All-male illegal immigrant shelter opens near Christian school, prompting concerns about children's safety

In April, New York City opened an all-male illegal immigrant shelter approximately 800 feet away from a private Christian school in Brooklyn, sparking concerns from local residents about the children's safety.

The Independent Women's Forum spoke with Jeffrey Reed, the principal of City Life Academy, and Irina Edelstein, a mother of three children who attend the school.

'Anytime somebody makes a decision like that in the dark, it's rarely the correct decision to make.'

Reed and Edelstein explained that the city failed to provide them with adequate notice that the 400-bed illegal immigrant shelter would be opening just steps away from the K-12 school. Both expressed concerns about the safety of the children attending the classical Christian school and the secretive way city officials forged ahead with the plan without seeking much input from locals.

Edelstein, a legal immigrant from the former Soviet Union, told IW Features that she learned about the soon-to-be shelter when a resident handed her an informational flyer while she was picking up her children from City Life Academy. Reed noted that he did not discover the city's plans for the shelter until it was already nearly a year in the making.

Edelstein said the city opened the shelter "without notifying the school at all."

"We came back from spring break, the shelter was fully operated," she explained.

"Many of these people who are here legally, they will make a life for themselves, they will be positive, good contributors for this country," Edelstein stated. "However, there is a difference between immigration and invasion."

Reed said the city did not seek community input because officials "knew there would be pushback."

"They knew if they had gone through the correct channels or the proper channels that [it] probably never would've opened," he added. "Anytime somebody makes a decision like that in the dark, it's rarely the correct decision to make."

The school has implemented several safety measures to protect students, including video surveillance and a "system of dads" or "Dad Days," Reed told IW Features.

"I've asked them [parents], 'Can you just come out here while school's going on and just keep an eye down the street?' And what happens is if we do see somebody, just the dad standing there causes the other people to just cross the street and avoid us," Reed said, referring to Dad Days.

Andrea Mew, IWF features manager, told the Daily Caller News Foundation, "Brooklyn sits thousands of miles away from the southern border, and yet, mothers like Irina have been blindsided by an unprecedented border crisis in their own backyards."

"After Irina showed us the fallout of migrant shelters opening within a thousand feet of her children's elementary school and explained the utter lack of transparency from city leaders, we knew it was of utmost importance to document the adverse impacts on her community," Mew added.

The New York City Mayor's Office of Migrant Affairs did not respond to a request for comment from the DCNF.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!