A self-appointed spokesman for the migrants assembled outside of a hotel in Manhattan as they protest the efforts being made to move them to a converted ferry terminal is a long-time agitator with a history of left-wing activism going back to the Occupy Wall Street movement.
On Tuesday, interviews and speeches from Sergio Tupac Uzurin, 37, were broadcast on TV and on social media from outside of The Watson Hotel. The male migrants who had been living at the hotel are being moved to Brooklyn in order to make room for women and children at the Watson, according to city officials.
Uzurin made demands that included allowing the migrants to remain at the hotel or to be given million dollar apartments for free.
His Instagram page is littered with his coverage of protests for Black Lives Matter and various other left-wing causes. His activism dates back to 2012, when he was pictured at an Occupy Wall Street protest.
Uzurin, a graduate of the public but notoriously difficult to get into Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, told ABC New York in an interview: 'The immediate resolution is that the Hotel Watson needs to accept these men back and put them back into their rooms.'
On Tuesday, interviews and speeches from Sergio Tupac Uzurin, 37, were broadcast on TV and on social media from outside of The Watson Hotel
Uzurin pictured at an Occupy Wall Street protest in 2012. His activism goes back over ten years, and in 2014 the photographer attended a Black Lives Matter protest at Macy's flagship store in Manhattan
He added: 'The longer-term solution is to reallocate funding from over-funded departments like the NYPD into housing vouchers and into other programs that get people into permanent stable housing.'
He later graduated from the University of Buffalo in 2009 with a BA in Media Study and International Studies. While at the school, he was a member of a fraternity.
Uzurin is a 2004 graduate of Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, the same high school that former Attorney General Eric Holder and Obama senior advisor David Axelrod attended.
The school is in the shadow of where the twin towers once stood. On the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, Uzurin wrote on Facebook: 'I consider myself a double survivor- from the planes, the health effects, and the racism.'
According to his Facebook page, Uzurin was a former organizer with The Black Institute, an 'action think tank' that was founded by fellow activist Bertha Lewis, who was a member of Bill de Blasio's administration.
In the wake of the protest outside of The Watson Hotel, Uzurin complained in a Facebook post of being referred to as being an 'outside agitator.'
He also wrote: 'If you are in NYC, come to the Watson Hotel protest encampment, 440 West 57th Street. They need people to make sure the police don't abuse the migrants, especially in the late night and early morning hours.'
Uzurin also encourages the public to donate to various causes related to the protest at the Watson.
Uzurin pictured in the lead-up to a protest in 2017
The exclusive Stuyvesant High School, where Uzurin graduated from
Uzurin lecturing the migrants and the media about what needs to be done to deal with the crisis
He concludes his post by writing: 'I am a self-employed video production company and word of mouth is how I pay my bills, make my art and have the flexibility to do all these organizing in my spare time. It helps.'
The activist operates a business named NativeNYvideo. Prior to leading a protest outside of The Watson Hotel, in 2022, Uzurin worked with Hilton Hotels to produce a video promoting Manhattan tourism.
In his speech outside of The Watson Hotel, Uzurin railed against developers who were 'gentrifying the city' while arguing that migrants should be given vacant 'luxury apartments.'
While on his personal website, Uzurin advertises his skills at making sophisticated 3D virtual tours to be used by realtors.
He writes on the page: '3D Virtual Tours are a new, immersive and engaging way to give your customers what traditional promotional material doesn't: A believable sense of presence.'
@brookerteejonesThis is unreal! Migrants upset from being moved from their posh hotel! #migrants #nyc #fyp
♬ original sound - Brooker Tee JonesOther services offered by Uzurin include drone videos and photography. He also promotes time lapse videos for use by businesses.
According to his Model Mayhem page, where he promotes his photography business, Uzurin lists among his genres 'Erotic' and 'Fetish.' Among the projects that Uzurin worked on in 2022 was named Make America 69 Again.
In his interview with ABC New York this week, Uzurin said: 'So the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal is a large structure, it's not meant to be inhabited. It is a thousand beds, beds made out of hard material.
'There's not space for personal belongings. If you have personal belongings you have to put them in a locker. That's out of your control. There's only four bathrooms for a thousand men which is unsustainable for anybody who's working.
'It's in an isolated part of the city away from where many of them work and it's cold.'
While touring the facility on Monday, Mayor Adams noted that he saw a man wearing shorts.
Activist Sergio Tupac Uzurin told a group of reporters and residents that the reason for the protest was that the 'cold' shelter was 'not meant to be inhabited' and that the beds are made of 'hard materials'
The Queens-born activist continued: 'The immediate resolution is that the Hotel Watson needs to accept these men back and put them back into their rooms.
'The longer-term solution is to reallocate funding from over-funded departments like the NYPD into housing vouchers and into other programs that get people into permanent stable housing.'
In a seemingly prepared speech, Uzurin earlier told the gathered media: 'We need one thing to be clear, Eric Adams only has one plan so far. Eric Adams' plan is to loot the city's departments and give that money to the NYPD and the developers who are gentrifying this city.
'He could have easily, along with Governor Hochul, opened up all of the vacant luxury apartments. We are on 57th Street right now. This is Billionaire's Row.
'Half of the super towers on this street are empty. These are $40million apartments!'
In the summer of 2022, Uzurin spoke to the The New York Times about his efforts to help newly arrived migrants saying: 'We know their shoe sizes, we know their medical needs, we know their court cases, where their ICE check-ins are. The city wasn’t doing any of that.'
A year earlier, the University of Buffalo graduate was arrested outside of Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, New Jersey, after attending an anti-ICE demonstration. The group was protesting the deportation of Marvin Jerezano Peña.
Around that time, Uzurin said: 'We need to take direct action against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They’re a rogue agency. They’re a fascist agency, in the sense that they act totally outside of the law and outside any bounds of morality.'
Uzurin was in a feature on CNN about migrants in New York City in October, at the time he was referred to as a member of NYC ICE Watch.
Some of the food that has been supplied to the migrants outside of the hotel
On Wednesday, DailyMail.com witnessed activists serving the migrants food including pizza, donuts, coffee, avocados and fruit while protecting them from the public glare with black umbrellas
His activism goes back over ten years, in 2014 the photographer attended a Black Lives Matter protest at Macy's flagship store in Manhattan.
He was quoted as saying at the time: 'Voicing your opinion is not enough. You have to disrupt business as usual for this to happen and that's the only thing that's ever made change. It's the real way democracies function.'
On Wednesday, DailyMail.com witnessed activists serving the migrants food including pizza, donuts, coffee, avocados and fruit while protecting them from the public glare with black umbrellas.
Another activist, named only as Philip, told DailyMail.com that the outreach to the migrants was 'a community organized effort. This is neighbors, helping neighbors. New Yorkers, helping New Yorkers a community organized lead grassroots effort working together - we all need housing.
'These migrants have been through so much to survive to reach the country. They want to make a home here and work. I am one person among many working together with the migrants. I am Christian. I am a person who believes in human dignity I believe that everyone deserves housing,' he added.
When asked what the migrants expected when he came to the US, Phillip said: 'I don't think they expected to put in a cruise terminal without adequate heating.'
He added: 'I think there is an image of the United States abroad that I think that's projected. If you are poor while working class, if you are a minority and anyway in this country, I don't think that dream was never really designed for you.'
Activists block off a Newsmax TV crew who were attempting to film the migrants
Activists outside of the hotel told the migrants not to speak to members of the media.
The cruise terminal is around 45 minutes away from the Watson in Brooklyn's Red Hook neighborhood, and comes equipped with a buffet food service, over 100 toilets, and is temperature controlled.
A young couple, Simon and Melissa Marie, who live beside the hotel told DailyMail.com: 'I didn't want to change my lifestyle because of them, but it's inconvenient. This is a residential area. You should respect the street there is trash all over the floor and they are not being respectful of the accommodations being given to them.'
The couple said that they had to put a muzzle on their dog to stop him from eating discarded trash left by the migrants and that they group blasts music at night.
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