Toward a Covenant on Behalf of New York's Newest New Yorkers
Sign onto a Statement from Faith Leaders and Lay Activists
Executive Summary:
We represent a cross section of faith leaders, lay activists and volunteers who have been working with asylum seekers from the moment these men, women and children disembark from buses and airplanes until they have submitted their asylum applications and received work authorization and beyond.
Our objectives are the same as those of people in government:
to welcome new arrivals into our City and State;
to see them appropriately sheltered;
to provide housing vouchers so they can move out of shelters; to expedite work authorization;
to provide education and health services; and
to provide legal and pro se assistance with asylum applications.
We want to work as allies, in partnership with government, to best achieve these objectives. We will hold ourselves accountable for being available to work on these issues, and we will hold our elected and appointed officials accountable for doing what we expect them to do. We want to hasten the day when these new New Yorkers can become self-sufficient members of our communities.
In particular, the areas which we believe are most critical to realizing that goal are:
a thoughtful arrival and welcome process;
a more strategic approach to housing;
greater support for schools with large immigrant enrollments;
an accelerated work authorization system;
easier access to legal assistance;
increased coordination among levels of government; and
full transparency regarding funding and decision making.
Each of these areas is discussed in greater detail below in the body of our covenant, and in what follows, specifying what each is responsible for.
Respectfully Submitted,
Ruth Messinger, Social Justice Consultant
The Reverend Peter Cook, Executive Director, New York State Council of Churches
Rev. Dr. Chloe Breyer, Executive Director, The Interfaith Center of New York
Please direct press inquiries to: rmessinger@snet.net
Full list of supporters linked here.
Introduction:
Close to 100,000 immigrants and asylum seekers have entered New York State in the last year. It has been a logistical, financial and political challenge for the City, the State and county administrations to welcome these individuals and respond to their immediate needs, and it has been a challenge to get these different levels of government to work together and share responsibility for the work.
At the same time, we represent a cross section of faith leaders, lay activists and community volunteers across New York State who have been working with the immigrants and asylum seekers from the minute they arrive at New York City’s bus terminal or airports and in locations like Buffalo, Albany, and Rotterdam and present themselves to the various programs with which we work.
Many of our secular grassroots organization leaders and volunteers are motivated to do this work by their own personal experiences; others by their personal conviction to respect the humanity of each person and seek to provide help where it is needed.
Our faith leaders remember and are motivated, similarly, by their shared understanding of the value of each person regardless of the nation of origin. Jewish scriptures have many stories of people crossing borders [think of Abraham and Sarah, Joseph and Ruth among others.] Christians remember the Samaritan and the teaching of Jesus that we will be judged by how we welcome the stranger. Muslims recall that Mohammed described himself as an immigrant and they, as other faiths, teach the centrality of compassion, hospitality and justice for all.
Secular and faith leaders advance this Covenant together because we seek to work in partnership with all levels of government, not in opposition to them, contributing our experience, skills and resources; urging the City and counties to recognize what we are doing and how we might help more, and make it easier for that to happen; seeing some of our programs as models that should be replicated and funded; identifying us as critical colleagues in moving forward with both direct aid and advocacy; and acknowledging us as valuable players in helping to pressure every level of government and the private sector to step forward and lend their assistance.
We want to avoid blame and build toward an era of mutual responsibility in which all levels of government, our faith leaders and houses of worship, our community organizations and all New York residents work together to address the multiple needs of our newest New Yorkers and allow them to flourish and be, themselves, part of the solution. This document lays out that agreement, emphasizing how the players should work together going forward.
Along with our elected officials we want to send a message to all residents of New York State reminding them that “we are all immigrants”. Other than those who are indigenous Native American and the many whose ancestors were brought here in chains, the rest of us are often only a generation or two removed from ancestors who fled to this country to escape oppression, ethnic cleansing, genocide and terror.
In many parts of the City, half of the citizens were born in another country; several of the City hotels that now house our newest arrivals housed our immigrant parents and grandparents fifty years ago; throughout the State, people celebrate their background and culture as they help to build New York. And in each of our faith traditions there are stories of immigrants fleeing danger and of strangers who seek and deserve welcome and support.
We are motivated by our understanding that today’s new immigrants are escaping terror and oppression in their own countries and by our realization that they have demonstrated determination and resilience to make it to the United States. They bring to our country and to our city the capacity to shape new lives here and contribute to our economic and political life. We are committed to educating in our faith and local communities the mandate to welcome the stranger and to teaching who these strangers are, why they are coming, what they have endured and how we will all benefit from helping them get on their feet.
We realize that there are immense short-term and long-term needs of this population that we are already trying to address, as are the various levels of government. We want to help our political leaders with these challenges, working together to solve them as smoothly as possible.
We identify below some of what should happen going forward, area by area, recognizing that this is just a preliminary list that can be quickly expanded and enhanced as people do increasing work together in our cities and counties and with our state and federal governments.
Arrivals:
The City and counties should support those many volunteers and local organizations who are and will step forward to welcome people at our bus terminals and airports and at other locations in the state.
In New York City, buses should be provided to move people from points of arrival to reception centers, and local transportation should be provided in other receiving counties.
When people are being relocated from New York City to other counties, there must be an orderly process with officials from each area working in partnership to ensure that people being relocated can have the maximum opportunity for a successful future. This would assume, first of all, an experienced contractor invested in meeting clear terms set out by the city in concert with the local government and with volunteer and faith-based groups in the receiving area. It would include providing the counties with basic information about who is coming, reaching an agreement on when they will be bused and to which hotels and shelters, clarifying who has what responsibility for providing services. Counties receiving this information timely would then be able to develop working agreements with the local organizations, faith communities and volunteers to help with arrivals. [see details in appendix]
Volunteers in each area who have received clothing donations from amazingly generous New Yorkers, set up thrift shops and made it possible for families to get everything they need from diapers and strollers to school clothes to warm outerwear, must have easy access to the reception centers, hotels and shelters, so they can outfit individuals and families more easily. We can pledge many more donations if there are better ways to get them to people without interference.
The City and counties should set up a system, using volunteers as they are available, to provide every new arrival with an NYC ID card or other form of identification as soon as they arrive and help ensure that these cards can open quick access to libraries, parks, museums, etc. Where relevant, cards should be provided for free access to public transportation during people’s first few months in our state.
There should be funding available for the groups that are organizing to help with arrivals when funds would make a difference. There should also be social workers supported by government who can do formal intake and triage and connect people to needed resources.
There should be entry level health screenings as part of each intake system to address health problems in a timely fashion. There should be easy access to the shelters and hotels for faith leaders who wish to offer counseling and support to people in distress.
Housing:
Right now, we have people camping on streets, sleeping in overcrowded hotels and shelters, being given space in religious institutions and in private homes, and we have new large-scale rudimentary facilities being opened at significant cost with no neighborhood engagement. We have battles over housing vouchers and arguments about whether and where there are apartments available.
Even worse, we are moving people in and out of facilities in ways that make it that much harder for them to put down roots and build community which makes it difficult for families to thrive. Unscrupulous contractors are luring people to other parts of the State where no advance planning has occurred, and tensions are consequently on the rise.
We need joint government, community and private sector efforts to identify what shelter and housing spaces are available and to specify what laws and policies need to be revised and/or strengthened to make more.
We need specific efforts by the State to identify State-owned facilities that can serve as shelters or be turned into housing and to require counties to do the same. And in the various shelter and temporary facilities that are identified there should be easy access for local volunteers, service groups and faith leaders—all ready to help people connect with local resources and get help with their particular problems.
The City must identify apartments in public housing and apartments that are warehoused by private landlords and determine what is needed to make these spaces available. Private owners of commercial and office space throughout the State should be asked to collaborate in repurposing some of these spaces and creating new residential units. Incentives should be available to make these changes.
As the City seeks to provide new beds and partner with the many houses of worship offering hospitality and assistance to migrants, it should bear in mind that one size partnership will not fit all. Thus, if a house of worship cannot meet city guidelines for one kind of partnership, its ministry of hospitality can still be acknowledged and supported in other ways.
NOTE: We are acutely aware that the shelter and housing needs of this newly arrived group are not unique. There are acute needs for affordable housing throughout the State, and there are a raft of steps that need to be taken to house New Yorkers, recognizing that all of us have a right to shelter. Many of these steps would, if adopted, enhance housing opportunities for immigrants and asylum seekers as well. [see details in appendix]
The recently released plan to require that single individuals leave their shelter and reapply into the system after 60 days should be terminated. This plan adds a further level of disruption to the system, making it impossible for people to put down roots, find useful local services from schools to health clinics, and build community.
Education:
The State has an obligation to provide quality education for every one of its students, and it has ongoing work to do in that regard. Meanwhile, the schools where newly arrived children are being enrolled are stepping forward to meet the needs of their new families, but those schools are asking for help. They need new teachers, teachers with language skills, social workers to meet with parents and help them with their vast range of needs.
We should identify these needs school by school and district by district and for the system as a whole and engage the public in advocating at the city, county, state and federal levels of government for new funding. At the same time, we should avoid moving families from shelter to shelter, disrupting the relationships they are building for their children in our Schools.
We should identify the amazing volunteer programs that have been set up in some schools to tutor children and to help families get clothing, legal aid and adult education. We should remove red tape that makes it hard for those programs to grow and work together to bring similar programs to every school. In several instances support is being provide by retired teachers and in others it is being provided by high school students helping younger children; these are programs which our groups would be eager to help grow if they were given easy access by the system.
There are special efforts being made in some jurisdictions to identify and work with young adults, ages 18-24, or with budding professionals who require special programs from our schools and community colleges to pursue their future interests. We would be happy to help grow these programs and to provide volunteers to help them grow if we knew they would be allowed and advanced.
Employment:
The single biggest request from the immigrants and asylum seekers is for work. There must be a joint task force to identify what routes exist to speed up access to working papers. We deserve clarity as to what can be done by rule change, what requires legislation, what options for work have been created in the past for other migrant communities that have received temporary protected status, and what new steps could be taken to create at least temporary permits for employment. Would it be possible for localities and/or the State to issue such permits?
There are vast needs for new workers in some key areas such as construction, restaurant and food service, hospital and home health care, and agriculture. We urge New York City and other cities and counties to work with the State, to engage with some of the large employers in these and other sectors, and to ask those employers to join in a comprehensive proposal to the Federal government to train and hire people and create legal routes to their employment.
A petition to Washington made with corporate and union leaders would make a bigger impact than when the appeal comes only from government because it would promise actual employment and a route to financial independence. We have contact with groups that are ready to provide job training in various sectors if the permits are guaranteed.
Transparency and Accountability:
New York City, local counties, the State and the Federal Government need to disclose what monies have been allocated for what purposes and then identify the additional needs that are unmet, their cost, and how they propose filling the gaps.
All of the individuals and organizations in this collaborative effort and, in fact, every resident of New York deserves full information as to how much money we have already received from the State and Federal governments and how that money has been spent so we can determine whether we are or are not getting our money’s worth.
The public in each jurisdiction needs guidance as to exactly what monies we are asking for from the State and from DC and for what purposes. [see detailed questions in appendix]
We must ensure that contracts that governments enter into to help address our challenges will be given to tested groups and will only be maintained if they are fulfilling their commitments.
Information is coming from the many groups on the front lines as to when and where contractors are not meeting their obligations; it should be easier to get this information to government and to see results if, for example, showers are not working, decent food is not being delivered timely, or jobs are being falsely promised.
Local governments need to determine what monies might be available to help the community organizations and houses of worship that are providing services free but, in some instances, need small grants to sustain their efforts. We know that both in the City and upstate there are groups that could do much more if they were able to get such help.
City/County/State Collaboration:
There is a clear need for additional involvement by the State. There are communities that could provide housing for many of these new New Yorkers if they had working papers. It does not work to send people into these communities with no advance notice, and none of us profit from lawsuits being filed by one community against another.
We could expand resettlement of new arrivals by reaching out to mayors/county executives throughout the State to not only encourage them to receive new arrivals, but to help coordinate such relocation.
We support invokingNew York Executive Law 29-a or other applicable law to invalidate executive orders in Counties that have refused to accept new arrivals; alternatively, the State should intervene in pending cases to overturn executive orders.
Legal Services:
We need a really full and honest accounting of what legal services are currently being offered and where; of what services are needed; and of where individual attorneys, major law firms and/or law students can be helpful. Is there work that could be done by volunteers to help people meet ICE demands, complete asylum applications, request working papers?
The good news is that there are people ready to be trained to do that work, to avoid errors that would deny people aid.
We need, as well, to pass NYS legislation which would establish the right to representation in immigration cases, as is now provided in criminal and housing cases.
Health Care and Disability:
We need legislation that would expand publicly subsidized health care to undocumented immigrants. We need to ensure language access in health settings, another area in which volunteers could be recruited and trained for this work. Not only physical but mental health services are needed to help deal with the trauma being experienced by many of the immigrants and asylum seekers.
Immigration Policy:
Recognizing that this is a longer-term issue, it is still critical for government and the engaged public to know what changes should be made in the asylum system, what can be done by Executive Order, and what legislative interventions are needed. Serious advocacy for these changes that came not only from City government but from the private sector, faith leaders and an informed public could help us make change faster.
Conclusion:
We end where we began. We propose a new covenant that brings the public, private and volunteer sectors together to engage as quickly and smoothly as possible to meet the needs of all of us and of our newest New Yorkers who, history and economists tell us, hold great promise for their future and ours.
We are ready to go to work and hope that our elected representatives will engage with us to ensure that all resources are brought into play and that a concerned public, many with our immigrant backgrounds just a generation away, are mobilized to help make even more of a difference than we are making on our own.
APPENDIX
Specific recommendations for facilitating transportation to and arrivals in counties throughout the state, assuming that government or contract personnel who do this work have relevant experience and the interests of the client at heart:
Partnership and communication between City and county personnel regarding who will be relocated and when and where they will be sent;
Detailed information for receiving counties as to the gender, family status, age, country of origin, language and legal status of each person;
Clear agreement on responsibilities of each level of government and on any contractor involved in the process, especially as to concerns dealing with immediate issues of health and safety; and
Action by affected counties to develop partnerships with local community organizations, faith communities and grassroots groups that are eager to provide welcome and support and to ensure their access to immigrants and asylum seekers wherever they are staying.
Specific recommendations for changes in housing policy that would benefit all New Yorkers experiencing challenges in finding permanent homes and would, as a result, directly help immigrants and asylum seekers now and into the future:
Expand housing voucher programs;
Enforce the right to shelter access statewide;
Fund a broader rent subsidy plan;
Increase the public assistance rent allowance and/or provide a rent supplement that aligns rent allowances with the housing market;
Release the $400 million for rent subsidies authorized in previous budgets; and
Ensure effective reentry planning for individuals being released from State prison to ensure that they have a place to live when they are released.
Specific questions to be answered to enhance transparency:
How much money has New York City received to date from the State and Federal government and how is it being spent?
What is New York City’s contribution?
Where is the money being spent? Are funds following people who are moved to areas outside the City? Are local groups in those areas receiving support? If no, why not?
Is every municipality making full use of what volunteers have to offer and in what instances can those efforts be helped with financial Support?