Dispatches, North America, United States
Immigrant Opportunities Initiative Threatened By New York City Budget Cuts
June 8, 2011 By Mari Hayman
New York Immigration Coalition Executive Director Chung-Wha Hong addressed the crowd (Photo by Mari Hayman).
Organizations that provide services to low-income New Yorkers and immigrants are worried about the loss of federal and state funding, including the federally-funded Community Services Block Grants Program, which is disbursed by the Department of Youth and Community Development (DYCD) in New York City.
New York State has also reduced funding to New York City, including state-provided services that do not flow through the city.
But Chung-Wha Hong, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition, said that the city’s funding for IOI represents “a drop in the bucket of the overall city budget” and said that the initiative “more than pays for itself in terms of the economic and social mobility and overall economic growth it makes possible.”
Speakers at Tuesday’s rally testified to the importance of programs funded by IOI money. Valerie Hall, a domestic worker from Haiti now living in Harlem, said the IOI-funded MFY Legal Services helped her to apply for unemployment, food stamps and emergency assistance for rent when her former employer stopped paying her full wages.
However, despite the continued demand for IOI programs, immigrant organizations are already starting to feel the pressure of the city’s fiscal belt-tightening. “Starting on June 17, we’re not going to offer any more classes. Citizenship classes, helping immigrants send for their families, we’re not going to provide any more services,” said Liz Baber, an ESL/Citizenship Coordinator at Emerald Isle Immigration Center (EIIC) in Queens, reflecting on what would happen if IOI funding didn’t go through for 2012.
Baber said her organization’s English classes are filled with 30 to 40 students per session and that 60 people are still on a waiting list to participate. Already, appointments for immigration consultations at EIIC have been booked through August.
The classes are critical for immigrants like Eleiden and Eugenio Trujillo, who came to the United States from Colombia eleven years ago. “It’s wonderful. It’s important to learn, and we want to keep learning,” said Eleiden, who is now a citizen.
With the looming cuts to their programs, not all immigrants to New York will be as fortunate. “Over and over I hear there are waiting lines for English language classes,” said Councilmember Daniel Dromm (D-Queens), who chairs the committee on Immigration Affairs and co-organized Tuesday’s rally with the New York Immigration Coalition, the UJA-Federation of New York and United Neighborhood Houses.
Beda Vergara, a Filipino immigrant and ESOL teacher at the community organization SoBRO, said he wasn’t giving up the fight for IOI funding. “We were here last June, we are here this June,” he said. “I’ve been at SoBRO for eleven years, and this is the first time we don’t have a summer class.”
Vergara gestured at his students, who had come in dozens to City Hall to attend the press conference. “How will they learn English? How will they find a job?,” Vergara said.
Asked how the city should respond to the cuts in state and federal funding, EIIC’s Baber said the city should keep supporting services for immigrants. “The most important thing is education. So many people wait for immigration services. This is the future of the city.”
3 Comments
[…] New York politicians and immigration activists rallied on the steps of New York City Hall to try and save the Immigrant Opportunities Initiative. Staff Writer Mari Hayman reported from the scene. […]
Yeah…why don’t we just throw a blanket over the statue of liberty until we regain our sense of compassion?
[…] week New York City council members and leaders of New York City’s immigrant communities rallied at City Hall to save the Immigrant Opportunities Ini…, a city-funded measure that supports English language education, citizenship and legal services for […]
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