I-ARC Testifies at NYC Council hearing on legal services for asylum seekers

In early October 2023, I-ARC’s Legal Services and Capacity-Building coordinator Lora Adams testified in front of the New York City Council’s Committee on Immigration at their hearing on legal services for asylum seekers in New York City. Below is a transcript of her testimony.

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NYC Council Committee on Immigration 

I-ARC Testimony on Legal Services for Asylum Seekers in NYC

October 18, 2023

Good morning, members of the New York City Council. My name is Lora Adams and I am the Legal Services and Capacity Building Coordinator at Immigrant ARC (“I-ARC”).

Immigrant ARC is a coalition of over 80 member organizations that provide legal services across the state of New York. Our mission is to increase access to justice and access to legal counsel for immigrant New Yorkers by mobilizing New York’s legal service providers and addressing the systemic barriers to justice that immigrants face. 

I am here to discuss how legal service providers are responding to this surge in asylum seekers arriving in New York City. While the influx of migrants seeking refuge in New York City continues to be a challenge of capacity, legal service providers across the five boroughs have attempted to rise to the challenge and have made herculean efforts to come together to provide rapid response services. Providers here today will discuss in more detail the various programs they have set up through private funding or grants from the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs, such as the Pro Se Plus Coalition and the ASLAN project. I will therefore limit my testimony to efforts that have not engaged providers directly. While legal service providers are doing everything they can to provide services to the roughly 113,000 migrants arriving in the city over the last year, they have faced significant challenges coordinating with the city, particularly the Mayor’s Office. There has been little effort by the City to sit down with stakeholders, the legal service providers and community-based organizations who are the front-line responders in this crisis, to collaborate on these rapid response efforts and ensure a coordinated and strategic response. There has been no transparency regarding the creation of the Office of Asylum Seeker Operations, and providers have not been included in conversations about how to best respond to the needs of various communities despite their years of expertise. It is our observation that Black immigration communities—particularly from African countries—have suffered the most from lack of access to culturally competent services.

We are seeing many small, temporary rapid-response clinics from both the City as well as from legal service providers across the city. For example, the City launched the NYC Asylum Application Help Center in response to the crises. Like many of these clinics, the Asylum Center has been an immediate resource in providing necessary assistance to migrants in navigating the immigration process––ensuring that they apply for asylum on time, receive their work authorization, and are able to support themselves and their families as quickly as possible. These clinics meet an important need, but they have excluded the participation or input of long-time legal services and community based organizations, furthering a divide between the Mayor’s office and the non-profit sector and failing to address the long-term needs of those they serve. A sustainable and meaningful response to the needs of new arrivals in New York City will invariably require coordination between city, state, legal providers and community based organizations. 

First and foremost, efforts run by the Office of Asylum Seeker Operations do not provide migrants with long-term representation, which can be a huge issue since a majority of asylum applications require follow-up or additional documents. Additionally, because a vast majority of these new arrivals are staying in shelters they are likely to change addresses as they find more permanent housing, which can cause delays in their paperwork or can lead to having their applications rejected when the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service notices are sent to old addresses. Without long-term legal representation and wrap-around services, much of the rapid response efforts will be undone as migrants fall through the cracks in the immigration process. It is Immigrant ARC’s recommendation that what is needed is greater transparency from city agencies, strategic coordination from city and state governments with legal service providers and community based organizations, and funding for long-term immigration legal services, which includes the passing of the Access to Representation Act (A170A/S999A) at the state level.  

We know that the best way to make an impact is by fostering collaboration and leveraging our respective areas of expertise across the board. As part of Immigrant ARC, and in partnership with several members and stakeholders, I personally helped organize and oversee an Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) clinic, which coordinated with the city, state, and federal government as well as legal service providers to obtain employment authorization documents for newly arrived migrants currently living in the city shelter system. I am proud to say that this clinic, the first of its kind, was able to screen 2,000 people and submit over 1,700 applications. There is interest across the state as well as in other parts of the country to have these efforts replicated and scaled up. 

While the Mayor has chosen to frame the current state of affairs as a humanitarian crisis, we believe it should be viewed as an opportunity. NYC has always been a home to immigrants, it is our city's greatest strength and resource and if we ensure that these new arrivals get the long-term services they need to flourish, our city will grow and flourish with them. 

Thank you for your work on behalf of immigrant communities, for calling this hearing, and for the opportunity to testify today.