Mount Pleasant sued for blocking migrant children

UPDATE: This story has been revised with details from a subsequent, related lawsuit.

The Town of Mount Pleasant is illegally blocking Pleasantville Cottage School from serving migrant children who are unaccompanied by parents or guardians and who have no legal status in the U.S., a child care organization claims.

Jewish Child Care Association accused the town and Supervisor Carl Fulgenzi of violating its civil rights, in a complaint filed on April 4 in U.S. District Court in White Plains.

JCCA claims that the town created a “sham emergency” and gave Fulgenzi unilateral power to thwart the organization’s plans to shelter, feed and educate the children.

Fulgenzi did not reply to an email that asked for his side of the story.

But eight days after JCCA sued the town, Mount Pleasant filed an action in Westchester Supreme Court accusing the organization of trying to open an illegal shelter.

The town says the property is zoned for single family residences and shelters are not permitted.

The complaint also argues that the school’s administration is unable to handle dangerous situations on and off campus by children with severe psychological and emotional conditions.

There have been numerous emergency calls about runaways, multiple incidents of fire setting, allegations of sexual assault, and neighborhood reports of robberies and burglaries and other crimes, according to the town.

In 2022, for instance, a disturbed student allegedly entered a residential backyard, stole a chicken, and bit off its head while walking down the middle of the street.

JCCA describes itself in its complaint as a Brooklyn-based child welfare and mental health services organization that serves needy and vulnerable families. Pleasantville Cottage School, established in 1912, is a residential treatment program for boys and girls from 7 to 15 who are emotionally troubled.

Last year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded JCCA contracts to house and school up to 24 children on the Pleasantville campus.

The first children were to be accepted on April 8.

Last May, Fulgenzi declared a state of emergency. He cited New York City’s status as a sanctuary city, according to the complaint, and the arrival of thousands of asylum seekers “from the Southern border.”

Mount Pleasant is unable to receive and sustain an influx of migrants, the emergency declaration states, “whose presence will spike the number of people in need of government services and stress other services that require expenditure of local tax dollars.”

The declaration also states that there is no reason to believe that the migrants will leave after New York City stops paying for their housing and services.

Last year, Fulgenzi issued an executive order directing housing facilities not to accept migrants unless they had a service agreement between New York City and Mount Pleasant.

Another executive order authorized all town personnel, such as police and code enforcement officers, to put into effect the state of emergency.

An emergency order barred everyone who does business in Mount Pleasant from making contracts to transport migrants to the town without Fulgenzi’s permission.

Property owners may not provide housing for migrants unless they have been granted a license, according to the complaint, at the discretion of Fulgenzi and the town board. Anyone violating the order could be fined $2,000 a day per migrant.

There is no emergency, according to JCCA. New York City was not sending asylum seekers to Mount Pleasant, and the services were to be covered by the federal government.

JCCA also claims that Fulgenzi has expressed animus toward the organization and migrants. Last year, for instance, he allegedly called for the closing of Pleasantville Cottage School, and his campaign platform for re-election included stopping JCCA from housing unaccompanied migrant children.

In 2019, the complaint states, Fulgenzi posted on Facebook that “European Christians built this nation. They came to take part in the American dream. They didn’t come to bitch, collect welfare, wage jihad, and replace the American constitution with Sharia Law.”

On March 27, JCCA notified Fulgenzi that it had been alerted by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement to be prepared to start accepting children on the Pleasantville campus.

Fulgenzi allegedly replied that any attempts to house the children would be a violation of the State of Emergency and his orders.

By blocking the travel of children to the Pleasantville campus, interfering with federal contracts, basing actions on race or nationality or immigration status, JCCA claims, Fulgenzi and the town are violating constitutional rights of due process and equal protection.

JCCA is asking the court to declare that the rights of the organization and the children have been violated, and to stop the town from interfering with the children’s travel to and within Mount Pleasant.

Mount Pleasant claims that the emergency declaration and orders are not the subject of its lawsuit. Rather, it is seeking a declaration that the operation of a shelter on the property is illegal under the zoning code and that a shelter would be a public nuisance.

JCCA’s CEO, Ronald Richter, countered in a court filing that it is “irrefutable that the town has a long-standing history of approving and permitting use of its residential campus to house children.”

He argued that the timing of the lawsuit, eight days after JCCA sued Mount Pleasant, demonstrates retaliation for filing a federal complaint.

JCCA is represented by attorneys Benjamin R. Allee and Cassandra M. Vogel of Yankwitt LLP, White Plains.

Mount Pleasant is represented by White Plains attorneys Darius P. Chafizadeh and Christopher H. Feldman of Harris Beach PLLC.