Mayor Eric Adams greets asylum seekers and their children at Port Authority on Aug. 7. They had arrived in New York City from Texas. (Photo: @NYCMayor)
Aug. 19, 2022 By Czarinna Andres
Mayor Eric Adams announced Friday that the city has launched a program to help families seeking asylum enroll their children in public school.
The city estimates that at least 1,000 children of asylum-seeking families will enter the public school system next month, with most of the students located within six school districts– districts 2, 3, 10, 14, 24 and 30. Districts 24 and 30 are in western Queens.
The program, called Project Open Arms, aims to support these families, by ensuring that their children are ready to start school on Sept. 8, the first day.
Adams’ office says that more than 6,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York from border states since May. Most have arrived from Texas, with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott busing undocumented immigrants from the Lone Star state to the New York City and Washington D.C.
School Districts in NYC (Courtesy of the DOE).
“Our city has been, and will always be, a city of immigrants that welcomes newcomers with open arms,” Adams said. “Project Open Arms ensures we are well prepared to assist asylum-seekers as the school year begins and that we are offering wraparound services to students and families.”
The project, a multiagency initiative, aim to simplify the school enrollment process, provide backpacks and school supplies for the students, offer support in the immigrants’ native languages, and offer extracurricular activities targeted to students’ needs and interests. The project also aims to make sure that “school curricular and instructional resources are culturally and linguistically responsive.”
The project also aims to connect asylum-seeking families to health care clinics for ongoing pediatric care.
“Our public schools are prepared to welcome families seeking asylum with open arms,” said DOE Chancellor David Banks. “Our city has always stood with those in need of refuge and shelter and this administration will continue that proud legacy.”
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4 Comments
Letter to the Editor:
It would be amazing if Our moron mayor could focus on crime and our pathetic president would close the border!!!
Why as a long time NYer who actually has a job and pays her taxes does my kids school have to roll out the red carpet to illegal children and crowd the schools?!?!?!?!
He was just talking about cutting the budget!!! So more money taken away from my kids to these migrants! It’s absurd any way you spin it.
When does this insanity stop?
Let’s force everyone to get a vaccine that doesn’t work for the most part, Fire good people who don’t get it, let people into a country with no test, no vax, give sec 8 voucher housing and yes even a school bag filled with everything I just spent $100 on at Staples.
Can you explain this to me or point me in the direction of someone who might give a shit?!
>>”“Project Open Arms ensures we are well prepared to assist asylum-seekers…”
Not in any way, shape or form are these “asylum seekers.” They are opportunists who came for the handouts.
This characterization is an insult to real asylum seekers.
I love the way a few decide to spend the money of hard working tax paying citizens. They want to finance the poor of every country they should be donating their salaries and not subsidize other countries’s poor with our money
I feel horrible that these people were treated like cattle by the idiot governor, but how many more immigrants am I going to pay for to get food stamps, SNAP programs, Section 8 housing, welfare, etc.? I don’t blame these people – these are families with children who were thrown into a situation that is unconscionable!