Angry parents, kids rally outside NYC schools over migrants: ‘Open up Gracie Mansion’
Scores of furious parents and children protested outside at least three Brooklyn schools prepped to house migrants Tuesday, demanding Mayor Eric Adams find other spots — including his own Gracie Mansion — to dump the asylum-seekers.
“I say to the mayor, ‘Open up Gracie Mansion, and allow the migrants to have a shower and hot meal,'” Mayra Ducos, 42, raged to The Post as she rallied outside her children’s Williamsburg school, PS 17, first thing Tuesday.
“’You have 22,000 square feet, let them seek refuge at your home.’ I bet he has a good stove to cook the migrants a hot meal.”
PS 17, which shares a gym with MS 577, housed 10 migrant men for two hours overnight before the asylum-seekers were whisked off to Staten Island, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Dozens of cots were erected inside the gym Monday as The Post revealed PS 17 and MS 577 were among those schools set to temporarily take on asylum-seekers as the Big Apple struggles with a surging migrant crisis.
The MS 577/PS 17 gym has 71 cots set up, PS 18 has 76 cots, and PS 132 has 75 cots, according to local city Councilwoman Jennifer Gutiérrez, who along with Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso said protesting parents were misguided.
About 60 parents picketed outside the MS 577/PS 17 campus early Tuesday — as they demanded their kids get back use of their gym.
“I don’t feel safe having adult men with no criminal background checks or health screenings living at our children’s school,” said Richard Cabo, 46, whose daughter is in sixth grade at MS 577.
“This gym took over three years to construct and only just opened in January. The kids have had a few months of reprieve, and now it’s being stripped from them. It’s just not fair.”
“The kids are very distraught. My daughter didn’t want to come to school today,” the dad said.
A crowd of more than 50 parents also gathered outside PS 172 in Sunset Park after cots were set up inside their gymnasium Monday.
Rally organizers said “seat adjusters” had been added to the small children toilets to cater for the adult migrants’ arrival.
“It makes me want to cry, honestly,” Jesenia Velez, 32, whose second-grade daughter is enrolled at the school, said of the migrant influx.
“I do sympathize with what’s going on, but I just don’t think it should be on school grounds. If you’re going to accept people in, that’s fine, but they should be nowhere near kids. It’s not the right place,” the distraught mom continued.
“We don’t know who they are. We don’t know where they’re coming from. We don’t know anything about them.
“If it gets worse, we will have to pull her out — especially if it’s all men,” Velez’s partner, Joseph Rosa, said of their daughter and the migrants.
Some children protesting outside the school waved signs that read, “Mayor Adams — my school is not a hotel!” and, “I’m a child don’t violate my rights!”
A handful of PS 172 parents remained stationed outside the school gates overnight in case busloads of migrants started arriving under the cover of darkness.
Sheldon Austin, the school’s PTA co-president, demanded that Adams come down and face the furious parents, warning, “You picked the wrong neighborhood and the wrong school.
“Mayor Adams, there are other places you can use. If you had the guts, you would come down here yourself,” Austin said, adding that PS 172 attendance was already down 25% on Tuesday, with many parents opting to keep their kids home.
“Since you are the head of this decision, why don’t you come out here and face these parents?” he added, addressing Adams. “You’re not going to do this to us.”
The schools’ migrant crisis intensified so much that even far-left lawmakers weighed in against the move.
City Councilwoman Alexa Aviles, a progressive who reps the area, joined Tuesday’s rally outside PS 172 – insisting she wasn’t at all surprised by the high turnout and railing against the Mayor’s Office.
“It seems like they just made a list of all the schools with stand-alone gyms but didn’t actually see if it makes sense,” Aviles said of city officials.
“There’s four classrooms out of commission here, one adult bathroom and a construction site. This is why the Mayor’s Office should be here.”
But Reynoso slammed parents for protesting after touring the PS 17 and MS 577 gym with Gutiérrez.
“What we saw this morning is not a reflection of who we are in Williamsburg,” the beep said.
“It’s a reflection of a very small group of people who are grossly misinformed and are not in line with the traditions, faith and the work we’ve done here in Williamsburg.”
He insisted that the school gyms are simply being used as “transition’’ sites.
“But I want to be very clear, that could be something that changes over the next month,’’ the beep warned. “We don’t know. If we get 2,000 more people, we’re going to have a different conversation.’’
Gutiérrez added that principals are getting “at least” 30 minutes notice of a bus arriving at their school.
The upheaval comes after Hizzoner revealed that 20 city public-school gyms are now being eyed to hold migrants, though he claimed it was still just a possibility — even after the cots were hauled in and principals warned parents about the move in letters.
“We have 20 stand-alone gymnasiums throughout the city that are not part of the school building. They are on the list of potential locations we may have to use,” Adams told PIX 11 on Tuesday morning.
“We’re not there yet, but we need a list to be prepared so that if this influx continues, we can accommodate.”
Despite Adams’ claim, dozens of migrants were photographed lying on cots inside the gym at PS 188 in Coney Island over the weekend.
About 4,200 migrants arrived in the Big Apple last week and another 15 buses are slated for this weekend.
“As we’ve been saying for months, we are in the midst of a humanitarian crisis, having opened approximately 150 emergency sites, including eight large-scale humanitarian relief centers, to serve more than 65,000 asylum seekers,” a City Hall spokesman said late Monday.
“We are opening emergency shelters and respite centers daily, but we are out of space.”
–Additional reporting by Carl Campanile
