New York, NY-Immigrant rights advocates praised the New York City Council’s response to Mayor Bill de Blasio’s preliminary budget as an important first step towards an equitable recovery for all The City Council’s response included investments in immigrant legal services, language access, and the brand new Office of Street Vendor Enforcement.

Albany, NY—Tonight, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), members, allies, and immigrant New Yorkers cheered the largest investment in New York’s 4.4 million immigrants in decades of state budget advocacy. The FY 2022 NYS budget deal includes $2.1 billion for a first-of-its-kind fund for excluded workers,  $29.5 billion for New York’s schools, a $7.8 million reinvestment in adult literacy education, $13.5 million to support AAPI communities, a  $16.4 million reinvestment in the Liberty Defense Project and the Office for New Americans, $15 million to support communities hardest hit by COVID to promote awareness and education on the vaccine, and $1 billion for small businesses.

New York, NY-Immigrant Advocates respond to President Biden’s infrastructure proposal, Build Back Better. 

Anu Joshi, Vice President of Policy for the New York Immigration Coalition:

“Yesterday, President Biden unveiled a bold proposal to rebuild the American economy with deep investments in infrastructure and jobs creation, but it stopped short of being transformative.

New York, NY-Thursday evening, House Democrats successfully passed HR 6. The legislation will now go to the U.S. Senate. The legislation allows many individuals brought to the country as children and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) beneficiaries to earn lawful permanent residence and eventual citizenship.

New York, NY-On Tuesday evening, a violent shooting spree at three Atlanta-based salons and spas left eight people dead. Six of the victims were Asian-American women. Hours later, authorities announced the arrest of the alleged perpetrator. The massacre comes in the wake of a nation-wide rise in attacks on the Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPI) community.

Albany, NY-Following the introduction of the New York State Assembly and Senate’s one-house budget resolutions, immigrant New Yorkers and advocates celebrated several critical wins for FY 2022—including $2.1 billion for a fund for excluded workers, $20 million for a crucial expansion of health coverage, a $7.8 million reinvestment in adult literacy education, and a $26.4 million reinvestment in the Liberty Defense Project and the Office for New Americans.

New York, NY-Today, Congress passed the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, which is the latest COVID-19 federal relief bill. Like the relief package last December, this bill provides economic relief to roughly 3.5 million U.S. citizens and green card holders married to noncitizens who file taxes using an ITIN number, including 314,000 New Yorkers but still leaves out countless other tax-paying immigrant families.

New York, NY-On Tuesday, the Biden administration notified the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) that it will no longer defend a Trump-era policy that dramatically and illegally expanded the racist “public charge” rule. Yesterday’s decision, and subsequent court decisions dismissing other cases across the country, mean that Trump’s viciously anti-immigrant policy is no longer in effect.

New York, NY-On Wednesday, New York Representatives Nydia Velázquez and Yvette D. Clarke joined Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (CA) in reintroducing the Dream and Promise Act. The legislation allows many individuals brought to the country as children and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients and Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) beneficiaries to earn lawful permanent residence and eventual citizenship.

Albany, NY-Today, the New York State Senate passed the NY HERO Act, which ensures the protection of millions of front-line workers, regardless of immigration status, by providing protocols on testing, face masks, PPE, social distancing, hand hygiene, disinfection, and engineering controls during this pandemic and into the future.