food waste and security violations.
Health concerns, such as mold and water damage, and room deficiencies, such as a lack of microwave or crib, were found in 80% of the 22 hotels housing asylum seekers that were inspected by the Department of Housing Preservation and Development, according to an audit from the New York City Comptroller.
The audit also revealed that nearly 80% of the payments to DocGo were unsupported by proper documentation or not allowed by contract terms.
DocGo’s migrant welfare responsibilities in the city were transferred to Garner Environmental Services, a Texas-based emergency response company, at a cost reduced by $10 per asylum seeker.
However, the city’s contract with DocGo remained in effect for upstate facilities like Ardsley Acres through December, 2024. As a result of its expiration, the migrants at Ardsley Acres moved out on Dec. 9.
The DocGo representative responsible for Ardsley Acres did not respond to a request for comment.
Since leaving the hotel, some of the migrants have dispersed locally, according to Kaboolian. They have found jobs in grocery stores, retail, and delivery and ride share services. “We are trying to stay in contact with some of the families that have been relocated in the Westchester area to continue to give them support,” she said.
Others, Cain said, are headed back to New York City shelters.
No municipal taxpayer money from Ardsley residents has been spent on housing the asylum seekers, according to Kaboolian. She explained that funding has come primarily from the involved community-based organizations, many of which have financial support from the federal and state governments.
Trump Policy
While the local community grappled with the challenges and opportunities brought by the migrants’ presence, immigration debate flooded the national political landscape.
On the campaign trail, Trump promised a series of stringent immigration policies. Since taking office, the President has issued a number of executive orders to curtail legal and illegal immigration. He has also initiated the following:
Mass deportations, so far in large sanctuary cities such as New York and Chicago
Authorized ICE to enter schools, churches and hospitals
Ending Temporary Protected Status privileges for Venezuelans living in the U.S.
However, some of Trump’s proposed measures face substantial constitutional hurdles. Birthright citizenship, enshrined in the 14th Amendment in 1868, guarantees that anyone born in the U.S. is a citizen. Removing this right would require a constitutional amendment, necessitating a two-thirds vote in both the Senate and House of Representatives, both of which will hold a Republican majority in 2025. Amendments also need to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.
A federal judge in Seattle, Washington, temporarily blocked Trump’s executive order for 14 days on Jan. 23, calling it “blatantly unconstitutional.” In Maryland, a second judge issued an injunction against Trump’s order on Feb. 5.
The implications of these policies worry local officials. Kaboolian expressed concern over the future of the asylum seekers previously housed at Ardsley Acres. “Some of them have had children here. So the children here are birthright. They are citizens,” she said. “So now the question is, are you going to deport families and separate them? I am fearful of what’s going to happen.”
Since his inauguration on Jan. 20, Trump has issued orders to turn away asylum seekers before they enter the country – those already on U.S. soil are still protected as of now – and shut down the CBP One application, previously a resource for migrants navigating the U.S. Customs and Border Protection points. He has also signed off on planned immigration raids on schools, churches and hospitals in so-called sanctuary cities such as Chicago and New York City, which have laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Referring to local policies, Cain said, “Ardsley, Dobbs Ferry and Hastings all have some sort of legislation on the books [so] that none of the police are proactive in seeking undocumented immigrants. But under federal law, they are obliged to help ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] if they call and say, ‘We need your help.’”
The Westchester Immigration Protection Act (2018) currently protects the status of immigrants from being investigated by county law enforcement agencies. However, as Cain notes, federal law still requires local authorities to cooperate with ICE when requested.
The Masters Angle: Touchpoint Teachers
Educators at Masters are taking steps to support immigrant students and their families. Pilar Méndez-Cruz, an Upper School English teacher, and Mariah Peña, an Upper School English teacher and dean of the class of 2027, have been leading these efforts.
Last year, they led the Masters-run student volunteer trip over spring break to the Mexican-American border in El Paso, Texas. On the trip, students participated in the Annunciation House’s Border Awareness Experience, where they engaged in several volunteer activities and learned about the intersections between immigration policy, culture, social justice and the border.
Lucas Camacho, a senior who joined the trip, shared his motivations for attending. “Being Hispanic American, it felt like something I could connect to on a personal level,” he said. “It was something I had never done before and I thought it would be an opportunity to learn and get involved.”
Reflecting on one impactful moment during their volunteering, Camacho said, “We were helping with some cleaning at a shelter, and afterward, we sat down and talked with a couple of people there. Hearing their stories directly was different from just reading about it. It felt more real.”
In the fall, Méndez-Cruz and Peña also spoke to the Upper School and faculty during morning meeting, offering their support to immigrants, their families and the Masters community at large.
“We decided that we would go up and just show our faces for students that didn’t necessarily know us, or students that maybe knew us but weren’t sure if this was a question they could ask,” Peña said. She explained that their goal was to create a safe space for students to discuss immigration-related concerns, ask questions and find emotional support.
Peña, whose own family immigrated to the U.S., brings a personal perspective to her work:“I experienced, as a person who was born in this country, all the privileges that came with that,” she said. “But I was also raised to be a touch point for people because my father wasn’t born here. He experienced what it’s like to be scared or confused, feeling unable to ask questions.”
Mendez-Cruz said that her motivation for this work stemmed from observing the differences in accessible resources between her previous experience teaching a community of largely immigrant students in a Title 1 school and her current role at Masters. The El Paso trip was an effort to connect the two communities.
“The challenge of immigration reform in this country is not new,” she said. “And while the challenges that the immigrant communities here face continue to evolve and change, a need to do something persists.”
Through their engagement, Peña hopes to spotlight the personal side of the immigration conversation. She said, “We hear a lot about it in the news and in the media when we are following election topics, and sometimes it feels like a buzzword. We really wanted to remind people that there are humans behind this conversation.”
