When Jane Lyokovich was informed her 15-year-old daughter would stay home from James Madison High School on Wednesday to make room for illegal immigrants, she skipped a day of work to supervise.
The remote learning curriculum, however, was short.
“They did one assignment,” Ms. Lyokovich told The Epoch Times. “My daughter was told to submit it and that would count as attendance. Then, nothing the rest of the day.”
Ms. Lyokovich is among the parents of some 3,400 James Madison High School students who are angry at city officials for relocating an estimated 1,900 illegal immigrants to the Midwood public school from Floyd Bennett Field as a way of sheltering them from Tuesday’s rainstorm.
They were reportedly transferred to the public high school out of fear the wind and rain would topple the Floyd Bennett Field tents and endanger immigrant families.
But for Ms. Lyokovich, who lives in Mill Basin, the decision to displace students for one day was disruptive.
“It’s in the middle of the school year and my daughter has exams coming up,” she said. “She had tutoring planned, and Regents Week is right around the corner. So, it held her back.”
When Tatyana Lerner from Sheepshead Bay learned that illegal immigrants would be sheltered at the high school her son Justin attends, she expressed concerns about diseases like COVID-19.
“I am disappointed, and my son feels the same way,” Ms. Lerner told The Epoch Times. “He’s on the swim team but he did not go to competition because he didn’t think it would be safe to use the pool and then see his grandparents who are old and lived through COVID.”
Ms. Lerner, who works in the real estate industry, was so angry that she attended a protest in front of the school on Wednesday, January 10, along with other parents and politicians such as New York Assemblyman Michael Novakhov (R-District 45) and New York City councilwoman Inna Vernikov (R-District 48).
“I don’t think our kids matter,” Ms. Lerner added. “People do not matter. Our society is doomed. We are just a number. There are no individual voices. It feels like the majority rules, and it doesn’t have to be an educated majority. It’s just whoever yells louder.”
Although students had returned to their classes by Thursday, the morning of January 11, Assemblyman Novakhov said the issue was far from over.
He plans to attach himself as a sponsor to Republican Assemblyman Mike Reilly’s Assembly Bill (AB) 8013, which would prevent any school, daycare, or community-based organization from being used for housing illegal immigrants.
“Sheltering migrants at the school was kind of inhumane,” Mr. Novakhov told The Epoch Times. “What I am happy about is that the city said they’re not planning to use James Madison High School anymore as a shelter for migrants.”
New York City Mayor Eric Adams defended the decision to temporarily house the migrants at the school.
He told ABC News that not one child or family will sleep on the streets because of what his team has done.
“We’re not going to say in the city that when we have an emergency that impacts migrants, we’re not going to use our school buildings,” Mayor Adams said on January 11. “Because no matter what people say, if you look closely, these are still children, and adults should not ever put anything that’s going to endanger children.”
At least 165,000 illegal immigrants have registered for a city service, such as housing, over the past year and a half, according to Nicole Gelinas, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank.
Critics blame U.S. President Joe Biden’s immigration policies. In July 2023, for example, the federal government began allowing Colombian, El Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran migrants to obtain U.S. work permits if they have relatives who are U.S. citizens or are green card holders.
“This starts and ends with the current border policy of Joe Biden,” Councilwoman Vernikov’s director of operations Izzy Weiss told The Epoch Times. “The people on a local level are suffering due to his administration’s policies. That’s why we are where we are.”
The high school is located within Ms. Vernikov’s district.
Ms. Weiss said her office has been inundated with calls and emails from constituents who are expressing concerns about the medical histories of the illegal immigrants and questioning whether remote learning will be reintroduced as it was during the COVID lockdowns.
“The city pulled together this massive group of people for a couple of hours for the migrants but when the hardworking tax-paying citizens of this city need something done, the red tape you have to go through is mind-boggling,” he added.
Although State Assemblywoman Jaime Williams is a Democrat representing District 59, she has aligned with Republican politicians in filing a lawsuit against Mayor Adams’ administration and the State of New York. The lawsuit demands the closure of Floyd Bennett Field as a housing option for illegal immigrants.
A hearing is scheduled for Jan. 18.
“It was painful to see the children and the babies having to go through the rain into the school and the school did not have cots, so they were sleeping on the floor on blankets,” Assemblywoman Williams told The Epoch Times. “Then, they woke them up and took them back to Floyd Bennett Field around 4:30 in the morning. Where is the justice in that?”
Ms. Williams, whose child is a senior at James Madison High School, was concerned when her daughter was sent home for remote learning this week, but she didn’t miss a full day’s work.
“I did check in with her from time to time because I didn’t want her to leave home to go to the mall,” Williams added.
Tom Sullivan is the Republican and Conservative party candidate for State Assembly District 23. He ran against Assemblywoman Stacey Pheffer-Amato (D-District 23) in 2022 and lost. But, if Mr. Sullivan is elected in November 2024, the 30-year military veteran said he plans to propose a bill stating that New York is not a sanctuary state.
“The sentiment needs to change immediately that we are not a sanctuary state,” Mr. Sullivan told The Epoch Times. “The State Assembly could and should tell the federal government we are not accepting illegal immigrants.”
The Democrat Party conveniently forgets that the Illegal immigrants are criminal citizens of another country who are here in the U.S. illegally.
They ARE NOT ward of the taxpayers of the U.S.. We shouldn’t have to provide FREE food, clothing, housing, medical care and entertainment.
Instead of transferring the illegal immigrant invaders to the public high school, transfer them OUT of our country and back to their own country.
These illegal immigrant citizens of other countries, many who have sworn to destroy us are the planted 5th columnist soldiers in the socialist armies of darkness, bent on overwhelming our social programs and setting each other against one another to disunite the formerly UNITED States of America. Our schools are home to our children who spend One Third of their lives there before the age of 18, and beyond.
The Third Amendment states: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” Last time I looked THE PEOPLE not the government were the purchasers and owners of our schools, and this act is as Un-Constitutional as it gets. Whoever authorized this must be held accountable both in fines and in Jail time. God knows what germs and virus’s they will leave in their wake. I can just see some returning Kindergardener sniffing the carpet, then keeling over dead from a dose of some spilled Fentanyl!!!!!!!
They don’t forget that. THEY JUST REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE They are criminal. JUST look at all the HOME GROWN CRIMINAL:S they coddle.
We see IMMIGRANTS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD COMING TO AMERICA Headed For the welfare rolls, already overloaded.
” From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven.
It is the strategy of forcing political change leading to societal collapse through orchestrated crises. The “Cloward-Piven Strategy” seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, amassing massive unpayable national debt, and other methods such as unfettered immigration thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse by overwhelming the system.
History[edit]
Cloward and Piven were both professors at the Columbia University School of Social Work. The strategy was outlined in a May 1966 article in the liberal magazine The Nation titled “The Weight of the Poor: A Strategy to End Poverty”.[1]
When Jane Lyokovich was informed her 15-year-old daughter would stay home from James Madison High School on Wednesday to make room for illegal immigrants, she skipped a day of work to supervise.
You get the gov you deserve. I have no doubt the mother most likely voted Democrat given the area around Madison High…. Think twice next time you vote, be it Commie Left or RINO Right.
As COVID proved, there are legions of democrat voting parents who would love an excuse to take a sick day/week off with pay, even though it is the government that is actually the one who is sick. Just more redistribution of American wealth from those who live in the image of the great Creator, to those who reflect the image of the great CONSUMER,,,and oh how they love to call us American Consumers,,,,NO! Americans were designed to be CREATORS,,,,creating surpluses that can be shared with the needy, not become forced government created victim needy of tax stolen and robbed honestly earned wealth.
Her entire clan is probably life long dem voters.
Hey Mayor Adams, you have all those vacant New York offices and business complexes to put your illegal immigrants in. Leave the schools and school children out of your F’ up ideas! Or sent them illegals home.
Actually send the illegal immigrants to Obama’s home backyard, would make a nice tent city and some to George Soros and Bill Gates properties.
Id rather just send them all HOME.. OUT OF OUR NATION, period.
all you blue state cities are getting what you wanted and VOTED FOR!