A former New York teacher criticized Mayor Eric Adams after she was fired over her vaccination status, calling the move “personal” as the city lays off school employees en masse due to the COVID-19 mandate. Rachel Garcia, who taught in Brooklyn for 15 years, joined “Fox & Friends First” on Tuesday amid reports that nearly 2,000 school employees have lost their jobs because of their tenure. Garcia was let go after her request for a religious exemption was denied. “He’s not running the city like he should,” Garcia told co-host Carley Shimkus. “So why isn’t Eric doing his job? Why isn’t he letting city workers go back to work? You have teachers willing to go back to work, firefighters, so many city workers are greatly affected by this.” New York City Mayor Eric Adams speaks during a news conference at City Hall in New York, U.S., January 24, 2022. (REUTERS/Brendan McDermid) New York City Penalizes Dozens of Educators for ‘Fraudulent’ Proof of Immunization “People are becoming homeless,” he continued. “Why are you holding this? It’s like, you have a personal vendetta against us? Because we chose, we made our decision… What’s the problem at this point? And it seems personal.” Garcia’s comments come after the president declared that “the pandemic is over” during an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes” over the weekend. “The pandemic is over,” Biden said during the interview. “We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still doing a lot of work on it.” CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP However, New York still requires the vaccine for city workers. “It affected my family a lot psychologically, emotionally,” Garcia said. “My career was taken away. I went to school for it. I studied for it. It wasn’t just given to me, the way it was taken from me, it was cruel. It was cruel.” “I have two young children, as you said earlier,” she continued. “And my husband … had to take on that burden to work hard and try to maintain, try to bring in two salaries, which is pretty impressively impossible to live in New York.” Bailee Hill is an associate editor with Fox News Digital.
