Fed-up migrant moms living at the Roosevelt Hotel say they can’t believe how violence-ridden the city-funded shelter has become — as they worry about keeping their kids away from Tren de Aragua.
The converted Midtown, Manhattan hotel, the city’s intake center for arriving migrants, has become a recruiting center for the vicious Venezuelan gang, even spawning a baby-faced offshoot of teen gangbangers, The Post recently reported.
“The reputation of this hotel is all over TikTok,” Fernanda Rosa, 35, an Ecuadorean migrant and mother of two who lives at the Roosevelt, told The Post on Thursday.
“We all know what the hotel is known for.”
Rosa said she has warned her daughters: “to not involve themselves in problems that are not theirs.”
Another mom, who asked not to be identified, said her daughter clued her in on the hotel’s tainted reputation on the social media app.
“She showed me videos on TikTok,” the woman said. “The one where they say New York is protecting criminal migrants. TikTok is full of stories about some of the kids in this hotel. Why can’t they be arrested or sent back?… This is only going to get worse.”
Calling themselves “Diablos de la 42,” Spanish for devils of 42nd Street, the marauding migrant teens terrorized Times Square and other parts of the city — holding well-meaning asylum seekers hostage.
“Those kids are dangerous,” said migrant Allison Mantilla, 23. “I’ve seen them fighting on the corner.
“We are here for a better life but hopefully we aren’t stuck in this hotel forever,” she said. “These kids don’t care about nothing.”
The gang infestation has been the subject of repeated TikTok reports by Spanish-speaking journalists, including Alexander Reyes, whose posts have honed in on the dilemma.
“They’re free on the streets,” Reyes said of the migrant gangbangers in one recent post. “This is due to the bail politics of New York that eliminates bail for minor and major crimes.
“According to other reports, many of these crimes are being planned in the shelters of New York,” he said.
Ecuadorian journalist Alicibades Onofre, who has more than half a million TikTok followers, is another major voice on the crisis for the migrant community in New York.
Among his subscribers is Roosevelt Hotel resident Ufari Tama.
“It’s chaos without structure,” Tama, 53, told The Post on Thursday. “The other boys in the hotel are out all night. They steal and fight and have no one telling them when to come home.”
She said she tries to keep a tight leash on her 15-year-old son amid the madness.
“He only goes to school and the gym,” said the Ecuadorian migrant. “The laws here are different and he knows that. But I admit I’m confused by the laws here because they’re too lenient if violent people are allowed back into the hotel.”
Police said Tren de Aragua began infiltrating the US by hiding among the hordes of migrants streaming across the border, and eventually set up shop in major cities including New York.
The gang recruited new members inside the shelters, setting up lucrative snatch-and-run robbery crews, in many cases posing as food delivery workers.
They have since branched out into gun and drug sales, and lucrative sex trafficking operations.
More recently, cops said they began recruiting underaged migrants to roam the streets of the Big Apple looking for victims, capitalizing on the city’s soft juvenile and criminal justice statutes.
One “Little Devil” gangbanger, just 15, was hit with his 11th bust in five months this week.
The elfin-sized teen, who was finally locked up by a Family Court judge on Wednesday, is a symbol of the lawlessness sprouting at city-funded migrant shelters, which are largely off limits to the NYPD thanks to the city’s and the state’s self-imposed immigration “sanctuary status.”
The Empire State’s kid-gloves juvenile crime laws make it difficult to keep underaged suspects locked up, while criminal justice reforms handcuffed judges from setting bail for almost all crimes.
“Kids in my son’s class are using drugs,” said Venezuelan mother of five Carla Quintana, another resident at the Roosevelt Hotel. “I try to set an example for the five of them but it’s hard.”
The 39-year-old migrant worries her sons will fall prey to the “Little Devils” as well.
“We got to this city and everywhere you look people are using drugs. We don’t see that in Venezuela,” she said. “Violence yes. But open drug use, no.”
Karen Silva, the mom of a five-month-old girl living at the hotel, called the entire situation “disturbing.”
“I’ve heard of the devils of 42nd Street,” she said. “I hear all the time about the problems in the hotel. I try my best to never leave my room.”
