NEW YORK (AP) — Damien, 5, was extremely excited as he left a homeless shelter in Manhattan, sometimes running and jumping down the sidewalk in the company of his homesick mother, an immigrant from Ecuador.
Kimberly Carchipulla wants her son to have a future, she said, one of nearly 800,000 New York City public school students who went to school Thursday for their first day of the new school year.
That’s what school officials also want, as the city’s classrooms work to accommodate nearly 20,000 migrant children recently arrived in the United States. That number could increase as record numbers of families are crossing the southern border from Mexico in hopes of gaining asylum.
Several large American cities have struggled to accommodate many thousands of asylum seekers who have packed homeless shelters after entering the country.
New York City’s shelter system has been especially overwhelmed, but Mayor Eric Adams has sought to assure parents and community groups that the city’s nearly 1,900 schools — which have a long history of welcoming immigrants with limited English skills—are well prepared to provide migrant children with a good reception in the classroom.
The massive public school system has about 3,400 teachers licensed to teach English as a second language, and more than 1,700 certified bilingual teachers who are fluent in Spanish, the language spoken by most migrant families, according to David C. Banks, chancellor of Education. Some campuses expected to receive a larger number of students living in shelters are being given more funding, with $110 million allocated for immediate needs.
“We are welcoming all of these new migrant students to our schools with open arms,” Banks declared Thursday, during a ceremony for the first day of school at a public school in the Bronx district. “We know this is a larger political issue, and the mayor and others have to handle it. But when they show up at our schools, they are going to receive the best we have.”
That’s encouraging news for Carchipulla and his son.
In his quieter moments as he walked to school, Damien worried whether he would be able to understand his teacher or make new friends easily.
For the past two months, his family has been living in a room at Manhattan’s historic Roosevelt Hotel, which after years of being closed was converted this year into a city-run shelter for newly arrived migrants hoping to find work and a life. better life for your children.
Carchipulla’s immediate concern was getting Damien to class early, traveling by city bus and on foot to get to his school, located 75 blocks away in East Harlem. A large number of families were in front of the school doors, waiting to be allowed to enter.
In recent weeks, his 22-year-old mother has wavered between elation and concern, worrying especially about her son’s ability to keep up with his classmates. And she hopes that there will be good teachers at Damien’s new school, teachers who are kind and patient.
It has been a difficult few months for the family, after they had to leave relatives behind in their small Ecuadorian town, located about 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of the city of Guayaquil. In recent months, Ecuador has faced a rising wave of violence and political instability.
“I came to a place where I had no family. It was hard and I cried because they were hard and difficult moments, because I already knew that I will no longer see my family,” said Carchipulla. Nonprofit organizations like New Immigrant Community Empowerment, better known as NICE, have helped families work toward stability.
Illegal border crossings have declined sharply since President Joe Biden’s administration introduced new restrictions in May. But the numbers are rising again, now driven by the arrival of families with children. According to preliminary data from the Customs and Border Protection Office, August was the month in which the most apprehensions of migrant families with children crossing the border from Mexico have been made.
Families with children now account for about half of arrests of people crossing the border illegally from that Latin American country, with more than 91,000 arrests in August, according to a U.S. federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to do so. declare about figures.
That’s a drastic increase compared to 60,161 arrests in July and 39,305 in June. The August figure surpassed the previous record of 84,486 in May 2019. In total, arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico exceeded 177,000 in August, the official said, an increase from 132,652 in July and 99,539 in June.
New York City has welcomed 112,000 since spring 2022, with nearly 60,000 living temporarily in government shelters.
Activist groups are closely watching how the city’s schools respond to the flow of migrants, but they stand in solidarity with city officials, who continue to ask for more money from Albany, the capital of New York state, and the White House.
“Any city would be hard-pressed to receive the large number of children who are arriving at once, who are also learning English, and who live in temporary housing or temporary shelters,” said Natasha Quiroga, director of educational policies at the Center for New York City Affairs, which belongs to The New School university.
“The city has tried to create some sort of plan, but there just isn’t enough there yet, there aren’t enough resources to serve everyone,” he stated.
On the first day of classes there were some isolated problems, Quiroga said, most of them related to registration paperwork. There were some reports of long lines at some campuses, but that’s usually part of the normal chaos on the first day of the school year, he added.
When he recently held a workshop at the Roosevelt Hotel, more than 100 people showed up.
“The American education system and the New York City education system are incredibly complicated and very different from other countries,” Quiroga said.
When Carchipulla’s husband mentioned the idea of heading north, he suggested doing it alone. But she insisted that they stay together.
Her husband has only been able to find work occasionally, such as temporary jobs on construction sites. They hope he can get a work permit as soon as possible. Kimberly also wants to work, but she has two small children who can’t be left alone.
Carchipulla dreams that his son will become a professional, and that perhaps one day he will join the masses of people who walk hurriedly wearing a suit, tie, and freshly polished shoes.
His mother smiled as Damien spoke, and then laughed as the boy recited a few words in English.
“It’s easier for him to learn English,” Carchipulla said, “and anything (she) doesn’t understand, he can help me.”
For the first day of school, Damien had simpler plans: “I want to meet friends,” he said, “and I want to learn English.”
Spagat reported from San Diego. Associated Press writer Carolyn Thompson contributed from Buffalo, New York.
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2023-09-08 02:34:06
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