Once again, New York City is placing illegal immigrants above its citizens, except this time, it’s the students at one local high school in Brooklyn who have to suffer.
The students at James Madison High School were forced out of school Tuesday due to the city needing the building to house around 2,000 illegal immigrants as bad weather was expected to hit the area. While housed in the school, the students would attend school virtually.
The illegal immigrants, who were housed at a shelter in Brooklyn’s Floyd Bennett Field, were evacuated due to concerns about the tent that they were in being taken down by 70 mph winds and rain.
“To be clear, this relocation is a proactive measure being taken out of an abundance of caution to ensure the safety and wellbeing of individuals working and living at the center,” City Hall spokeswoman Kayla Mamelak said.
To accommodate the thousands of illegal immigrants coming in thanks to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) delivery to the sanctuary city, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was left scrambling to house them.
“But we want to minimize the impact to lower-income New Yorkers, our educational institutions, our public safety, and keeping our city streets. But everything’s on the table,” he said late last year.
Many locals criticized the plan, including New York City Councilwoman Inna Vernikov, who, in a press release, said it was “unacceptable.”
⚠️ We warned you! As predicted, Floyd Bennett Field is not a sustainable shelter facility! James Madison High School is becoming a migrant shelter over night. 1900 migrants are being transferred to this public school to spend the night there to evade the storm. @NYCMayor this is… pic.twitter.com/SxUfflcpeF
— Councilwoman Inna Vernikov (@InnaVernikov) January 9, 2024
Robyn Levy, a gym teacher at the school, said that everything had to be out by 5 p.m. and did not give details of when everyone could return.
“What I want to know is why here?” said Levy.
“Why not send them somewhere where students wouldn’t be disrupted, where students learning wouldn’t be disrupted?”
While officials keep reporting that it was due to the weather, Councilwoman Joann Ariola (R-Queens) warned about potential issues with housing illegals in the tents.
“I warned the administration that something like this would happen from day one and they refused to listen,” she said.
“Floyd Bennett Field is entirely unsuitable for a tent complex, and how we are wasting taxpayer dollars to evacuate nearly 2,000 people when they should have been placed somewhere like the Park Slope Armory,” Ariola continued.
Floyd Bennett Field is the wrong place for a base camp for migrants. It floods. It is open to the elements… this was ill-conceived from the beginning.https://t.co/XQNVNXjvVr
— Joann Ariola NYC Council District 32 (@JoannAriola32) January 10, 2024
Out of all of the locations New York City has to offer, Adams decided to interrupt the lives of at least 4,000 students, plus their parents. Since the precedent of housing illegal immigrants in schools has been made, more schools might be taken over in the upcoming months.
