New York, NY—Today, the New York City Council released data showing the negative impacts on childrens’ schooling caused by Mayor Adams’ 60-day asylum seeker family shelter eviction policy. As of March 3, roughly one in five asylum seeker children whose families have received eviction notices were forced to leave the school they were previously attending. This amounts to nearly one thousand asylum seeker children who have had their schooling interrupted mid-year (678 students left the school system entirely, and 302 had to switch schools), despite Adams’ claim that “no child will have their education interrupted.”
Liza Schwartzwald, Director of Economic Justice and Family Empowerment, New York Immigration Coalition:
“All children deserve a quality education and a safe and stable learning environment – a critical need for all, but especially our asylum seeker families as they adjust to their new home and recover from the precarious journeys to our city. But rather than supporting and welcoming our new neighbors, Mayor Adams pulled the rug out from under them with his punitive and arbitrary 60-day evictions. Mayor Adams’ promise that kids wouldn’t miss school held no truth when he first announced his evictions, and the data shows that it holds no truth now. It is time for Mayor Adams to embrace the profound economic, social, and cultural contributions that asylum seekers will make to New York City by rescinding the 60-day eviction policy that is so clearly harming children and their families. We also call on the New York City Council to take action to end Mayor Adams’ manufactured crisis by passing Int. No. 1212 to end shelter limits for all New Yorkers regardless of immigration status.”
Background:
Last month, New York City adopted new Right to Shelter policies for single adult asylum seekers that would only guarantee them shelter for 30 days. Since October 2023, asylum seeker families have been subject to 60-day shelter limits, at which point they can reapply for a new shelter stay. Families with minor children are not affected by the Right to Shelter settlement.