NYPD curbs Post reporter from interviewing migrants on public sidewalk
New York City cops have stopped journalists from speaking to the hordes of migrants camped on public sidewalks outside the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan this week as the city’s makeshift processing center hit capacity this past weekend.
City cops barred reporters from talking to the troubled asylum seekers as they sat crammed on the sidewalk — using “exigent circumstances” as an excuse. But legal experts have labeled the move nonsense, calling their attempts to block a Post reporter a First Amendment violation.
“You have a First Amendment right to speech — and in this case — the migrant has the right to speak to the reporter but the reporter has the First Amendment right to do their job,” New York City civil rights and civil liberties lawyer Norman Siegel told The Post.
With exigent circumstances — an emergency situation that requires immediate attention — “very often police make it up as they go along,” Siegel said, adding about the “exigent circumstances” claim: “Unless they had specific factual information creating some sort of crisis on that street, that’s improper for the officer to be saying that.”
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