City’s immigrant services under microscope in Immigration Committee hearing

he City Council’s Committee on Immigration, chaired by Council Member Kendall Stewart, held a hearing last week to examine how New York City is doing in providing services to its 3.2 million immigrant residents. Referring to the $2.8 million the council designated for the Immigrants Opportunity Initiative to provide language proficiency training, legal services and immigrant worker legal services, Stewart commented, "It seems that not enough is being done to implement new programs and laws meant to protect immigrants. We want to know what is being put in place and how."

The hearing began with Suzanne Lynn, Deputy Commissioner for Community Development of the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD). Through her testimony, New York City appeared to be every immigrants utopian dream, with DYCD providing all manner of services for the City’s immigrants, including legal assistance, services for immigrant women, training and technical assistance for service providers, English language classes and classes to prepare immigrants to pass the US citizenship exam.

However, the Immigration Committee members were having none of it. Beginning with Chairman Stewart, followed by Council Members John Liu, Charles Barron, and Miguel Martinez, they asked tough questions about such things as why, out of DYCD’s $300 million budget, only $16 million is directed towards immigrant services - despite the fact that 36% of the City’s population is foreign-born and at least 55% of New Yorkers are either immigrants or children of immigrants. As Stewart put it, "If the Mayor is so concerned about immigrants, why hasn’t he put more funding into services for them?"

It was also revealed during the hearing that Mayor Giuliani – who was no lover of immigrants - had put $3.7 million into Citizenship NYC, which provided assistance to immigrants applying for citizenship. But despite the City’s growing immigrant population and an ever-increasing need for these services, Bloomberg has steadily cut funding for this initiative. The amount is now down to $1.3 million and dropping. This prompted Barron to say, "Any time you can’t outspend Giuliani on immigration spending, that doesn't look good at all!"

During the long and rather arduous session with Deputy Commissioner Lynn, Barron also pointed out that what was so frustrating to the committee was her lack of advocacy. Everyone knew she wasn’t personally responsible for the funding cuts, but they wanted to see some evidence that she, a person on the inside of the administration, was willing to apply a little pressure to get more money to carry out her job.

The hearing moved on to testimony provided by immigrant advocates. Their testimony was nothing if not passionate, as they painted a picture in vivid colors illustrating the urgent need to fund additional immigrant services.

Much of their testimony focused on the necessity of more English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) training. Everyone who spoke, including Chung Wha Hong, Deputy Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, Raquel Batista, Executive Director of the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, and Nell Eckersley from the Edith and Carl Marks Jewish Community House of Bensonhurst, spoke about how pivotal these classes are when it comes to immigrants improving their lives by getting better jobs, becoming citizens, being active in their children's education, navigating the health system - in general building the lives they dreamt of when they came to this country. Advocates such as K.C. Williams from the Forest Hills Community House spoke from their hearts about how wrenching it is to have to turn away three out of four people who apply for ESOL classes.

Many others, such as Yu–Soung Mun, Executive Director of Empowering the Korean American Community, Anthony Ng, Legislative Advocate for United Neighborhood Houses of New York, and Ana Maria Archila, Executive Director of the Latin American Integration Center, spoke up for the intense need to maintain and increase funding for the Immigrant Workers Legal Services Initiative. This would expand the availability of free legal representation for low-income immigrant workers, providing assistance to workers in cases of unpaid wages, occupational health, and other employment related services.

Some of the most affecting testimony of the afternoon was given in Spanish by 15-year-old Crisoforo, an immigrant from Oaxaca, Mexico. He told of the exploitation he’d suffered at the hands of an abusive employer who made him work twelve hours a day, seven days a week for which we was paid $3.50 an hour and nothing for overtime. On various occasions, he was ordered to do construction work on his employer’s home, for which he received no pay whatsoever. The Latin American Integration Center’s legal team taught Crisoforo his rights and helped him claim about $5,000 in unpaid wages.

This is the kind of services the Immigration Committee is determined to ensure to every New Yorker in need of them.