Human Events Daily host Jack Posobiec hosted reporter Savanah Hernandez on Wednesday's episode to discuss the closure of New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel—a facility long used as a migrant shelter—and the broader implications of how illegal immigrants are being handled in the city and across the US.

“Absolutely, Jack,” Hernandez began, “and the Roosevelt Hotel, just for people who are not familiar, was one of the biggest processing centers for illegal immigrants in New York.”

Hernandez said the hotel had been a hub for distributing free plane tickets to illegal immigrants entering the city, including the murderous Jose Ibarra, who killed Laken Riley.

“For example, this is actually the same shelter that Jose Ibarra, the illegal immigrant who murdered Laken Riley, this is where he got his plane ticket to go from New York City to Georgia to go and commit that horrific crime,” she said.

According to Hernandez, the hotel—owned by the Pakistani government—had been paid $200 million by the city since 2022 to house migrants. She said the closure marks a significant moment, but warned it does not signal the end of the problem.

“The Roosevelt Hotel [is] now shut down, however, these migrants are simply being hidden in plain sight and being pushed into homeless shelters in New York, which by the way are partially federally funded.”

She also described policy directives from the Department of Homeless Services that restrict cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.

"The Department of Homeless Services is telling their employees you can’t cooperate with ICE. An ICE detainer is not enough to allow ICE into a facility,” she said.

“If ICE is coming to make an arrest simply for immigration-related purposes, you cannot allow them into the facility, you cannot tell ICE the facility addresses where the illegal immigrants are residing.”

“This is the situation happening in New York and, quite frankly, in the blue cities across the United States of America. This is where the illegal immigration fight is currently at.”

“The closure of the Roosevelt Hotel is, in essence, a huge win, because it does show us that we are making good strides in the right direction in terms of illegal immigration,” she said. “However, Democrats are working overtime to simply hide illegal immigrants and continue providing them with free hotel rooms on the taxpayer dime.”

The Roosevelt Hotel drew controversy last fall when The New York Post reported that members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang were living there at taxpayer expense while committing robberies in Times Square. NYPD Assistant Chief Jason Savino told the outlet the group—known as “Los Diablos de la 42”—had committed more than 50 crimes but evaded incarceration, partly due to their age and lenient state laws.

“They kind of had a graduation of sorts, and a progression where originally it started as snatches and then went to strong-armed robberies, and then started brandishing knives in a pack format,” Savino said.

The Roosevelt Hotel was reopened by the city in 2023 as a temporary intake center for migrants after a surge in illegal border crossings overwhelmed NYC shelters.