Concerned residents in Brooklyn, New York have spoken out about how city officials opened a 400-bed all-male shelter for illegal aliens just steps away from a school.
One mother, Irina Edelstein, who is an immigrant with three children, bought a home in a Brooklyn neighborhood to live near a good school for her children. In April 2024, city officials gave residents a two-month notice that they would be opening the shelter near the K-12 school, she told the Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) in an interview.
The shelter would be within a thousand feet of City Life Academy, a private, classical Christian school. Edelstein decided to send her children here after remote learning during COVID-19 lockdowns exposed her to the topics her children were learning that she did not approve of.
“I told my husband that I’m either going to homeschooling, we are going to move out of New York state, or we need to find a good school where they will welcome parent input and opinion. That’s exactly what we did,” she explained.
Edelstein was not the only one blindsided by the announcement about the illegal alien shelter. City Life Academy’s own principal, Jeffrey Reed, was not given forewarning that the shelter would be opening until he received the two-month notice. Reed learned that the plan had been in the works for almost a year, as well.
“We wanted to know when is going to happen, what are the logistics, what are the safety measures? We were not given any transparency,” Reed said. “They knew there would be pushback, and they knew if they had gone through the correct channels or the proper channels, that probably never would’ve opened.”
At a meeting in the school auditorium, parents learned that there was nothing they could do to stop the shelter from opening. Edelstein said that they were not given any transparency.
“Less than a month after they held that meeting, they opened up without notifying the school at all. We asked them to give us some kind of a heads up. They never did. We come back from spring break and the shelter’s fully operating,” Edelstein said.
“I know there are many newcomers who are here to start a better life. But it only takes one person to do something stupid for everybody to regret this decision. That’s a chance I don’t want to take,” she added.
Reed said that the shelter opened “within the child endangerment laws.”
“It’s that close,” he said, pointing out that it’s “less than three football fields away.”
“By covering this to be an emergency situation, they bypass a lot of protocols and laws,” Edelstein said.
Reed stated that some of the illegal immigrants have visited his church and gotten baptized. These illegal immigrants themselves have told Reed that there are some “bad players” staying in these shelters.
“There are guys like that in the shelters, but most of them, we don’t have any idea where they’re from and what their plan is,” Reed said while choking up.
Edelstein said that on one occasion, another parent informed her that they saw an illegal alien try to open her car door while she was picking up her kids. Edelstein said that they steal bags, phones, and other objects to sell in their home countries.
Reed said that the school is now having “Dad Days” where the children’s fathers stand watch outside the school.
“What happens is…just the dads standing there, causes the other people to just cross the street and avoid us,” Reed said, adding that the school has ramped up all of its security measures.
“Boundaries make us safe. And walls are the greatest indicator of a boundary to tell other people to stay out,” Reed added, adding we should bring people in “in control.”
“What made this country great was the fact that it was nothing but immigrants…we want people to come here and we want people to have an amazing life. But, if we don’t have strong borders or strong walls…it will get pretty bad pretty quick,” Reed said.
“I think as an immigrant, I get it,” Edelstein concluded. “I am not against immigration, and I think many of these people who are here legally, they will make a life for themselves; they will be positive, good contributors to this country. However, there is a difference between immigration and invasion.”