Decision to Evacuate Migrants to A School Amid A Storm Earns NYC Mayor Eric Adams More Hate
In New York, an approaching storm has pushed Mayor Eric Adams’ government to decide to relocate close to 2,000 migrants from the vulnerable tent shelter at Floyd Bennett Field to a high school in Brooklyn, forcing the school’s students to attend their classes remotely.
The decision, of course, has earned the ire of many, including the students’ parents, elected officials, and right-wing commentators, on top of the already mounting criticism against Adams. The mayor defended the move, and emphasized that it had to be done with the impending storm, “out of an abundance of caution to ensure the well-being of those entrusted to our care.”
New York City, under its “right to shelter” mandate that took effect in the 1980s, is legally obligated to provide temporary housing to anyone who asks for it.
Also read: Quebec Doesn’t Want New York’s Migrants
The shelter at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn is one of 200 sites the city has put up beginning 2022 to accommodate the influx of thousands of migrants, mostly from Texas Governor Greg Abbot who has been sending them by bus from the southern border. This particular shelter is far from crucial services, schools and transport, and is vulnerable to the storm’s heavy rains and strong winds.
The migrants were evacuated to the auditorium of James Madison High School on Tuesday evening and given supplies including baby formula, feeding bottles, food, and blankets. The decision to use the school was based on the timing of the storm and whether there were other spaces available, according to city officials. Officials announced that Wednesday remote day of classes for the school’s over 3,400 students to accommodate the evacuation.
By 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, following clearance from the National Weather Service, the city began to shuttle migrants back to the tent shelter, with most families back at the site by 4 a.m. According to Zachary Iscol, the city’s emergency management commissioner, the city is making alternative plans in case the need to evacuate the tent shelter arises again.
“We don’t foresee us using James Madison High School again,” Iscol said. “No one wants to disrupt the lives of asylum-seekers nor those of our students, parents, teachers and principals.”
As parents complained about the remote day, and local elected officials protested using the school as an evacuation center, X owner and richest man on Earth Elon Musk also felt the need to weigh in. Like many right-wing commentators, he warned his over 168 million followers that soon migrants would take over people’s homes, sharing a tweet from the far-right account Libs of Tiktok.
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