Furious NYC parents demand Mayor Eric Adams opens his own home after dumping migrants at gyms.
The move has prompted dozens of irate parents and children to protest at schools across the city today, demanding the mayor open his own doors instead.
Mayor Adams said the city is looking at 20 gyms in the city to accommodate migrants.
Pictured: Gracie Mansion entrance on the Upper East Side, the city’s mayoral home
He said on NY1 earlier today, “This is one of the last places we want to look at. None of us are comfortable taking these drastic measures.
“Each gym, the 20 gyms we’re looking at, we haven’t made a final decision yet on all the gyms, but the ones we’re looking at are separate from the actual school buildings.
“They’re separate from the school buildings.”
Officials say 65,000 asylum seekers have passed through the city so far, including 4,200 last week alone.
Adams said the city expects as many as 15 buses full of migrants this weekend.
Video footage at Brooklyn’s Beacon School of Excellence shows rows of cots set up in the gymnasium, ready for migrants to use.
Parents of students affected by the move began protesting earlier this morning to express concern over the housing of migrants in the school’s gymnasium.
One shared a video of the gym on their Twitter page saying, “We don’t think it’s okay to have an elementary school full of strangers while our kids are in their classrooms! Where is their safety!?’
The images show that a large amount of cots have already been moved to a migrant school in Brooklyn
A sign has been hung on the fence around P.S. 17 in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn protesting the use of the gymnasium as temporary housing
Parents and community members chant as they march around PS 189 to protest the plans
Protesters held up signs, including one that read, “I want to go to school safely, please.”
Others carried signs that read, “The safety of our children is important” and “No asylum on school grounds.”
Father Richard Cabo, 46, told the New York Post“I don’t feel safe when adult males with no criminal background checks or health screenings live at our children’s school.
“This gym took over three years to build and only opened in January.
“The children have been delayed for a few months and now it is being taken away from them. It’s just not fair.
“The children are very upset. My daughter didn’t want to go to school today.’
A child is seen here holding a sign that reads, “we want our gym back” outside a school in Brooklyn
Mayor Eric Adams, pictured here, said the city expects as many as 15 buses full of migrants to arrive in the city this weekend
Alderman Ari Kagan said outside PS188 in Coney Island, “New York City should not be responsible for the policies of the Biden administration.”
In a letter to parents of students attending affected schools, obtained by ABC New York WABCofficials promised that “individuals and families” of migrants would be confined to the school gymnasium.
The letter said: “This should not affect the operation of the school, nor will the families have access to any other part of the school where students and staff are.”
It comes a week after Camille Varlack, Adams’ chief of staff, directed all city agencies to identify city-owner property that could be used to house migrants.
In a letter obtained by The daily newsshe said: ‘With more asylum seekers arriving every day, this influx has pushed our reception system to a breaking point and we need to create emergency shelters.’
Last week, Title 42 expired, meaning authorities at the border could no longer quickly reject migrants at the border, as they had done for the past three years.
The Trump administration began using the authority in 2020, citing COVID health concerns, and the Biden administration used it until last week.