By Bernadette Hogan, Desheania Andrews and Bruce Golding January 31, 2023 12:19pm Updated

So close … and yet so far away.

President Biden ignored the Big Apple’s spiraling, $2 billion migrant crisis during a Tuesday afternoon visit to tout $292 million in federal spending on a new rail tunnel.

Biden toured the Manhattan side of the Hudson River Tunnel project in Chelsea, just a mile or so south of ongoing migrant protests outside the Watson Hotel in Hell’s Kitchen.

But his itinerary, which also includes attending a fundraising reception for the Democratic National Committee in Manhattan, doesn’t list a stop at the three-star hotel, where about 50 migrants were huddled under blankets on the sidewalk Tuesday morning.

The single males — spurred on by outside agitators — are refusing to be relocated to a mega-shelter set up by Mayor Eric Adams at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in Red Hook.

Nor did Biden plan to visit any of the city’s emergency migrant intake centers or supportive housing.

During a speech inside the underground West Side Yard rail complex, Biden made no mention of the migrant crisis while calling the dual-tunnel project a “critical step” toward “transforming the Northeast Corridor”  between Washington, DC, and Boston.

Biden lands at Wall St. heliport in view of the Migrant center at the cruise terminal.
Biden landed at Wall St. heliport in view of the migrant center at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.
Biden speaks about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law at the West Side Rail Yard in New York City on January 31, 2023.
Biden speaks about the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law at the West Side Rail Yard in New York City on January 31, 2023.
President Joe Biden arriving at the Wall Street Heliport, Tuesday January 31st.
President Joe Biden arriving at the Wall Street Heliport, Tuesday January 31st.
A presidential helicopter flies over the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal as President Joe Biden arrives in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023.
A presidential helicopter flies over the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal as President Joe Biden arrives in New York, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023.
Marine One, with US President Joe Biden on board, prepares to land at the Wall Street landing zone in lower Manhattan, New York City, on January 31, 2023.
Marine One, with US President Joe Biden on board, prepares to land at the Wall Street landing zone in lower Manhattan, New York City, on January 31, 2023.

“It’s the beginning of finally constructing a 21st-century rail system that’s long, long overdue in this country,” he said. “In addition to getting folks out of cars and onto trains, we’re going to help the environment, as well.”

Adams, who’s been publicly pleading with the White House to provide $1 billion in emergency migrant aid, apparently never got a chance to discuss the city’s migrant crisis with the president.

Adams was the only official at the event who didn’t get a chance to meet privately with Biden before his speech, during which Adams sat in the front row of the audience where he was joined by those who did.

Joe Biden
Biden toured the Manhattan side of the Hudson River Tunnel project in Chelsea.

As Biden was leaving, he acknowledged speaking earlier with Gov. Kathy Hochul before saying: “Mayor Adams? Where’s Mayor Adams? There he is. Good to see you, pal.”

Adams, who recently bucked Biden by calling the situation at the southern US border a “disaster,” had been scheduled to join the president and Hochul on a tour of the project site.

The tour was scrapped when Biden arrived too close to the start of the event, sources said.

But Adams got a chance to speak “privately” with Biden afterward, a City Hall source said.

Hizzoner told the president, “I want to talk to you about the asylum seeker situation” and they agreed to set up a time at a later date, the source added.

City Councilman Robert Holden (D-Queens) blasted the fellow-Democrat president, calling it “absurd that he wouldn’t want to visit the migrants.”

“That is really disgraceful, to say the least,” Holden said. “The president is pushing his agenda but he doesn’t want to fix the border mess he created. He’ll sweep it under the rug.”

This April 17, 2014, file photo shows ongoing construction of a rail tunnel, left, at the Hudson Yards redevelopment site on Manhattan's west side in New York. Amtrak constructed a concrete box inside the project to preserve space for a tunnel from New Jersey to New York across the Hudson River. President Donald Trump called for a $1.5 trillion infrastructure investment in his State of the Union address on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2018.
The Hudson Riveral Tunnel will be a new railway that runs beneath the Palisades.
Migrants who have temporarily been staying at The Watson Hotel since they were bussed to New York from the southern border, wait outside after being denied entry back in to the hotel since last evening, in New York, New York, USA, 30 January 2023.
New York City is currently going through an ongoing migrant crisis.
Migrants who have temporarily been staying at The Watson Hotel since they were bussed to New York from the southern border, wait outside after being denied entry back in to the hotel since last evening, in New York, New York, USA, 30 January 2023.
There are ongoing migrant protests going on outside the Watson Hotel.
President Joe Biden waves to reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to New York.
Biden has plans to tour the Manhattan side of the Hudson River Tunnel project.

Holden further likened Biden’s actions to then-President Gerald Ford’s 1975 refusal to provide the Big Apple with funding to spare it from bankruptcy.

“It’s almost like, ‘Biden to New York City: Drop dead,’” he said, paraphrasing a newspaper headline of the time.

Council Minority Leader Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island) said he was “glad the president is here to take a gander at a much-needed hole in the ground, but his failure at the border is blowing a tunnel-sized gap in our city budget, with absolutely no offer to assist.”

Migrants with all of their belongings camp in front and refuse to head to another shelter in Red Hook.
The migrants are placed in Hell’s Kitchen.
Immigrants refusing to live in any city shelter are camping out in front of the Watson Hotel on 57th Street in Manhattan.
Immigrants are refusing to a mega-shelter set up by Mayor Adams.
Migrants with all of their belongings camp in front and refuse to head to another shelter in Red Hook. Volunteers serve lunch for the migrants.
Local politicians are calling out Biden for not visiting the migrants.

“Perhaps one of the sandhogs he meets can assist with his buried head,” Borelli added.

As of Sunday, an estimated 43,200 migrants had flooded into Gotham since the spring, with 28,200 living in taxpayer-funding housing, according to City Hall.

At the Watson Hotel, Jesús Aguais, founder of the Greenwich Village-based nonprofit AID for AIDS International, said he showed up after learning about the situation there.

Aguais, who immigrated to the US from Venezuela in 1989, said he hoped to convince the migrants to go to the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal.

“They have to move forward,” he said. “We want them to be fine. We want them to get a job. The last thing we want is to fuel the anti-immigrant hate.” 

Meanwhile, the activist group Open Hearts Initiative said it was planning a 1 p.m. rally to “stand in solidarity with migrant-led efforts to resist this move and … call on the city to provide safe, stable housing for all.”