Parents infuriated as migrants enroll in Chicago schools without health records after years of COVID rules
Jennifer Preston says policies 'inconsistent' with what is required for residents' children
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Chicago-area parents are voicing their outrage over public schools allowing migrant children to enroll without health documentation, as cities across the U.S. are dealing with an influx of migrants into their communities.
Mother Jennifer Preston joined "Fox & Friends First" on Thursday to discuss the hypocrisy of requiring vaccination records from residents, while migrants are allowed to enroll without such documents.
"Right now in the school district in which we live we have to provide residency, citizenship, health records and vaccination records on an almost annual basis. I have a child right now, and I must have five emails in my inbox stating that my child cannot return to school next year without a specific vaccine. So it's certainly inconsistent with what they're allowing for the migrant children coming into the Chicago public schools."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Incoming Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson warns against "demonizing" the youths who caused chaos in downtown Chicago during the "teen takeover." (NBC Chicago)
According to Fox 32, around 40 to 50 migrant children were expected to enroll at one elementary school in the Little Village area and up to a dozen would go to a nearby high school for the final weeks of the school year.
The city's sanctuary policies toward migrants has prompted outrage from residents, which boiled over at a recent meeting about a college being used as temporary housing for migrants.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"You can be compassionate, but you can't be foolish," one resident said.
"We are inviting in everyone like a magnet, ‘Everyone come here, collect all your freebies. We are going to give it to you.' Every sucker in here is going to pay for it," another resident said.
Preston said she lives in the suburbs, so although this doesn't impact her school now, it is only a "matter of minutes" until it does.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}While compassionate for these children, Preston said, "I would expect that they would be coming here legally and be bound to the same guidelines and principles and laws that all of our own children as taxpaying citizens are."
She said there is a "major inconsistency" after years of coronavirus restrictions in schools to now allow migrant children in schools without proper documentation.
Preston rejected that Southern governors are supporting "racist, xenophobic policies" by addressing the border crisis and said she found this "very offensive" and believes there should be "law and order."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We had so many restrictions and policies in place a few years ago to the far, far extreme. And I'm not suggesting we go back there at all, but there must be something consistent with what we are making our taxpaying U.S. citizens and residents do that is consistent with bringing in migrants," Preston said.