Illegal immigrants are flooding New York City schools. So far, at least 608 schools have taken a hit. The most shocking aspect is that in some cases, the illegal population is half of the legal population, and might soon rival the American students. This has been hidden from the public and exposed by Danyela Souza Egorov, co-founder of Families for NYC. Once exposed, the Adams administration shamelessly admitted it was true. Nathaniel Styer, Press Secretary for NYC Public Schools, took aim at Egorov and tweeted, “Yup! And we're projecting those pandemic-era declines to flatten out.”
Translation: The Adams administration makes it appear that school enrollment in New York City is up, despite leading all other cities in outmigration due to crime and broken education, via mass absorption of illegal immigrants. Also, the administration can now justify why the education budget needs more money, even though hundreds of thousands of families have left New York City with their student children.
Egorov says, “The official numbers show that there was a 2.2% drop in enrollment in FY 23 (versus 5.7% in FY22 and 4.3% in FY21). But these numbers are misleading because it doesn’t account for the 14K students who are asylum seekers. If you take out the number of asylum seekers who arrived this year, the drop in enrollment would be 3.9% (assuming all the 14K arrived in 2023 since Mayor Adams announced Project Open Arms on August 2022). This matches the DOE projections which are made usually in April/May - before the influx of asylum seekers.”
Egorov adds that many CEC (Community Education Councils) presidents received an email saying that, as of March 18, 2023, there were “13,248 asylum seeker students across 608 schools.” She notes this is “despite the NYC DOE press secretary attempting to say that there is no tracking by immigration status…[and that the] email that was shared… has an excel spreadsheet with the exact numbers of kids by school. It’s… titled ‘Project Open Arms.’”
Where does the term “asylum seeker” come from? The NYC DOE press secretary, who clearly has a total incomprehension and misunderstanding of the difference between asylum, sanctuary, and illegal immigrants. He got his talking points from an administration stocked with buffoons who’ve been entrusted to take care of our children’s education.
With all the information Egorov has shared, and the shameless concealment and lying about it by the Adams administration, there are three questions that need to be answered.
First, how many illegal children will Mayor Adams stuff into New York City schools? Second, how many of them are grade-level proficient in English, math, history and science? And if they are insufficient in any of these categories, how will their lack of skills impact the learners they are in classrooms with? Third, what are the financial implications for taxpayers?
Regarding the first two questions, information is difficult to come by. This is because the Adams administration isn’t transparent, and any projections on cost and amount of illegal immigrants are unknowable. The tsunami is upon us with no end in sight. As of now, in one Manhattan school, Murray Hill Academy, there are 300 students and 146 illegal immigrants. At another, Liberty High School Academy For Newcomers, which says, “Global Diversity at its Best," there are 356 students and 119 illegals. At Manhattan’s 75 Morton Street, enrollment shrank from 850 students to 361 during New York City’s response to Covid, and of the 361, 106 students were illegal.
The situation is so unmanageable. Adams has thrown in the towel, no longer wanting sanctuary city status for New York City. This incompetent administration has provided no plan to the public as to how illegal immigrants, with potentially no English ability, will be dealt with and whether they’ll be placed in a grade that corresponds with their age or in one that corresponds with ability. All we can assume is that in an environment that places next-to-zero emphasis on ability and all its focus on “equity,” the proficiency level doesn’t matter.
Regarding the third question, the financial impact on taxpayers, there’s only grim news. For the 2023-2024 school year, the DOE totals $31.5 billion, of which approximately 13% is federal, 40% is state funded, and the remaining 47% is provided by city taxes. More than one-third of New York City’s entire budget is used to “educate” children. What’s strange is that the education budget has skyrocketed by 33% since 2016 as enrollment continues to plummet. It will cost taxpayers $38,000 in 2023-2024, up from $26,571 in 2020-2021, per public school student annually, and the prize is being in the bottom half of the nation for reading and writing. If DOE was a privately run corporation, it would have quickly gone from insolvency to bankruptcy to the sheriffs selling off the building.
