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May 16-22, 1997
| Front Page | In
This Week's Issue | Subscribe | Special
| Archive | About
AsianWeek |
May 16-22, 1997
by Heather Harlan
New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani proposed last week that a new $12-million city agency be created to help legal immigrants become citizens faster. The proposal is the latest in a series of initiatives aimed at keeping legal immigrants from losing benefits under the sweeping new federal immigration and welfare reform bill.
In New York, more than 130,000 legal immigrants face losing food stamps and other benefits in August under the new federal laws. Although a current budget agreement before Congress has proposed restoring SSI benefits for many, Giuliani said the U.S. Social Services administration estimates at least 20-30 percent of those currently receiving benefits will still lose them even under the proposed agreement, as will any immigrants who enter the country after Aug. 22.
Under the new program, part of the mayor's new budget proposal, submitted to the City Council last week, six field offices will be established throughout the city in areas with high immigrant populations. The offices will help immigrants with each step of the immigration process including completing INS applications, preparing for the INS interview, and preparing for civics and English-language tests. Home visits will be available for immigrants who are physically unable to get to the field offices.
The city also plans a massive educational outreach campaign aimed at immigrants, distributing information packs in eight different languages, including Chinese and Korean, describing the new laws and services available to immigrants. The Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs plans to distribute 600,000 packages to the public through 20 city agencies and community-based organizations by the end of this month. The Office of Immigrant Affairs will also publish a directory listing more than 300 community-based organizations that provide services to immigrants in New York City.
"This is an effort to make certain that as many people as possible become citizens of the United States when they are legal immigrants in the shortest possible time that we can make it happen," Giuliani said.
The new agency is the latest initiative in the mayor's ongoing fight against the new federal immigration laws.
"This is simply a matter of fairness and compassion," Giuliani said. "Withholding benefits from legal immigrants who have made a vital contribution to this country and whose taxes paid to support the very program from which they are being disqualified is unfair and cruel."
According to the mayor's office, it will cost the city $400 million to replace the lost benefits.
The mayor's office said it is the only project of its kind in the country. "New York City is now leading the way for the rest of the country," Giuliani said. "What we will be doing is part of the overall effort to turn around the attitude towards immigration in the United States."
The new agency is expected to be up and running by July 1. In its first phase of implementation, the city expects to hire 150 to 250 new temporary city workers, a number which will later be scaled back once "the emergency is over," he said.
Immigrant advocates greeted the mayor's announcement with support, but said they weren't sure what role the mayor would expect them to play in the overall effort.
"I'm cautiously optimistic," said David Chen, executive director of the Chinese American Planning Council. While he praised the mayor for taking the lead on the immigration issue, he hopes agencies such as his can work as "partners" with the mayor.
"The strategy needs to involve us as collaborators. It's always good to centralize," said Chen, who added that he hoped the mayor wouldn't "skip the process of involving the people who know the issue."
Under the mayor's proposal, the new city workers who will staff the agency will be trained by volunteer lawyers provided by the New York City Bar Association, which will also provide volunteer lawyers to advise immigrants at the neighborhood field sites.
Giuliani has proposed using $3 million of the citizenship budget to contract with nonprofit social-service agencies to conduct civics and English classes.
"We welcome the mayor's efforts. He is a strong advocate of immigrants and refugees," said Cambao De Duong, chair of the Indochina Sino-American Senior Citizen Center. "If he can reach the social-service agencies that have some experience in this field, it would be more appropriate." De Duong suggested that the mayor organize a conference involving leaders from the agencies and the public so the city can create a program "that can meet the needs of everyone" the agency will serve.
Several reports in the local media have suggested that immigration initiative is motivated more by politics than humanity, a charge which the mayor, who is up for re-election in November, scoffed at.
"There is no one who has done more to change this around than I have," Giuliani told reporters at last week's press conference at City Hall. "It's for the good of New York."