Immigrant-ARC, Council Member Shahana Hanif Urge City to Fully Fund Legal Services for Immigrant New Yorkers

NEW YORK, NY (04/20/2022) (readMedia)-- On Wednesday, Immigrant-ARC and NYC Council Immigration Chair Shahana Hanif urged New York City lawmakers to fully fund legal services for immigrant New Yorkers. Joined by Cartholic Charities, Legal Aid Society, Urban Justice Center and CALA, the legal service providers called on lawmakers to increase funding in order to address the growing migration crisis.

WATCH PRESSER HERE.

Immigrant-ARC recently polled its over 80 statewide members, all of whom are legal service providers, and the reality is that no one has capacity to meet the pressing needs of the latest crisis driven by families fleeing Ukraine.

While the war in Ukraine has turned the attention of lawmakers back to the state of our nation's immigration systems, there are already Afghan, Cameroonian and Haitian communities in New York who hope to receive the help they were promised by the Biden administration – and that's on top of the backlog in immigration courts created by closures during the pandemic, increased enforcement during the Trump presidency.

The group urged lawmakers to increase funding for immigration legal services from $23.2 million to $26.6 million. This includes an increase to $4 million for the Immigrant Opportunities Initiative, as well as $18 million for the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) and $4.5 million for the Immigrant Children Advocates Response Effort (ICARE).

"New York has long been a national leader in funding immigration service providers. But the backlog in immigration courts created by pandemic-related closures, the increased enforcement of the Trump years, and the needs created by new migration crises around the world cannot be addressed without a significant increase for immigration legal services If we want to live up to the beacon of hope we imagine New York to be, we have to start putting our money where our mouth is and properly fund legal services," said Camille Mackler, founder and Executive Director of I-ARC.

"After years of underinvestment and outright sabotage from the Trump administration, our nation's immigration system is stretched thin. However, urgent crises from Ukraine to Cameroon have continued and refugees still need our help," said Council Member Shahana Hanif. "I'm proud to stand with Immigrant-ARC's demand for increased funding for immigration legal services to ensure people fleeing war can get the help they need. We must ensure every refugee, regardless of their race or country of origin, is treated with dignity and care. New York is a city built by immigrants and people searching for a better life, it is our moral obligation to always reach out a helping hand."

"Our clients and all non-citizens navigating the immigration system in New York City deserve access to quality legal services so they can fight against their deportation and secure status," said Hasan Shafiqullah, Attorney-in-Charge of the Immigration Law Unit at The Legal Aid Society. "Lawmakers must adequately fund legal service providers to help families stay together, and we urge the City Council to increase the budget for NYIFUP, ICARE, and the Immigrant Opportunities Initiative."

"EOIR's decision to fast-track recently-arrived asylum-seekers' cases combined with the existing backlog of long-pending asylum cases rescheduled due to COVID-19-related court closures have left New York's legal service providers struggling to meet the need for representation of immigrant New Yorkers in removal proceedings," said Michelle Martinez, supervising staff attorney at Central American Legal Assistance.

"Unlike in criminal court, immigrants facing deportation are not appointed free or low-cost lawyers. As a result, many navigate the removal process without counsel, while others become vulnerable to exploitation and fraud. While EOIR-funded legal access programs go a long way in orienting these recently arrived families, these programs cannot represent immigrants in their cases, and do not do anything to solve the general lack of due process, and a lack of reliable legal representation for those who most need it. Existing nonprofits simply do not have the capacity to represent everyone they encounter who needs assistance. Additional funding to represent immigrants in removal proceedings is necessary to ensure fairness for New Yorkers in danger of deportation," said Lauren Wyatt, managing attorney for Catholic Charities New York.

"New York has always been a city of immigrants, and we have led the way in providing many critical immigrant legal services, such as New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, a first-in-the-nation program ensuring access to counsel for detained New Yorkers in immigration removal proceedings," said Tracy Lawson, Attorney-in-Charge of the Immigration Community Action Project (ICAP) at Brooklyn Defender Services. "IOI funding has expanded our capacity to represent immigrants caught in the criminal and family legal systems. Increased immigration enforcement and the unprecedented court backlog has stretched resources thin, making funding for additional immigrant legal services more urgent than ever. We implore the City Council to affirm its commitment to immigrant New Yorkers by supporting an increase in legal services funding so our neighbors can live safely and freely in our city."

About I-ARC

Immigrant ARC is a collaborative of over 80 organizations and professional associations providing legal services to New York's immigrant communities throughout the State. Born out of the legal effort at JFK Airport during the Muslim Travel Ban in 2017, our mission is clear: to mobilize New York State's legal service providers by facilitating communication and information sharing to better support our immigrant communities; to organize and respond to issues as they arise by coordinating resources and fostering best practices among providers; and to resist and challenge anti-immigrant policies by shining a light on injustices and confronting inequalities faced by our communities in the legal system.