Pupils stay home

TENS OF THOUSANDS of students skipped school, and restaurants citywide shut down Thursday to support America’s immigrants — and to take a poke at President Trump.

The protests, including a walkout by students at Brooklyn’s Park Slope High School, were a grass-roots reaction to the Trump administration’s recent crackdown on immigrants both legal and illegal.

Mirna Aparacio, who came to New York from Mexico 16 years ago, kept her two sons — ages 5 and 15 — home from school to mark the national event dubbed “A Day Without Immigrants.”

“It’s a way to have the President hear us, and that we are here to work, and we are here for a better future,” said Aparacio, 36, of the Bronx. “It’s a moment for us to be united now.”

The food service industry offered widespread support for the cause, from sandwich shops in lower Manhattan to a Mexican restaurant in the South Bronx to celebrity chef Mario Batali’s Eataly NYC Flatiron.

The vegetarian Le Verdure in Eataly was shuttered while staff from other restaurants scrambled to cover for their missing colleagues.

“We are a company made by immigrants,” explained Dino Borri, 37, Eataly vice president of purchasing — and a 2011 immigrant from Italy.

“We say, ‘We support you totally.’ Sometimes people are talking to me bad about the immigrants — but I’m an immigrant.”

Immigrants make up as much as 70% of restaurant workers in New York, according to the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United.

Organizers of the protest said the absence of the immigrants at work and school was meant to illustrate their importance in America’s day-to-day operations.

City Education Department officials showed 60,000 more student absences than on a typical Thursday. Officials couldn’t say how many stayed home as part of the event, but it was a one-day drop of almost 6%.

Officials said just 13.4% of the 457 students at the Bronx Pan American International School showed up. The school has a high percentage of immigrant students.

Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña sent letters to parents on Jan. 31 assuring them the city would only provide information to federal immigration officials as mandated by law.

For the businesses that closed on Thursday, making a statement meant losing some profits.

Dough Donuts closed its three Manhattan locations, with a sign on the door explaining the move: “As immigrant business owners, we proudly stand in solidarity.”

“Good for them!” said a 77-year-old customer named Louise outside the store at 19th St. and Fifth Ave. “I’ll do without my doughnut for today. All my entire family are immigrants. That’s what makes this country worth living in. Can you tell me what’s so special about white bread?”

A handmade banner hung outside the family-owned LaMorado restaurant in the South Bronx delivered a bilingual blast at Trump: “No Mas Deportacion/Not One More Deportation.”

Trump has famously vowed to build a wall along the Mexican border, ramp up deportations and slash access to the U.S. for immigrants.

At Batali’s renowned Eataly outlet, service was unapologetically slower with a staff thinned out by protesting employees.

Tourist Brin Miller, 24, of Virginia, offered her support for the workers.

“This country would be completely different without immigrants,” she said. “We would not be here. Every one of us except Native Americans are immigrants.”

She noted that the arc of her