NYC Council Committee on Immigration I-ARC Testimony Re: The Experiences of Black Migrants in NYCApril 16, 2024
Good morning, members of the New York City Council. My name is Nneka Okpara and I am the Black Immigrants’ Initiatives Fellow at Immigrant ARC (“I-ARC”).
Immigrant ARC (I-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 started my fellowship at Immigrant ARC in December of 2022. At the start of my fellowship, I conducted research that was focused on understanding the needs and barriers black immigrants face here in New York City (and abroad). In conjunction with my own work experience as a practicing immigration attorney, and through speaking with other legal service providers, community organizations, and members of the black migrant community, there was one throughline that was made clear underlying every issue: Black Immigrants are largely forgotten and invisible when it comes to the conversation about immigration in this country. Black immigrants are not a monolith. Each community has unique needs and challenges, but these are some issues the communities face as a whole. In New York City, this invisibility has left the struggles black migrants face largely unaccounted for, which in turn means black migrant needs are not being met and resources are not being created for them or the organizations that serve them. The City is not providing the resources and their needs are not being met. There is a lack of readily accessible resources available to the community and service providers–resources that are available to other migrant groups.
In my research of New York City, I have found that:
Black migrants need greater access to legal resources and representation for incoming black migrants;
There is lack of adequate language access for black migrant languages;
Black migrants experience much more racial profiling, bias, and interaction with the criminal justice system;
The City’s administration who have been tasked with adjudicating black migrant immigration cases shows a marked a lack of knowledge and cultural competency regarding home country issues;
There is a clear disparity between the treatment of black migrant case outcomes and that of migrants from other ethnic backgrounds;
There is a need for accurate and reliable information to be disseminated to black migrant communities; and
There is an urgent need for more shelter and housing.
It cannot be underscored more emphatically how important it is for immigrants to have legal representation in immigration court in order to improve their chances of winning their claims. The New York Immigrant Representation Study found that, “the two most important variables affecting the ability to secure a successful outcome in a case (defined as relief or termination) [is] having representation or being free from detention.” Moreover, of those who are represented and released or never detained, 74% have successful outcomes. For those who are unrepresented but released or never detained, the number drops dramatically to only 13% having a successful outcome. And for those unrepresented and detained, only 3% have a successful outcome. In order for black migrants to have a fair shot to thoroughly and adequately represent their cases in court, they must have access to legal representation and resources. As will be mentioned below, an understanding of the issues many black migrants are seeking asylum from back in their home countries is often unknown or not understood by immigration officials in charge of adjudicating their cases. Thus, having access to a legal representative who can help black migrants navigate the confusing immigration process and convey to the adjudicator the aspects of their case and immigration story to highlight is vital. Black migrant fears and claims are valid, and they deserve a fair chance at making that known.
This is why Immigrant ARC urges the City to fund long-term immigration legal services and supports the Council’s call for the Mayor to restore his funding cuts and allocate an additional $50 million for immigration legal services in the FY25 City Budget, which includes the following:
Invest $58 million for immigration legal services to ensure that immigrants receive continuity of services and no one falls through the cracks of our complex and punitive immigration system. The breakdown of the funding goes to the following city-wide initiatives:
$31 million for the Mayor’s Immigrant Opportunities Initiative, which have been threatened by budget cuts while including such crucial programs like the Action NYC and the Rapid Response Legal Collaborative
$16.6 million for the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP), a first-in-the-nation program that provides free immigration legal services to low-income New Yorkers.
$4.9 million for I-CARE, which provides representation to unaccompanied minors and families in removal proceedings.
$3.3 million for CUNY Citizenship NOW!, which provides free legal services to people on their path to citizenship.
$2.6 million for the City Council’s Immigrant Opportunities Initiative (IOI), which provides legal services to recently arrived immigrants to assist them in applications for citizenship or permanent residency.
Invest an additional $50 million to support emergency immigration legal services to meet the needs of the City’s newest immigrant residents.
Invest $1 million in a pilot program to provide immigration legal services clients with wraparound and holistic case management services. The pilot program would:
Fill the social services gap for immigrant communities seeking legal aid, including by allowing legal service providers to hire social workers to work with them on individual cases.
Include case management and representation assistance to help immigrant New Yorkers navigate housing supports, benefits, education, and health care systems.
There is an urgent need for comprehensive language access for black immigrants as they do their best to navigate through the complex immigration system. The lack of access to black migrant language interpreters harms the quality of representation and number of services black migrants can expect to receive. Many legal service providers and community-based organizations (CBOs) that do outreach to black immigrants only have Spanish translators on hand, and very few have French translators. It is rare, especially for non Black led organizations, to have translators available for those who speak Haitian Creole, Arawakan (Garifuna language), and the number of regional dialects many African migrants speak such as Wolof, Soninke, Pulaar, Twi, Hausa, Lingala, Bambara, and Fulani to name a few. This means that important legal documents, such as those regarding the process of applying for asylum or other forms of relief, are read to black migrants in a language they don’t understand and they miss out on benefits, cannot access, and/or are not informed of their rights due to the language barrier. “Both immigrants and city and CBO workers reported that language remained the main obstacle to immigrants’ use of public benefits . . . Linguistic and cultural barriers prevented immigrants from gathering the information regarding benefits and services, which perpetuated misinformation.” There are organizations and co-ops that are doing their best to fill the gaps with interpreters and translators, often working with members of the community to get them trained as certified interpreters. Thus, there is a need for the City to fund and highlight these organizations so that they can expand their reach in the black migrant community in the number of languages they can service and make it the standard that these diverse black migrant languages are always included in any default materials that are handed to black migrants once they arrive in New York City.
It should come as no surprise that black immigrants experience racial bias and discrimination in the immigration and criminal justice system at a rate higher than their counterparts. They face a double burden of moving through the American system as both black individuals and as immigrants. They are profiled in discriminatory ways twice over. “For Black immigrants, life in the U.S. often means being encircled by the same systems of criminalization, profiling, and over-policing as Black Americans.” Black migrants reported that they are routinely racially profiled by the police, both in Mexico (where many wait for their chance to enter the U.S.) and in the United States. This over-policing occurs irrespective of whether they are in areas where they are the minority or the majority. They are stopped without cause and asked to produce their documents. Despite only making up around 7 percent of the non-citizen population, Black immigrants represent over 20 percent of those in deportation proceedings on criminal grounds. Black immigrants are often denied bond, or, if they are lucky, given extremely high bonds with high interest, then are made to wear ankle monitors, again, like criminals. Thus, many black migrants serve double time: time in jail or prison then, time in immigration detention.
Practitioners reported that there seems to be a general lack of knowledge by both asylum officers and immigration judges on the issues black migrants are facing in their home countries. Thus, asylum officers would benefit from a training on the issues black migrants face back home and although immigration judges undergo an annual training, there is still a lack of cultural competency they routinely display. There is a need for some sort of accountability for immigration judges-- to hold them accountable in balancing the REAL ID Act and the actuality of cultural competency as that plays an active role in how a black migrant may be perceived in an immigration proceeding. Things such as body language, sensitivity around discussing a topic that is usually deemed taboo, familial or societal pressure due to their gender or perceived social status can carry over and dictate how they conduct themselves even now that they are here in the City, and especially in an immigration proceeding. The City should do whatever is within their power to urge immigration officials to hold themselves to account and truly educate themselves on these cultural norms so they can fairly and justly adjudicate cases that come before them.
“Black migrants suffer unfair and cruel treatment by racist U.S. immigration policies when seeking safety from gang-related violence, political instability, and extreme disasters.” Black immigrants are either generally ignored in immigrant aid responses or given the least amount of resources. One practitioner noted that more countries, such as Congolese migrants, should be given Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and doesn’t understand why they haven’t been given it. Regarding Haitians and TPS, compared to their counterparts receiving TPS, Haitian TPS cases have notoriously taken quite a substantial amount of time longer than other countries to be adjudicated. Practitioners reported that at times it takes so long to receive a response from USCIS, that by the time applicants receive a response, they might only have two more months left on their employment authorization documents/TPS status before it expires. Comparatively, Ukrainian TPS applications seem to get top priority and speed. Venezuelans and Afghan TPS are reportedly also slow, but still adjudicated faster than Haitians on average. There is a general consensus for the need for Legal/Know Your Rights (KYR) informational presentations to be conducted for members of the black immigrant communities, and that these presentations be held in areas and spaces accessible to the black immigrant population so they can be adequately educated and informed about their options for relief as well as any social services available to them. These KYRs presentations, again, need to be staffed with interpreters who speak the languages of those attending the sessions.
There is a severe lack of resources for social services, including shelter and long-term housing, social workers and case managers for black migrants. These services are crucial in order to help them successfully navigate and establish a life in the City. Many black migrants are having trouble finding food, finding a place to stay, or obtaining identification documents which are a prerequisite to access a myriad of services. This lack of stability is exacerbated during the period migrants are not able to work as they have not yet received work authorization–if they qualify–or because their work authorization expiration date is rapidly approaching and employers refuse to hire them or keep them on the job, thus making it impossible to earn money to pay for housing, food, and other basic needs. Many black migrants end up staying in hotels and/or mosques because they can’t access housing elsewhere. This underscores the need to make the shelter system more easily accessible and also expand the number of beds available in a given shelter on any given day. It can get very dangerous for black migrants without housing. They fall victim to harassment and over-policing based on racial profiling, or are exposed to health and safety issues when due to extreme conditions.
As New York City is home to the largest population of black migrants in any metropolitan area, it is incumbent on the City to make strides towards addressing the aforementioned issues, amongst many others that will be highlighted before the Committee today by all those in attendance. It is important to set an example of what other cities around the nation can and ought to do to aid Black migrants who are looking for a better life for themselves and their families. This City’s greatest strength and legacy is that it has always been a home to immigrants. Black immigrants matter just as much as anyone else. I urge the Committee to commit to changing what has been the prevailing negative rhetoric against black migrants (and migrants in general) in the past few years and to honor its welcoming legacy so that those seeking a better life may be able to experience the American Dream.
