More than 1,000 migrant children will be enrolled in New York City's public schools this year, which will further strain the city's tight education budget, former city Commissioner Brian Andersson said on Newsmax on Monday.
"I didn't send my kids to public schools," Andersson said on Newsmax's "National Report." "I understand it's hard getting them into some of them, especially the local schools [and] now we're adding over 1,000 new kids with language issues at $28,000 per child. That's what we spend in New York City per child to educate them."
The city has a $38 billion education budget, but still, the added students will be a "strain on their resources," he added.
Most of the children, including some who were driven on buses from Texas to New York in recent weeks, will be in the elementary or middle school grades, reports The New York Post. The largest numbers of students are expected to go to school in Districts 2 and 3 in Manhattan along with District 10 in the northwest Bronx; District 14, where Williamsburg and Greenpoint are located; and in eastern Queens' Districts 24 and 30.
Andersson said that even though New York City has a history of welcoming immigrants, "nothing is free."
"It's getting more costly to live in New York City because we have to fund things like this," he added.
Meanwhile, thousands of migrants are expected to be housed in New York City hotels and are already lining up to get free health coverage. Andersson noted that charity organizations in the city do help support such things.
"Again, that's our nature in New York — to help people that are truly in need," he said. "This didn't have to happen this way. The thousands that are pouring across the border on a daily basis, they need to be absorbed somewhere. New York wants to be a sanctuary city, and this is what you're going to get."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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