NEW YORK – Long Island schools and others are bracing for a second wave of unaccompanied immigrant minors who are expected to flood into the U.S. this year, and to areas with high immigrant populations.



The Migration Policy Institute told Newsday it’s expecting about 39,000 unaccompanied minors, as well as numerous immigrant children traveling with their parents, to make their way into the United States illegally from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador this year.

About 12,065 illegal minor immigrants have come so far this fiscal year, according to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, and about 620 of them were placed with relatives or sponsors in New York City and Long Island, Newsday reports.

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“They are coming from similar communities and are headed to similar communities” as the 50,000-plus immigrant children who came to the U.S. last year, said Marc Rosenblum, deputy director of the Migration Policy Institute’s U.S. Immigration Policy Program.

About 3,000 of the immigrant children who came to the U.S. in the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2014 ended up on Long Island, “making the region one of the top places in the nation to receive the children,” according to Newsday.

“The local impact is that whatever challenges school districts and local health care systems are under already are likely to increase,” said Rosenblum, who authored a report on the problems this month.

The influx of illegal immigrant students in Long Island schools and other districts across the country has put a serious squeeze on school budgets as officials scramble to educate a largely non-English speaking population. In some cases, immigration advocates allege school officials have turned students away.

The Hempstead school district, for one, is under investigation by the state attorney general’s office and the state department of education for that reason. Roger Tilles, who represents Long Island on the state Board of Regents, told Newsday he’s “very concerned” about what a second wave of immigrant kids will mean for local schools.

“It’s a bind not just for the schools, but it’s a bind for the kids that are already in the schools, because with a limit to what a school can raise on property tax caps and increased students … there’s no place to go, except take away from existing programs,” he said.

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Central Islip school board president Norman Wagner said last year’s immigration surge took the district by surprise, but he believes it’s the federal government’s responsibility to provide extra funds to help educate the students it’s sending to Long Island.

“We will educate every child,” Wagner said in a statement. “However, unannounced placements of students by the federal government must be funded by the agency which placed these students.”

Others believe lawmakers should do more than throw money at the problem.

“Unless the federal government dramatically changes its policies on how they deal with the new arrivals, we can expect to see almost the same number of new arrivals as we did last year, because there’s no reason for them to stay,” said Jessica Vaughan, policy studies director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

The Center for Immigration Studies and other groups want stricter border enforcement, but it appears lawmakers are more comfortable with a money solution.

“Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) said Wednesday that he and Rep. Steve Israel (D-Huntington) will reintroduce a proposal to send emergency funding to school districts that are receiving the young immigrants. The two co-sponsored a bill that stalled last year,” Newsday reports.

So far, however, federal funding to educate immigrant children shipped by the federal government to minority communities across the country has been minimal, and the situation is unlikely to improve.

“Advocacy groups said little has been done to help communities that have received the children,” according to Newsday.

“A recent $14 million federal grant for education costs would be a drop in the bucket, they said, when divided among affected schools across many states. With the arrival of more unaccompanied minors, nonprofits also may run out of grant funds to provide legal representation and support services.”