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The Pakistan’s government, the Pakistan’s government was hit after New York moved to abolish a $ 220 million contract with a hotel he owns that has become a criticism of the supporters of US President Donald Trump.
Pakistan International Airlines belonging to the State acquired the Hôtel Roosevelt Centenaire in Manhattan more than two decades. Since 2023, the hotel has been used to host or treat more than 100,000 immigrants across the United States.
But this week, New York mayor Eric Adams said the city would close the refuge, saying that the number of immigrants entering New York had fallen to 350 per week from 4,000 per week two years ago.
Adams said more than 232,000 migrants had come to New York in the past three years. “The Roosevelt hotel was the place where we treated 75% of those who came to our charge, and this was essential for our effective operations,” he posted on X.
The early end of the three -year contract is a setback for Pakistan when he tries to privatize his flag carrier, which was a major obstacle to state finances. A first tender cycle for the airline has moved away from last year for investor concerns about problems, including taxes on new planes and staff retention.
“We were aware of the risk with this new government [the Trump administration] Settling, ”said a senior government official in Pakistan. The contract could be canceled after May, said the official.
A city spokesman said the center would close the “months to come”, allowing taxpayers to “millions of dollars”.
Adams’ decision to close the shelter intervened two weeks after the United States justice ministry dropped the accusations of corruption against himA move, criticisms say they are part of a counterpart with the Trump administration to intensify a repression against illegal immigrants. Adams denied complaints.
The formerly luxurious Roosevelt, which has more than 1,000 rooms and was a place in New York, it was rented for decades, was rented in Pia in 1979. The airline bought it later, making it a favored living room of wealthy Pakistani people who used the now disappeared service of the Karachi airline to do shopping.
But the hotel gradually fell into disgrace and the losses related to the pandemic finally forced its closure in 2020.
The product of the migrant shelter agreement helped reimburse the most RS600 billion RS ($ 2.14 billion) in debt by the PIA portfolio company when it was created last year, a decision to smooth the privatization of assets that include the main airline and a Paris hotel.
An intense reaction on the use by New York of Roosevelt has grown among the officials of the Trump administration and the supporters.
Vivek Ramaswamy, who previously directed the so-called government effectiveness department alongside Elon Musk, said on the social media site X in December that it was “crazy” that “New York taxpayers actually pay a foreign government to house illegals in our own country”.
Trump himself complained in February of the city using large sums in a hotel which, according to him, was “no luxury”.
In an article on X, its interior security secretary, Kristi Noem, justified the decision to freeze $ 80 million in migration funds for New York saying that the hotel was the “base of operations” for a Venezuelan gang. Noem did not propose any evidence of the complaint.
The start of the contract could force Islamabad to accelerate efforts to sell ownership or to overthrow it and build a skyscraper for mixed use with a development partner, officials and analysts said in Pakistan.
At the hotel, near the Grand Central station in Midtown Manhattan, the residents filter in and out of the building, exchanging greetings and fist bumps with safety personnel behind metal barriers.
The children living at the hotel play on the sidewalk outside, in the high -end restaurants and clothing stores.
Inside, the hotel hall still has its ornate chandeliers and a portrait of Guy Lombardo, renowned leader of the Roosevelt house group in the 1930s.
The planned closure of the hotel that has become Shelter has aroused worries among some of its more than 2,800 inhabitants.
“The truth is that they haven’t told us anything,” said Hecdimar Rivas, a mother of three 26 -year -olds who arrived from Venezuela earlier this year. “We discovered press.”
