As public school students prepare for the first day of the new school year, elected officials and advocates are calling on the city to suspend a migrant-related policy they believe is detrimental to students' development and their ability to learn.

On Wednesday, dozens of demonstrators and lawmakers voiced their opposition to the Adams administration’s policy of evicting recently arrived migrants from city shelters after 30 days for single adults and 60 days for families.

What You Need To Know

  • Dozens of demonstrators and lawmakers voiced their opposition to the Adams administration’s policy of evicting recently arrived migrants from city shelters after 30 days for single adults and 60 days for families

  • Some elected officials and advocates are calling on the city to suspend the policy, which they say is detrimental to students development and their ability to learn

  • City data shows that 87% of families with children who received shelter evictions left the communities where their child’s school was located

“This evicting 30, 60 days are taking children out of school, are placing them far, far away from their school system,” Public Advocate Jumaane Williams said. "That destabilizes them. It destabilizes the city.”

The rally took place the day before the first day of classes for hundreds of thousands of public school students. Among them are thousands of migrant children who are just adjusting to life in a new country.

“Children are also experiencing the stress and the trauma of losing their housing every sixty days, which can make it very difficult to concentrate on learning,” said Randi Levine, policy director for Advocates for Children of New York.

“They kept moving me around,” Michelle Ferreria said. “I went to seven different shelters, my kids went to seven different schools.”

Ferreria said that was just in one year when she and her four children lived in the city’s shelter system. Unlike recently arrived migrants, they weren't even subject to the mayor's limits for migrants in shelters.

She added she’s grateful her children are now healthy adults, given everything they went through in their youth.

“Their grades went down because they were depressed,” she said. “They had to keep making new friends. They were sometimes being bullied.”

Advocates like Ferreria, who currently works as a community partner for the nonprofit Housing Works by helping people find stable housing, worry that thousands of migrant children are experiencing what her children endured — or worse.

“As of Aug. 18, a total of 12,689 families with children, those households have been given 60-day notices, including 18,348 children under 18,” New York City Comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander said.

He said city data also shows that 87% of families with children who received shelter evictions left the communities where their child’s school was located.

“We’re seeing children that instead of being in school unfortunately are in train stations working with their parents, walking with their parents throughout the day,” City Councilmember Carmen De La Rosa said.

NY1 reached out to City Hall regarding the demands by demonstrators.

City Hall has previously said shelter limits will help migrants become independent and reduce the significant strain on the city's shelter system. Exceptions to the policy include mothers with newborn babies.

Wednesday's demonstration also follows the city extending its 60-day shelter stay limit for migrant families to additional shelters, which was previously only applied to migrant families staying in large shelters run by the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.