During CNN’s coverage of its town hall with 2024 Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, CNN Correspondent Tom Foreman said that it was “at very least, misleading” for DeSantis to say New York closed a school, told children not to go to school, and “commandeered the school” to house illegal immigrants because the school was only closed to children for one day and the arrangement wasn’t permanent.
Foreman said, “A few days ago, something else happened in New York that seems to be a gift to many people on the conservative right. What they saw was what they thought was a case of liberals catering to undocumented immigrants.”
He then played video of DeSantis saying, “New York City had to close a school. You literally have kids told, don’t go to school, because they commandeered the school to be able to house illegal aliens. Talk about putting the American people last.”
Foreman then stated, “Well, that sounds like a pretty explosive claim. But here’s what happened: Last week, as a big storm approached, they had a camp of undocumented immigrants, a couple thousand of them, living in tents. They were worried about the impact of the storm. So, they moved them into a school, and they had the students study from home for one day. Yes, this made a lot of parents angry, people complained about it. But the next day, the immigrants were back in the tents and the students were back in the classroom. For him to imply somehow that the school was taken over and this was some sort of permanent situation, is, at very least, misleading.”
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