NYC NOW - Midday News: Cost of Private Special Education in NYC Hits Record High, Police Investigate Central Park Death, and NYC Prepares for Trump’s Deportation Plans

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

The cost of private school tuition and services for students with disabilities in New York City has reached a record high. Meanwhile, police are investigating after finding a man dead in Central Park Wednesday night. No arrests have been made. Plus, President-elect Donald Trump is promising to deport millions of undocumented immigrants in his first days in office. WNYC’s Arya Sundaram reports on how New York City officials and local communities are preparing.

Welcome to NYC now, your source for local news in and around New York City from WMYC. It's Thursday, January 16th. Here's the midday news from Veronica Del Valle. The costs in New York City of paying private school tuition and services for students with disabilities continues to surge, reaching a new record. WNRC's Jessica Gould reports. The city spent 1.3.3. billion dollars last year on private school tuition and services for students with disabilities. Both parents and education officials have criticized the cost, saying it would be better if those

kids could be served within the public schools. The Adams administration says it's working on that by adding programs for dyslexia and autism, among others. But demand for these services outstripped supply, and parents often sue the education department for reimbursement if they feel the public schools can't give their kids the services they need. Officials say last year's total was extra high because they've been complying with orders from the federal government and courts to clear a backlog of cases going back many years. Police are investigating after they found a man dead in Central Park last night. NYPD officials say a passerby spotted the man lying near 72nd Street and East Drive, not far from the Central Park Summer Stage area just by.

47. Police say officers attempted life-saving measures and called emergency medical service workers who pronounced the man dead at the scene. According to officials, he appeared to be about 27 years old and had no obvious physical injuries. His identity has not been released. No arrests have been made. Stay close. There's more after the break. On WNYC, I'm Sean Carlson. We're just days away from Donald Trump's return to the White House. And the president-elect is promising a flurry of action in his first days back in office, including a deportation operation with few parallels in U.S. history. Here's the president-elect border czar, Tom Homan, describing the incoming administration's approach to migration policy on Donald Trump Jr's triggered podcast. I got three words for him.

Doc and all. I love it. You're going to see a thick this country back. So how are local officials and communities of undocumented immigrants preparing? WDMIC's Arias Sundaram has been reporting on the city's migrant populations. He joins us now. So, Ari, with the caveat that we don't know the exact contours of the president-elect's immigration policy, can you just tell us how local elected officials are preparing for the mass deportations that Trump's team is promising? So with regards to immigration and Trump 2.0, there's a pretty stark divide between Mayor Adams' rhetoric and his administration's actual policy on this issue.

So Mayor Adams has said that he's aligned with Trump's advisors. so far that he wants to loosen the city sanctuary laws. But meanwhile, behind the scenes, his staffers are sending out reminders to staff to follow the sanctuary laws and hosting trainings. So, for example, late last year, City Hall sent an email to all agency heads and agency attorneys reminding them that they have to follow these rules and what they are. You know, the main ones being city resources and time cannot be spent on immigration enforcement. And if agencies are approached by immigration officers for help, they have to track that. You know, the city is also going to be hosting training sessions for staff on these laws. The guidance also said that agencies should make their

own policies about how to handle immigration enforcement officials if they don't already have them, and at a very minimum, make sure that their employees know the law. Now, folks may remember that Mayor Adams met with Fort Rezart Tom Homan. He's called for several changes to city law that are intended to make New York City less habitable for recently arrived migrants, things like rolling back the city's sanctuary laws. How close are we expecting the city's departments to work with federal immigration officers. Right now, not much at all. I mean, it's full force ahead. Like I said, with the laws as they are. The city isn't supposed to spend any money, you know, any resources helping with immigration enforcement. And money is time, right? So that includes employees' time as

well. And where we may see some movement, though, is on the city's detainer rules. What are those? So the federal government, including ICE, gets notified when someone is arrested and fingerprinted for a crime. And ICE will often make a request that the police hold an arrested person in jail for longer than normal so that ICE can detain them and maybe deport them. And that's what's called an immigration detainer. But under the city sanctuary rules, the NYPD, for the most part, can't do so, unless the person has been convicted of one of about 170 some crimes. Mayor Adams, however, wants to loosen these rules, make it easier for ICE and NYPD to coordinate. He said he's looking into an executive order to do so. He suggested he wants to expand the number of crime convictions, that

list of 170 that I mentioned for when ICE and the NYPD can coordinate. He's also suggested that there should be cooperation in cases not just where immigrants are convicted of crimes, but also accused. You know, that's raised alarm, meanwhile, from advocates who are saying this is a clear violation of people's constitutional right to due process. At the end of the day, it's unclear what he can really do, especially without buy-in from the city council who made these laws in the first place and don't really seem interested in changing them at this moment. Yeah. What about local immigrant communities. Have you heard anything from them about how concerned they are about hearing from the incoming administration? There's just a lot of fear and uncertainty right now.

You know, immigration lawyers are getting flooded with requests for help on what to do. One group told me that the call volume to their immigration legal hotline has more than doubled since this time last year. Immigration groups are also getting a record number of requests for something called know your rights trainings. And these are sessions where undocumented folks can learn what to do when they're approached by ICE officers. And at one of those recent sessions in Sunset Park, I spoke to a man named Johnny from Ecuador, who's been here for about three years.

He didn't want us to share his last name because he was worried about jeopardizing his immigration case. With an uncertainty of knowing what's going to happen, what's going to happen. He said he's anxious about what's going to happen, especially with his family. And this is what I've been hearing time and time again from undocumented folks

and their advocates from across the city. What about schools in the city? We know that thousands of undocumented students are currently enrolled in New York City schools. What are teachers supposed to do? Like, say, an ICE officer shows up? Well, there's actually a law for that. Back in 2017, the city council actually came up with a law

under Trump's first term of what needs to happen. So immigration officers are prohibited from entering private government property, so places that are normally off limits to the public, like schools, for example. And there's actually a policy in place about what should happen if an ICE officer actually does show up at a school. So if that happens, the security guard's supposed to alert the principal who's supposed to get assistance on what to do

from the agency's legal counsel as well. Apparently, this happening, though, is all pretty extremely rare, actually, according to the agency, if this has even happened at all. But meanwhile, DOE is trying to be really proactive about it is letting principals know, giving them reminders about this law, having trainings about what to do, hosting know-your-right session for parents and info sessions for school administrators and staff to learn the right of their immigrant students too. Okay. That's WMIC's Aria Sundaram. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WMYC.

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