Lady Gaga’s Dad Leads Fight Against Illegal Immigrants In His Posh NYC Area

Lady Gaga’s father is leading the fight against letting illegal immigrants flood his posh New York City neighborhood, saying they have “basically taken over.”

Joe Germanotta, 66, who has lived in The Pythian on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for 35 years, where he raised his two daughters, referenced the nearby Stratford Arms Hotel, which used to house the American Music and Dance Academy (AMDA) and roughly six weeks ago was converted into a home for 500 illegal immigrants.

“If it was like this when my girls were growing up, I wouldn’t be living in New York,” he told The New York Post. “There’s now 500 migrants living in that dormitory. That’s when all the mayhem began.”

Germanotta has joined residents from his building and other neighbors to create the West 70th Street Association to lobby City Hall for more policing and better control of the situation.

“Hookers are coming and going. In the mornings, you see prostitutes coming out of the building,” Germanotta, who opened his restaurant Joanne Trattoria 12 years ago in the neighborhood, said. “The worst part’s at night. The noise. It starts at about 10 o’clock, and it’ll go until 4 in the morning. Playing music and racing their motocross and motorbikes up and down the streets.” He added that girls as young as 14 have been catcalled.

“It was a stealth operation,” he recalled. “They were bused in in the middle of the night, like when they flew them into Westchester, they didn’t want anybody to know what was going on. It was all pretty rapid.”

“Everything flew in out of the blue,” Germanotta continued. “The dormitory students at the school, the American Music and Dance Academy, were given two weeks’ notice that they had to get out, and none of the residents in the neighborhood were given any notice about the migrant shelter.”

“I don’t mind having them there. They’re gonna be there for three years. That was the contract, I understand. But at least manage it. Put the proper security in place, have a police presence and a code of conduct,” the popstar’s father said. “They’re guests in our neighborhood, and they have basically taken over.”

CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILY WIRE APP

“The city obviously needs space, all right, so they went to AMDA which owns two facilities — one on (West) 85th Street and one on West 70th Street — which cleaned out both dormitories. They got a fat contract with the city, and they sold out the neighborhood,” he said. “AMDA is getting very, very rich off this, and they screwed the neighborhood.”

Germanotta slammed New York City Mayor Eric Adams, saying, “In my opinion, you should have just suspended ‘sanctuary city’ status until we had enough housing and then said, ‘Yeah, okay, you can send some more.’ It’s a joke. Why doesn’t he get one of the cruise ships? The cruise ships hold more people, and it’s a more controlled environment.”

“The city is spending a tremendous amount of money that could be spent towards building affordable housing,” he opined. ‘The really sad part is that in the neighborhood, we still have our share of veterans and homeless — but we’re not taking care of our own. They don’t get food every day. It’s really sad. I feel for them.”

Adams has complained, “We are facing an unprecedented state of emergency. The immigration system in this country is broken, it has been broken for decades. … New York City has been left to pick up the pieces.”

“Most of the people in (my) building are owners. They feel that this situation has affected their property values,” Germanotta said. “Give us something back. Give us a tax rebate. They’re spending all this money. Okay, give me some.”