A group of eight migrants accused of pummelling a pair of officers  in a caught-on-camera Midtown attack are “cowards” who “should be sitting on Rikers Island,” a top NYPD official says.

One of the suspects took a defiant posture, flashing two middle fingers after being arraigned in court on Wednesday, the New York Daily News reports.

All five young men taken into custody so far for the Saturday night brawl outside a migrant  shelter  on W. 42nd St. near Seventh Ave. were released without bail — enflaming  the already heated debate  surrounding the city’s migrant crisis.

“You saw the video. Reprehensible,”  NYPD Chief of Patrol John Chell  told reporters following the annual State of the NYPD Breakfast at Cipriani 42nd St., about five blocks from where the attack took place. “(They’re) cowards. You have eight people attacking a lieutenant and a cop, running up to them to kick them in the face.”