LETTER FROM NEW YORK
Police officers at the gate of James-Madison High School, where migrants from the Floyd Bennett Field shelter were temporarily moved until a winter storm passed, in Brooklyn, New York, January 10, 2024. SHANNON STAPLETON / REUTERS
Torrential rain was forecast for New York on Tuesday January 9 in the evening. The parents of the 3,400 students at James-Madison High School in Brooklyn were then informed that classes would be taught remotely the next day. Not to protect their children from bad weather, but to temporarily shelter five hundred migrant families housed in tents in a disused New York airport, Floyd Bennett Field, located 8 kilometers away. With the wind and tide, authorities feared the tents would blow away and be flooded.
Around 5 p.m., the migrants arrived by school bus in the high school gymnasium. The mayor of the city was present, and rejoiced on X by posting photos: “On the ground at James-Madison High School, the teams are doing an excellent job to get asylum seekers safe and dry before their departure tomorrow morning. » Everything happened very quickly, roughly: the migrant families then had to get up around 2 a.m., and were promptly sent back to their tents. By 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, they had left the scene as cleaning crews arrived.
However, it was an outcry from many parents, furious that their children were being deprived of school – the distance learning classes promised for Wednesdays almost did not take place, according to testimonies. Some insulted the migrants while the school received a “torrent of hate calls and even a bomb threat”according to city officials.
The Republicans blew on the embers
“We cannot turn schools into shelters. It’s just not right”, lamented Michael Novakhov, Republican member of the New York State Assembly, while declaring his compassion for migrants. In this conservative enclave of Brooklyn, Republican officials blew up the embers, recalling the words of the city’s mayor, Eric Adams, who announced, in the summer of 2023, his intention to house migrants in the city’s private park. .
Read also: The mayor of New York attracts criticism from associations after his cry of alarm over the massive arrival of migrants
The conservative Fox News channel and the tabloid New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s group, were making a killing. Everyone got involved, including billionaire Elon Musk: “That’s what happens when you run out of hotel rooms. Soon, cities will run out of schools to vacate. Then they will come and look for your houses”writes the boss of Tesla and SpaceX.
The mayor’s teams understood that the choice of a school was explosive. “We do not plan to use James-Madison High School again”, said Zachary Iscol, the city’s emergency management commissioner. However, the case reveals that the migration crisis is closing like a trap on New York, which has seen around 160,000 migrants arrive since the spring of 2022. Around 70,000 are the responsibility of the city, which has an obligation legal to house the homeless and rents hotels to house them.
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2024-01-16 02:45:10
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