Yesterday I ran into an acquaintance who lives in Lawton, Oklahoma. I'll call him Kumar (not his real name, for reasons of confidentiality). He manages a hotel along I-44 in Lawton, one of several owned by his extended family around the country. He was driving a brand-new Mercedes SUV, a big change from his normal run-down delivery van.
I asked him how he'd been able to afford the upgrade. He smiled, and said "We owe it all to the New York municipal council."
"Come again?" I asked, puzzled.
"Oh, they've rented both of our family's hotels in the city - every single room - to house migrants, almost since they started arriving in New York. We're making over a million dollars every month in gross revenue off the migrant surge! Sure, the expenses are high, too, but overall we've doubled our net family income."
He may have been exaggerating, but a quick Internet search shows he's pretty much on the mark.
In New York City, hotels that have converted into shelters for hordes of illegal aliens have been given over $1 billion in taxpayer money to keep them in business.
As reported by Fox News, the average hotel room for an illegal costs $156 per night, with some costing over $300 per night. As such, the city government has already spent at least $1.98 billion on housing for illegals, with 80% of that amount going to hotels or inns that have been converted into shelters, rather than to shelters operated by the city. Overall, the city has spent at least $4.88 billion on the mass migration crisis.
. . .
Business owners in the surrounding neighborhoods have noted the decline in economic revenue for their businesses and others around them, as the tourists that would normally stay in such hotels and subsequently patronize their own businesses have been replaced by illegals who have no money.
“Our taxes are being used to pay for the migrants, and where are we supposed to make revenue?” asked William Shandler, manager at the Iron Bar located across the street from the Row hotel. “How as a business could we function?”
Republican Councilwoman Joann Ariola also criticized the gutting of the tourism industry in favor of illegals, pointing out that hotels were built to be used by tourists, “not for sheltering the masses of people pouring over our borders every day.”
“These locations were meant to boost the economy of this city,” Ariola continued, “but instead they’ve become a net drain and are costing us enormously.”
There's more at the link.
Kumar's family came here from India about 40 or 50 years ago, if I understand correctly. His grandfather and grandmother slaved at any work they could find, and saved every penny they could, while pushing their kids to do well at school. By the end of ten years, they'd saved enough to buy their first motel, near a major Interstate highway in Pennsylvania. Grandpa and Grandma managed it, and made sure all the kids worked there before and after school, saving the cost of hiring workers. By the time most of the kids had graduated high school, the family could afford to buy a second hotel, this one in New Jersey. It went on like that until today, with three generations of the family involved, they own eleven hotels, all managed by family members, sharing their revenues so that the whole family enjoys the rewards of their hard work.
Well done to all of them - they've certainly demonstrated that the American dream is still within reach if you're prepared to work hard and go for it. I'm just annoyed that in the process, they've illustrated how fundamentally corrupt our local and regional governments have become. Look at the numbers cited above. One city is spending almost $5 billion - so far - to house migrants who should never have been allowed across the border in the first place; and all that money is coming from local ratepayers and businesses, most of whom desperately need it themselves! The only upside I can see is that Kumar's family is spending a lot of that windfall income to buy more hotels, and spread themselves out further in this land of opportunity. One can't blame them at all. In the process, they're providing a needed service, and that's something we can all appreciate.
Pity one can't say the same about New York City and its demented spendthrift policies . . .
Peter
13 comments:
And you think Kumar's family doesn't kick back some of that money to keep the hordes of illegals and the municipal contracts flowing?
The Kumar Klan is not a net positive, despite the obligatory Boomercon religious invocation of the Gods of the Marketplace, Immigrant Grit (yawn) and 'providing a needed service, yada yada'.
Put bluntly Kumar doesn't give a Gujarati Rat's Ass about America's future and will happily keep whistling to the bank while actual Americans circle the drain.
Possibly Kumar's family received some of that largesse from fedgov.
A long time ago I met a young man not even in his twenties. He already owned a food store at a very desireable location. He was Chinese, had only recently arrived in the U.S. He explained that fedgov asked him what he wanted to do. They bought him the store on the boardwalk in Newport Beach, CA.
I know fedgov did the same for Hmong. One had a new-ish commercial fishing boat free and clear. Bought by U.S. taxpayers. Incidently, when he was found to have poached lobster traps belonging to other fishermen, he was not prosecuted. He did this repeatedly and never a charge or prosecution.
Excellent comment by Zaphod. It's pathetic to see a blog - supposedly by someone who appreciates heritage America - celebrating the Patel clan. They've taken over every aging motel in the country, and run half of them as flop houses. They siphon money from businesses and take advantage of every anti-White government benefit. And neither they nor their progeny will ever be American - Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
Hey Peter,
I have heard that they have diverted FEMA resources to pay to shelter the hordes of migrants in the major cities, and I am sure that the donk politicians are using this as a slush fund...or am I being cynical ;).
It will get worse as we divert more resources to fund the migrant crisis and the locals are getting shafted and how are we going to get 11+ million illegal people out of the country after the vegetable in chief let them in. there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth from the usual subjects as we try to send them back, and will the GOP have the intestinal fortitude to make it happen? personally I doubt it unless there is a major event that is tied in with the porous border like a "october 7 type of attack" and I hope such an event doesn't come to pass, but I fear it will.
That which cannot continue won't.
Politically connected slum lords get full rack rate per room from the city of NY. That's not a surprise. Tammany Hall were pikers compared to the DEI leadership of NYC.
Patels also don't pay their bills. I've dealt with them before...NOT pleasant.
Those mariners who fly in or out New York city for their vessel's crew change tend to stay in the same hotels, who offer blocks of rooms at a discount to the tugboat companies or shipowners' agents. 'Who're you with?' was an appropriate greeting when you saw a bearded man with short hair and bags under his eyes in the elevator.
For tugboaters it was the Weed Palace in NY, a $150 a night (1 or 2 star, cheap for the city) hotel that reeked of marijuana, as it was also popular with pimps and prostitutes. Then after Covid the Weed Palace became a shelter for illegals from Africa and the middle east. The NEW Weed Palace, a hotel down the street, became our crew change hotel briefly until it became a stash house for latino illegals last year.
Now we're at a more expensive hotel. No prostitutes. No police raids. No illegals, except for Doordash drivers coming and going. Not a one of them has a green card. The shipping companies hate it. We enjoy it. You can actually sleep.
Different subject- The commercial fishing boats, especially shrimpers in Louisiana. Hmong (who're mostly a sort of Catholic with some syncratic flavor) and anti-communist enemies of the state over there did get asylum in the US, esp if they were involved in aiding combatants on the wrong side.
The .gov did give them fishing permits, it's true. But the boats were bought by Catholic Charities and donations (some anonymous, and probably the 3 letter agency), often in payment for unspecified services rendered. It caused a ruckus among the coonasses, who were conflicted between sympathy and trade protectionism, shrimping being a hereditary business, especially inshore, and theft being a killing offense on the water even to present day.
we can't hate the hotel owners for taking advantage of the largess our politicians have provided/stolen out of our pockets, jealousy cannot be a reason for hate; we can only prosecute and imprison the (scurrilous) politicians (several of them up stood aginst a wall to serve as a warning for others wouldn't hurt either)
Dangerous pastime. Lobsters are bottom feeders.
@Boron:
Perhaps you need to read up on Rene Girard and Mimesis. Jealousy and Hatred and the Other are *baked into our human social animal DNA*. Best get comfy with it because coming soon to a place near you.
All that aside, the Civic Nationalism stuff is tired. The Plague of Patels running hotels, motels, gas stations, etc., etc... is emphatically NOT a good thing and if you think that they are mindless economic actors just taking advantage of bad policy, then I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale at a very good price. Trust me. Guaranteed no Chabadniks in the foundations. Easy terms, too. Of course the @#$%ing Patel types feed back into these deleterious policies. You think some family mini empire owning 10 or so hotels doesn't lobby and drive policy in directions which suit it and not you? As always Who? Whom? The rest is just mental masturbation.
Said far more politely than I would have....
Its as if they studied some other ethnic group and tried to mimic their success... without realizing said ethnic group is despised globally.
... its funny to see convo's like this. People are FINALLY starting to wake up to the fact that, hey, something is not adding up! Now take 2 or 3 more steps down the road you see we are on, and tell me how many dead bodies you see? Oh my... most people don't do that.
Post a Comment