Curtis Sliwa threatens to shut down Staten Island bridges over migrant shelter -- says he'll run for

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Curtis Sliwa threatened to “close down” Staten Island’s four bridges over the city’s decision to house migrants inside the borough’s shuttered St. John Villa Academy during a Tuesday night protest.

At the rally outside the former private school, Sliwa also told the crowd of hundreds protesting the 300-bed migrant shelter that he plans to run again for mayor.

“Well, let me tell you now, police, well in advance so you can tell your commander-in-chief,” the Guardian Angels founder said, referring to Mayor Eric Adams.

“We are going to close down the Verrazzano Bridge. We are going to close down the Goethals Bridge. We are going close down the [Bayonne] Bridge. We are going to close down the Outerbridge Crossing,” he said from the back of a pickup truck parked outside the makeshift shelter in the Arrochar neighborhood.

The Republican, who lost to Adams in the 2021 mayoral race, claimed independent truckers would block traffic on the bridges that connect the borough to Brooklyn and New Jersey with their 18-wheelers.

“That’s how concerned men are who own these rigs who are independent truckers. They will sacrifice their rigs,” Sliwa said. “They are not letting illegals into this school….we are doing everything — trucks, vans, cars, wrecks from the junkyard will be laid out.”

His remarks were met with cheers by the Staten Islanders who attended the fourth demonstration against the migrant shelter.

Several protestors slammed the shelter as a potential danger to students who attend a nearby Catholic school, which includes a co-ed K-8 academy as well as an all-girls high school. The back of St. Joseph Hill Academy’s campus is across the street from the former site of St. John Villa Academy.

“These people are unvetted, unvaccinated. We don’t know what their background is,” said South Shore resident, Florence P, 68. “… We are trying to protect our children.”

A member of a neighborhood watch group told the crowd they would be looking after the school kids as migrants are brought into the shelter.

“We will be conducting watches of our children coming and going from the schools immediately affected in this area,” Pete DiMiceli told the crowd. 

DiMiceli and about a dozen other men who were a part of the group wore bulletproof vests reading “Protect Our Children” at the rally.

Sliwa said Staten Islanders are not afraid of being arrested for protesting against the migrant housing.

“You think you have enough police on Staten Island, you think you have enough handcuffs?” he cried out. “You will not defeat Americans who are trying to save their county, their community, their city, their state and America.”

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He also slammed Adams for “forsaking” Staten Island and said he would do better for the “forgotten borough” as the next mayor.

“And Eric Adams, here we are,” Sliwa said. “I know you can’t find Staten Island without a GPS but in two years I’m coming after you, Eric Adams.”

Sliwa later told The Post that he hasn’t filed any paperwork or begun raising funds for a second mayoral bid, but is ready to campaign against the Democratic mayor.

“I’m going to be his worst nightmare. Every neighborhood that he’s done this, I’m going to remind him,” he said.

The city has struggled to find housing for the 107,000 asylum seekers who have flooded the Big Apple since spring 2022.

As of last week, about two dozen migrants are housed at the former site of St. John Villa Academy, which closed in 2018 and was later purchased by the city to eventually convert into a public school.

A judge had temporarily banned the city from sheltering migrants at the former school last week but the order was overturned after an eleventh-hour appeal by the city.

The Appellate Court removed a vacate order, allowing the migrants already in the shelter to stay.

Sliwa said he would send the buses carrying migrants into New York City back to where they came from if elected mayor.

“The buses come in. They’re at the Port Authority.  Let them relieve themselves…we are sending them back to your papa chulo, the guy who invited you,” he said using the Spanish slang “papi chulo” which directly translates to “pimp daddy.”

One protestor who grew up on the island attended the protest in support of her former neighbors.

“I’m fighting for Staten Island. I’m fighting for the country,” Colleen Mahoney told The Post. “We are not saying not to come into this country. We are just saying use the front door.”

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