Brooklyn’s Border Crisis: Immigrant Mother Exposes Male Migrant Shelter Opening Steps From Children’s School in Exclusive IW Features Documentary
BROOKLYN, NY — Independent Women’s Forum (IWF) today announced its latest exclusive documentary for IW Features, titled “Brooklyn’s Border Crisis: Male Migrant Shelter Opens Steps From a Children’s School.” The documentary brings to life the story of Irina Edelstein, an immigrant and mother of three, and school principal Jeffrey Reed, who are speaking out to expose Brooklyn’s callous coverup of its plan to house hundreds of undocumented men just steps away from a children’s K-12 school—a dangerous reality of the unprecedented border crisis.
Edelstein and her husband bought a home in a presumably safe Brooklyn neighborhood with the intention of living close to a good school for their children. So Edelstein was blindsided when, in April 2024, city officials gave residents a two-month notice that they would be opening a 400-bed all-male shelter just steps away from their children’s school.
Beyond its flagrant disregard for meaningful input from local community members, to open the shelter, the City allegedly bypassed public health protocols for environmental testing and violated zoning and building codes.
“We wanted to know when is going to happen, what are the logistics, what are the safety measures? We were not given any transparency,” Jeffrey Reed tells IW Features in the documentary. “They knew there would be pushback, and they knew if they had gone through the correct channels or the proper channels, that probably never would’ve opened.”
“I didn’t know about the shelter until two months before that meeting,” Irina Edelstein tells IW Features in the documentary. “And it had been in the works for almost a year.”
“I think as an immigrant, I get it,” Edelstein added. “I am not against immigration, and I think many of these people who are here legally, they will make a life for themselves; they will be positive, good contributors to this country. However, there is a difference between immigration and invasion.”
IW Features Manager and producer of the documentary, Andrea Mew, said, “Brooklyn sits thousands of miles away from the southern border, and yet, mothers like Irina have been blindsided by an unprecedented border crisis in their own backyards. After Irina showed us the fallout of migrant shelters opening within a thousand feet of her children’s elementary school and explained the utter lack of transparency from city leaders, we knew it was of utmost importance to document the adverse impacts on her community. Irina, coming from a place of compassion as an immigrant herself, speaks to the truth that blurred boundaries pose immense safety threats –– but they certainly don’t break a mother’s resolve.”
Watch “Brooklyn’s Border Crisis: Male Migrant Shelter Opens Steps From a Children’s School” HERE.
Direct media inquiries and booking requests to [email protected].
###
Independent Women’s Forum is dedicated to developing and advancing policies that aren’t just well intended, but actually enhance people’s freedom, choices, and opportunities.
