NY POST – About 1,300 African migrants gathered outside City Hall Tuesday morning hoping to appear at a hearing on the black experience in the city shelter system — with some saying they were promised work visas or green cards if they showed.
Only 250 people were allowed inside for the 10 a.m. hearing, while the hundreds of others who flocked downtown were left outside in a park, where footage showed them chanting and cheering.
The crowd was mostly made up of new arrivals from Guinea, in West Africa, and were apparently drawn to City Hall by an activist group, a source told The Post.
Dozens of migrants said they’d been told by others in the community that they could get work visas or green cards if they showed up.
“They told me that they would help me to get a work permit and a green card if I came here today,” Amadou Sara Bah, 44, who got to the US in November from Guinea, explained, adding he wouldn’t have come to City Hall just for the hearing.
Bah said he was stressed about waiting for a work permit, which he applied for in March, noting it could take about five months to come through and he does not have a lawyer to speed up the process.
By 12:30 p.m., he and his friends were still sitting on a bench near City Hall, but no one had offered to help them.
“There are many people here and we don’t know how to get the help they told us would be here,” he told The Post. “I came here for a green card. I’m looking for help.”
Dial Lochitlio, 19, who got to New York from Guinea just four days ago and said he was seeking asylum, told The Post “elders in the community” told him to come to City Hall for information on work visas and housing …
