The Big Apple has a migrant crisis, and the city’s solution has citizens fired up.
Mayor Eric Adams is under pressure to find ways to deal with the influx of illegals while also trying to make constituents happy. While most of his administration’s actions have infuriated citizens, a new curfew imposed on migrants in shelters has gained approval.
(Photo by Selcuk Acar/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Starting today (Jan. 15), migrants in four shelters will be notified of their new curfew that will go into effect tomorrow night. Those living in the facilities will need to check in by 11 p.m. each night and will be required to stay within the shelter until 6 a.m. Permits must be approved for exceptions — such as work, school, medical appointments, and legal affairs. Those who break the curfew three times within 30 days could face being kicked out.
This new rule comes after residents have complained of an “invasion” of immigrants knocking on their private residences at all hours of the day and night, begging for money. “New York City continues to lead the nation in managing this national humanitarian crisis, and that includes prioritizing the health and safety of both migrants in our care and longtime New Yorkers who live in the communities surrounding the emergency shelters we manage,” a City Hall spokesperson said in a statement.
Councilwoman Joann Ariola pushed for the idea of curfews after receiving complaints from her constituents:
“While I applaud the city for coming to its senses on the curfew issue, I believe this is only the first step. We still need to end our status as a right-to-shelter city, stop the flow of asylum-seekers into the five boroughs, and finally get rid of the tent cities and HERRCs [Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers] that are draining our city’s coffers and gobbling up billions of taxpayer dollars.”
Migrants in, Students out
Mayor Eric Adams (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
Recently, Mayor Eric Adams moved nearly 2,000 people from an immigrant facility to a high school, forcing students to stay home and study remotely. Outraged parents rallied in front of James Madison High School last week, protesting Adams’ decision to put migrants over their own.
Mayor Adams, as he put it, was using an “overabundance of caution.” Ahead of a wind and rain storm scheduled to sweep into New York City, Adams relocated migrants from Floyd Bennett Field – a former airfield turned migrant camp that has proven controversial in its own right – to a high school for one night. The mayor defended his decision, saying: “Those parents who [have] stated that we can’t inconvenience someone for one day because of other children, that’s not acceptable, and I’m not going to put children in harm’s way.”
One night doesn’t seem too bad, right? But for New Yorkers who have been sorely inconvenienced for the past year by the overflow of migrants sleeping in police stations and on sidewalks, this is just one more outrage they do not want to tolerate. Jayne Lipkovich, a mother of one of the James Madison High School students, told Fox & Friends: “Why does James Madison or any other school, for example, have to bear the burden of the city’s migrant crisis?” On the surface, that may seem a little selfish, since it was only for one night and due to a winter storm. But Lipkovich made a valid point that resonates with many citizens and parents: Why do migrants get to circumvent the laws that legal citizens have to obey?
“My child goes through metal detectors every day. [Migrants] were walking in with suitcases. How’s that safe afterwards? What about vaccinations? They [students] had to come back completely vaccinated. Were they checking migrants for vaccinations or their background checks when they entered the school?”
“I think the problem is the government seems to prioritize migrant families over their own, law-abiding, taxpaying citizens,” Lipkovich added.
President Joe Biden’s border policy is one of American’s top concerns, and it’s not just Republicans calling on the commander-in-chief to do something. New York Democrat Assemblywoman Jamie Williams also had a daughter attending the high school. On The Ingraham Angle, she said it is an urgent matter to deal with the migrants surging across the border. “Why wait till tomorrow? Our districts are benefactors of lawlessness. We can’t wait until tomorrow. We have to turn off the main at the faucet, and that is closing our borders. Plain and simple,” Williams said. She added:
“There’s no tools to find. There’s no new words to invent. It’s plain English. Close the borders and let’s deal with the situation instead of putting the American citizens in a predicament where you have other people over them. It’s unfair to each and every taxpaying American, not only in my district but in this country.
“It is not fair to us.”
New York City has seen nearly 170,000 asylum seekers since spring 2023, with the city currently taking care of about 70,000. Some of the migrants have been bused in from border states fed up with the Biden administration’s lack of action to secure the area. Adams recently filed a lawsuit against 17 bus and transportation companies, seeking $708 million to help cover the cost of caring for immigrants.
Despite several hate messages and even a bomb threat, the students were able to return to James Madison the next day, but the damage was done as far as parents were concerned.
