More asylum seekers headed our way as NYC works on how it will educate their children
NEW YORK - Officials expected five busloads of asylum seekers to arrive in New York City between Tuesday evening and 6 a.m. Wednesday.
This comes as the city finalizes plans on how it will educate the influx of students this fall.
Chopper 2 was over Randall's Island Tuesday where preparations are underway to build the city's largest humanitarian relief center for up to 2,000 asylum seekers. The same plans for tents there were called off last year due to flooding concerns.
"When we built Randall's Island last year, we had 15,000 migrants, asylum seekers - 15,000. We're now at 97,000," Mayor Eric Adams said.
Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said, in part, "It is vital that it is constructed with safeguards against issues such as flooding and transit access which we raised last time one was built. It is also crucial that local residents and leaders are not blindsided by the announcement of new shelters."
Zach Iscol, commissioner of New York City's Office of Emergency Management, addressed the situation outside the city's intake center at the Roosevelt Hotel.
"Right now, the team is doing everything they can to avoid what occurred last week, where we had line of people sleeping overnight on the street, but every day, it's a struggle," Iscol said.
Watch Lisa Rozner's report
The governor's office and education officials met with city leaders Monday to discuss plans for the fall. Wednesday, the mayor said he expects to know what it will cost to educate the influx of asylum seekers.
"Are you going to hire new teachers to teach ESL?" CBS New York's Lisa Rozner asked.
"We are going to look at our budget and see everything we can do," Adams said. "We're dealing with a real economic challenge here, and this is also an opportunity for other people to step up. The New York City Police Department under [Deputy Commissioner of Community Affairs Mark Stewart] is teaching ESL classes for people."
Adams also called on President Joe Biden to allow people to work.
One asylum seeker from Ecuador staying at the McCarren Park Recreation Center in Williamsburg said he's doing whatever he can to work.
"I have to do something," Carlo Oliveiras Garcia said.
Garcia buys goods at a market in Flushing and is trying to resell them to get by.
The city said there are currently more than 57,000 asylum seekers in its care and around 30% are children.
Tuesday evening, hundreds of Queens Village residents rallied outside Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, where humanitarian tents are almost ready for asylum-seeking men to move in.
Creedmoor is on state land, and the state will reimburse the city for building the relief center.
Waving flags and holding signs, protesters said they do not want the asylum seekers moving into their residential neighborhood.
Tensions flared between protesters and counter-protesters.
"If pedophiles are not allowed to live within a school zone area, we don't know who's getting a background check on them, correct? We don't," Queens Village resident Bernadette Pena said. "We don't know who our kids are gonna be surrounded. They can sit anywhere. Our kids aren't gonna be protected?"
"What should the city be doing with those people?" CBS New York's Ali Bauman asked protester Herman Singh.
"I think the city should do something about it, but not in the residential areas," Singh said.
"When the city admits that they're at their breaking point, Governor Hochul has to say move them up to the Buffalo Bills' stadium," protester Arlene Schlesinger said.
"Queens is borough of immigrants, and we want to really fight back against the right-wing propaganda and xenophobia that we're seeing here today," said Diana Moreno, an immigrant from Ecuador. "Who's responsible for the migrant crisis? Are you blaming the vulnerable, or are you actually blaming the people who have not given immigrants a path to citizenship for over 30 years?"
The governor and mayor continue to beg for federal aid.
"We are aggressively, persistently asking for use of Floyd Bennett Field, for example, as a resource for us, and I'm hoping to receive an answer from the White House very soon," Hochul said.
The mayor is urging the White House to expedite work authorization for asylum seekers so they can legally get jobs.
"All of them want to work. Most of them that you talk to, they have extraordinary stories about a loved one back home that they're trying to support," Iscol said.
The OEM commissioner is urging protesters in Queens to support their new neighbors.
"In doing that, I think they would find that this is just another generation of future Americans," he said.