Grown & still flown
‘Not just kids’ on NY migrant flights
The White House is putting grown men on flights to suburban New York that resettle migrant kids under cover of night, GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob Astorino claimed Wednesday.
Astorino — who is looking to unseat Democratic Gov. Hochul this fall — told reporters at Stewart International Airport that one migrant, now 21, was recently placed into the junior class at Westlake HS in Westchester County as a 20year-old.
“I mean, by any definition, that is an adult,” Astorino said.
“It is not just the little kids with backpacks being reunited, reunified with their families,” the former Westchester County executive added. He said, we’re “seeing many teenage boys, late teens, early 20s, who are single adult men, who are getting off these flights.”
Unaccompanied men are most often turned away by border authorities, as they are more likely to be deemed economic migrants rather than legitimate asylum claimants.
‘Burden local schools’
The Department of Health and Human Services told The Post in April that its Office of Refugee Resettlement “only cares for unaccompanied children 17 years of age and younger.”
The existence of migrant flights to Westchester airports was exclusively reported by The Post last October. They were briefly suspended following the exposé, but have since resumed.
On Wednesday, Astorino cited two recent flights for which he said taxpayers are “paying the bill.”
The first, Flight 9446, arrived at Stewart Airport at 10:59 p.m. May 19 while the second, Fight 9462, landed at 12:13 a.m. May 22. Both flights came from Jacksonville, Fla., after originating in El Paso, Texas.
“This is happening frequently,” Astorino said, adding that a third flight landed in Westchester around 11 p.m. Tuesday.
After the migrants land, they are enrolled in local schools, where Astorino charged they take resources away from other students.
“I know other superintendents — all of whom are afraid to speak out — but they get a list of students that are entering their school district, all of whom are noncitizens, none of whom speak English, and all of whom require services, free lunch and meals [and are] required to have teachers that are taking away from the students of those districts,” he claimed.
Astorino claimed the migrant children have been bused to districts in the five boroughs, the Hudson Valley, Long Island, Albany, Connecticut and New Jersey.
He called the Biden administration’s response to the influx “a complete mockery of our laws.”
HHS did not immediately respond to The Post’s inquiry regarding Astorino’s claim.