Around 21,000 illegal immigrant children flooded New York City schools for the first day of classes on Thursday, forcing one school to place kids in a different facility because they reached building capacity.
Students attending Newcomers High School in Long Island City were told to line up outside the building to wait to get inside. Teachers at the school became frustrated and were forced to require some students at Gotham Tech High School — another school that shares a building with Newcomers — to go across the street to another facility, The New York Post reported.
One teacher slammed city and school officials for not coming up with a better plan to address the thousands of illegal immigrants who enrolled in NYC schools.
“It’s a capacity issue,” the teacher told the Post. “They should have worked this out two days ago!”
Education Chancellor David C. Banks voiced his excitement for welcoming the illegal immigrant children into schools Thursday.
“We are welcoming all these new migrant students into our schools with open arms,” Banks said Thursday at an opening ceremony at a Bronx public school, according to the Associated Press. “We know it’s a larger political issue and the mayor and others have to deal with. But when they show up in our schools, they’re going to get the best that we have.”
Some students complained about the crowded area outside the school as they had to wait to start their first day.
“I wanted to get here early because I’m new,” 14-year-old Alex Gonzales said. “I’m going to be lost and so are all of these guys? I think they should have let them come a day before. I hate being stuck in crowds and this is definitely my worst nightmare. I’m just going to be going crazy!”
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Another 14-year-old student, George Kara Lekas, said he was ushered by the principal to another building across the street from Gotham since the school was overcrowded with illegal immigrants.
“They gave us crap! No information!” Lekas exclaimed. “I’m getting a late start and I left early! I’m two subway stops away. I mean, look at this? I’m going to try and transfer into the Academy of American Studies, like as soon as I can!”
On Wednesday night, New York City Mayor warned during a town hall meeting that the illegal immigration crisis, which has been exacerbated under President Joe Biden, “will destroy New York City.”
“We’re getting 10,000 migrants a month. One time we were just getting Venezuela,” Adams added. “Now we getting Ecuador. Now we getting Russian-speaking coming through Mexico. Now we’re getting western Africa. Now we getting people from all over the globe have made their minds up that they’re going to come through the southern part of the border and coming into New York City. And everyone is saying it’s New York City’s problem.”
Adams said that “every community” in the city would be impacted by the waves of illegal immigrants being sent to the city — which are draining the city’s resources.
As of August 13, over 100,000 illegal immigrants had made their way to the Big Apple and were cared for through taxpayer dollars since April of 2022. Nearly 60,000 of those illegal immigrants remain in the city’s shelter system, according to the New York City government. The city estimates it will spend over $4.7 billion in the current fiscal year to deal with the crisis.