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  • 600 children would lose child care with end of free NYC program for undocumented families

    May 18, 2023

    Preschoolers’ jackets and boots or shoes are lined up in their cubbies. Mayor Eric Adams has proposed cutting a pilot program that has provided free child care to 600 undocumented immigrant children this year.
    Beau Lark/Corbis/VCG/Getty Images)

    05.18.2023 | Chalkbeat NY | “That is the exact problem that Promise NYC was trying to resolve,” said Betty Baez Melo, director of the Early Childhood Education Project at Advocates for Children New York. 

    Three and 4-year-old children can attend many of the city’s free preschool programs, regardless of immigration status. But there are some programs within the city’s sprawling system, run through centers and by organizations outside of brick-and-mortar school buildings, that require children to be legal residents, including those that offer care past 3 p.m., advocates pointed out. Read article