Bronx businessman who illegally housed migrants says struggles persist for immigrants
Ebou Sarr says many in this community are facing the same problems they saw when the asylum seeker crisis first began.
A Bronx businessman who once illegally housed migrants in his Fordham Juice Shop says the struggles continue for recent immigrants.
Ebou Sarr owns Sarr’s Juice Bar on East Kingsbridge Road, but the city shut down the business temporarily last year for housing migrants illegally. The building was also issued violations due to allegedly “life-threatening conditions.”
Now, over a year later, Sarr has since reopened the store but says many in this community are facing the same problems they saw when the asylum seeker crisis first began. As an immigrant himself from The Gambia in the 1990s, he says one of the biggest was a lack of space in the city’s overwhelmed shelter system. These challenges have been made worse, in his opinion, by recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids across the city and country.
“I was trying to give them work, you know, to get them involved with what we're doing. But some of them needed a place to stay because they told me that they didn't have no way to sleep,” Sarr told News 12 at his store in Fordham. “A lot of them went back home because they were disappointed when they came to this country.”
And although he agrees with President Donald Trump on some things, he thinks the recent federal government’s immigration crackdown will do more harm than good.
“A lot of good people who came who are being deported. And they're not criminals," he said.
