New York City officials expect at least 1,000 children from asylum-seeking families to enter the school system this fall, as the city struggles to find solutions to wave after wave of migrants being bussed in from Texas.
City leaders announced "Operation Open Arms" on Friday, an effort to expedite the process of getting those kids into schools, and assist with needs like transportation, food and clothing.
A month ago, Mayor Eric Adams put migrant issue front and center, issuing a statement saying the city was being overwhelmed and needed federal aid. After a sharp war of words between Adams and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, Texas began bussing migrants directly to New York City earlier this month, with sometimes hundreds coming a day.
The city has already acknowledged that on two nights, it violated the law by not placing a total of five migrant families in shelters by a mandatory deadline, and instead keeping them at PATH, the city's shelter intake center in the Bronx.
Get Tri-state area news delivered to your inbox.> Sign up for NBC New York's News Headlines newsletter.
The NYC Department of Investigation is now probing an alleged cover-up of those violations at PATH, and the Legal Aid Society, which represents people in the shelters, has raised the prospect of a suit to preserve its clients' rights.
As News 4 reported this week, in some cases, migrant families are being told they're ineligible for services because they can't provide paperwork that they say doesn't exist.
