House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) ripped both the Biden administration and New York City Mayor Eric Adams Wednesday after Brooklyn high school students were forced to make way for migrants sheltering in their gym.
“This week, Secretary Mayorkas confirmed that 85% of the illegal immigrants who are apprehended at the border are released into the interior United States,” Johnson told The Post in a statement.
“Now, because of the administration’s policy choices, students and teachers are having to turn to remote learning in order to accommodate illegal immigrants at their school. From the President on down to city mayors, support for illegal immigration has trickled down, thereby prioritizing the needs of non-citizens over the needs of our own.”
“If Biden and Mayorkas refuse to reverse course and secure the southern border, our students and schools will continue to pay the price for the administration’s abdication of duty,” Johnson added.
Nearly 2,000 migrants were brought to the James Madison High School gym Tuesday afternoon around 5 p.m. out of concerns that tents erected for them at Floyd Bennett Field would collapse due to rain and strong winds.
“House Republicans have solutions: we passed the Schools Not Shelters Act in July to ensure schools serve as sanctuaries of study, not casualties of sanctuary cities,” Johnson also said. “Sadly, President Biden threatened to veto the bill.”
That bill, introduced by upstate Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-NY), passed the House in July 2023 on a near-party line vote, with Molinaro’s fellow New Yorker Rep. Patrick Ryan one of four Democrats to support it.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has yet to take up the legislation after Biden’s Office of Management and Budget issued a statement “strongly” opposing it.
“The Administration is strongly opposed to H.R. 3941, the Schools Not Shelters Act of 2023, which would supersede local control, interfering with the ability of States and municipalities to effectively govern and make decisions about their school buildings,” the statement read.
“The bill would do this by prohibiting certain educational institutions that receive Federal funding—including funds that strengthen equal access to education, assist students from low-income families, improve educational opportunities for those with disabilities, and provide access to college—from using their facilities to shelter noncitizens seeking asylum in the United States, as such noncitizens are permitted to do under the law.”
Asked about the chaos on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dodged a question from Fox News’ Peter Doocy and referred the matter to New York City officials.
Enraged parents heckled the asylum seekers as they exited the buses that brought them to the high school in Brooklyn, with one local exclaiming, “How do you feel stealing American tax money?”
“How does it feel that you kicked all the kids out of school tomorrow? Does it feel good? I hope you feel good,” another mother yelled at the migrant entourage. “I hope you will sleep very well tonight!”
The Big Apple has taken roughly 70,000 migrants of the 162,000 that have come to the city since spring 2022 into city care.
Brooklyn GOP Assemblyman Michael Novakhov also organized a rally Wednesday morning outside the school to protest Adams’ decision to boot the students from their classrooms.
By Wednesday morning at 4:30 a.m., all the migrants had been cleared out of the school — an exodus one source described to The Post as “madness” — but students were still required to attend classes virtually.
Adams posted photos on X of the 1,900 migrants sprawled on the floor of the gym a little after midnight, saying the city officials were “doing a great job keeping asylum seekers safe and dry before they depart tomorrow morning.”
Heavy winds subsided after 1 a.m. and “and all guests safely returned” to their tent city at the abandoned airfield in Jamaica Bay, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management.
Other migrant shelter facilities have been placed on Randall’s Island in Manhattan and at the former Creedmor Psychiatric Center in Queens, but no persons were shuttled to alternative locations due to extreme weather.
Last month, migrants told The Post that a fierce rainstorm on Dec. 18 made them fear for their lives inside the 2,000-bed tent facility, with 55-mph winds loosening metal bolts and hinges, causing them to fall from the ceiling.
