Migrants, Asylees, and Refugees: Understanding Efforts to Integrate Newcomers into New York City Schools

• In Event: Migrants, Asylees, and Refugees: Efforts and Responses to Welcoming Newcomers to New York City Schools

Proposal

According to recent news reports, 210,000 migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees have arrived in New York City and its surroundings since 2022 (Ferré-Sadurní NYT, August 2024). Notably the New York City public school system absorbed 19,000 new arrivals in September 2023, mainly migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees from Venezuela, but also from elsewhere in Latin America as well as Africa and Asia. Upon arrival, newcomers are confronted with a crisis in New York City (NYC) responses, including for example, conflicting and unclear mandates among city agencies, abrupt and confusing housing policy changes by the NYC mayor’s office, and limited resources within already struggling schools. Hostile attitudes toward migrants and elite efforts to mobilize political opposition further complicate these circumstances.

This paper examines the data surrounding recent arrivals in New York City, investigating the circumstances that face them as they try to find housing, schools, and other services. We review the programs that the city and nonprofit organizations have sponsored to support integration, and how these efforts compare to common approaches to integration in low- and middle-income countries. We explore how newcomers, including newly arrived immigrants, asylum-seekers, and resettled refugees, are integrated into life and the education system in the New York region.

Although NYC public schools welcome all students regardless of their status (citizen or non-citizen), challenges persist in orchestrating effective ways to both enroll and maintain enrollment of asylum-seeking and refugee children. Insufficient staffing, “inexperienced” shelter operators, and gaps in language access result in families waiting weeks for placements or seats to open up (Elsen-Rooney 2023). Accessing information within shelters is particularly concerning. Families cite receiving “virtually no information” regarding NYC public school enrollment which is further exacerbated by long periods of waiting (Elsen-Rooney 2023). When families miss deadlines to enroll in school, parents often opt to bring their children to work with them since child care is expensive (Vaca 2024). Although NYC offers free pre-K for students (starting at age 3), applicants are often waitlisted or rejected, and therefore must resort to the latter practice, or may opt for low-quality schools, further away from home (Vaca 2024). Despite these obstacles, the NYC mayor introduced a budget cut of $547 million for NYC public schools, around the same time that the city saw its first increase in public school attendance in eight years, specifically due to the influx of migrants (Fitzsimmons, 2023). The mayor cited the migrant crisis as his rationale for slashing funds.

In the midst of these challenges, many governmental and non-governmental agencies are striving to ensure equal access to quality education. Yet despite the potential which lies in harnessing NGO and public school/government program partnerships there exists a disconnect between the two systems. Examining refugee inclusion in high-income cities provides important insights into both the context of existing data on these questions from low-income settings (see Burde et al. 2023) as well as into common political tactics that support or undermine efforts to include newcomers.

Authors

• Dana Burde, New York University

• Sofia Antonia Gomez-Doyle, New York University

• Mohammad Jawed Nazari, New York University