Tag: Brad Lander

JHISN Newsletter 10/26/2024

Posted on October 26, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

As the US moves toward a national presidential election, with the straightjacket of a two-party system offering little hope for demilitarized immigration policies or the defunding of Israeli genocide of Palestinian refugees—we go local. Our newsletter looks at the corruption poisoning city contracts for migrant shelter and services, as a part of the deepening scandal that threatens the Mayor’s office and a functional city government. We then report on the deployment of police, troopers, and political theater with the launch of ‘Operation Restore Roosevelt,’ and the fight to create community-based solutions instead of carceral punishment.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. Using the ‘migrant crisis’ to line pockets of Mayor’s allies
  2. NYPD and state troopers descend on Roosevelt Avenue 

1. City Corruption Blights Migrant Shelter Contracting

It reads a bit like the opening chapter of a bad true crime novel: several senior aides to Mayor Eric Adams have their homes searched and devices seized in an expansive federal investigation; a stunning number of senior staff and City Hall officials then quickly resign. The Mayor himself faces federal bribery charges—but is so far left standing, and hoping we don’t read the rest of the book.

One character in the story who deserves our attention is Timothy Pearson, long-time friend and confidant of Eric Adams (who decades ago served as Adams’ supervisor in the NYPD). Pearson held a lucrative, if ambiguous, position in the Mayor’s administration, tasked, among other things, with overseeing contracts with the city’s migrant shelters, and ‘saving money’ as the costs of sheltering migrant arrivals rose.

By late 2023, both the City Council and City Comptroller Brad Lander had already spotlighted how the city was overpaying for migrant services, hiring staff at sometimes astronomical rates and outside any competitive bidding process. In December, Lander revoked the Mayor’s blanket authority to contract for emergency migrant services, a process blighted by scandal and lack of transparency. Contracts would now require independent prior approval from the Comptroller’s office. Nevertheless, Pearson still maintained leverage over parts of the contracting process. In particular, one organization—the Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC)—remained outside the new Comptroller oversight, because it is an independently-run public authority and not a city agency. 

HHC contracted with an outside company, Cherokee Nation Management & Consulting, to provide case management services to migrants in the shelter system starting January 1, 2024. These essential casework services help migrants get work authorization papers and exit the emergency shelters. Timothy Pearson delayed the HHC contract with Cherokee for three months in early 2024, as the population of migrants housed in NYC shelters rose from 24,000 to 25,000. Pearson has offered no explanation for his lengthy stall of the already-signed contract; we assume the ongoing federal probe will offer some answers. A court filing by a co-worker who accuses Pearson of sexual harassment and retaliation claims that he talked about his desire to personally benefit from his work overseeing shelter contracts. “I have to get mine. Where are my crumbs?” he allegedly said. 

Pearson’s interference with case management services for migrants was not the first time he meddled in multi-million dollar contracting protocols. In summer 2023, according to a Politico investigation, Pearson delayed the opening of a migrant facility at Floyd Bennett Field in Brooklyn. His aim: to garner a security contract for his buddy Bo Dietl, former NYPD detective, colleague of Steve Bannon and Roger Ailes of Fox News, and loyal fundraiser for Erik Adams.

Pearson resigned his position in the mayor’s administration as of October 4, citing a need to focus on “self-care and new endeavors.”

While the drama of unfolding corruption may fascinate, the obscenity of a City Hall committed at the highest levels to self-dealing—and on the backs of migrant lives—should also outrage us. And move us toward mutual aid and, hopefully, a new mayor.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. ‘Operation Restore Roosevelt’ Coming to a Theater Near You

“Mayor Adams and Governor Hochul have decided to launch a quasi-military operation designed to criminalize people just trying to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. It is absurd and dangerous for elected officials to scapegoat an entire neighborhood to cover up their own failures of leadership …. [They] talk about New York City as a city of immigrants but yet they put them at risk of deportation every time that they increase policing on the streets. [O]ur leaders have made a cynical play for headlines at the expense of a population that has already disproportionately borne the brunt of police violence.” –Make the Road NY (October 2024)

So now we have “Operation Restore Roosevelt,” press conference photo ops, and political posturing by Mayor Adams and Democratic District Leader Hiram Monserrate. The mayor needs to take the focus off his administration’s scandals, and Monserrate is running for office yet again. So, the fallback position is to send in the cops for 90 days and pacify the locals.

Let’s see what’s really going on here. Hiram Monserrate has a checkered history in Queens politics and is an unlikely person to be concerned about morality. He was expelled from the state Senate in 2010 after being convicted of domestic assault and later served time in prison for mail fraud. For years, he ran unsuccessfully for various state and city offices, but finally was elected Democratic District Leader in 2018. It is from that office that he organized rallies in early October on Roosevelt Avenue at 90th Street “to save the neighborhood” and capture Gov. Hochul’s attention.

This new operation with state troopers and NYPD will focus on Roosevelt from 74th Street to 111th Street over the next 90 days and will see city agencies target brothels and illegal vending. The operation claims it will help women the city said are victims of sex trafficking, forced into prostitution. 

This is not the first time for increased enforcement. Back in January there was a big push to close down brothels; and in April, City Council Member Francisco Moya relaunched the Roosevelt Avenue Task Force (first created in 1991) focusing on street vendors.

State Senator Ramos, quoted in the Queens Daily Eagle, commented:

“It seems like everything else he [Adams] does, a photo op. I think the mayor feels like he’s up against the wall, and he falls back to what he knows–performance policing …. There’s been traffickers along Roosevelt Avenue for nearly all of the 40 years of my life that I have known, and that I have seen. [The mayor] could have started an operation to help the women being trafficked and exploited years ago, when he first took office.”

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards added, “I thought we had a task force. I’m trying to understand why all of a sudden they’re beefing up police presence.” 

Make The Road NY and the Street Vendor Project issued a strong statement on Instagram condemning this criminalization of our Queens neighborhood. City Councilman Shekar Krishnan has put forward two bills to address alleged human trafficking and forced prostitution throughout the city.

On October 22, a coalition of groups including Decrim New York and MRNY hosted a rally in Corona Plaza opposing Operation Restore Roosevelt, claiming that it targets the vulnerable, including immigrants, transgender people, and sex workers. Speakers denounced the flood of cops now in central Queens, saying the operation is displacing street vendors who are afraid to work in the face of heavy police presence. When disgraced former State Senator Monserrate showed up, he was chased out of the Plaza by defiant transgender sex workers and their allies chanting “More resources, not more raids!” 

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

JHISN Newsletter 05/25/2024

Posted on May 25, 2024 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

This week’s newsletter highlights the locally-active, immigrant-led group Make the Road NY as they release their vision for New York City—in budget numbers and policy priorities. We then offer a broad review of recent national surveys on immigration, situating them within a longer US history of fear-mongering and false perceptions. With our readers, and in the lush promise of late spring, we continue to ask what immigrant justice can mean, and how we can realize it together.

Newsletter highlights:
  1. MRNY’s people-centered NYC budget 
  2. US ‘public opinion’ on immigration

1. Make the Road New York’s Budget Vision for NYC

“Our communities need bold action to reverse inequities and expand opportunities for all New Yorkers. However, essential programs and services are now under attack from a mayor determined to scapegoat our new neighbors and fear-monger in an attempt to justify draconian cuts.” –Make the Road New York, 2024 NYC Budget and Policy Platform

As the largest community-based membership organization in New York State devoted to building power in immigrant and working-class communities of color, Make the Road New York (MRNY) is a formidable advocate. With headquarters in Brooklyn, Staten Island, and on Roosevelt Ave here in Jackson Heights, MRNY has an ambitious local and state political reach. Their recent annual budget and policy platform for New York City offers a window into what they consider the most urgent issues facing mostly working-class immigrant neighborhoods like ours.

Budgets are not just financial instruments, they are future action plans that reveal the values and priorities of their creators. MRNY’s budget platform for 2024 presents a people-centered alternative to the action plans (or budget commitments) of Mayor Adams’s administration. MRNY launched their 2024 vision for the city with a collective action in front of City Hall on April 24. Here are some highlights:

Education: Reverse prior cuts and restore funding to public education and youth programs now on the chopping block as $1 billion in federal funds expires and millions in city cuts are proposed. Restore over $3 million in expiring federal stimulus funds for Student Success Centers (SSCs) that support first-generation, immigrant, and working-class students of color pursuing college and career plans. Invest between $29.7 million to $43.2 million for Adult Literacy programs for the over 2 million adults in NYC with limited English proficiency or without a high school diploma.

Housing:  As record numbers of New Yorkers experience homelessness, and shelters struggle to address needs, increase the CityFHEPS voucher program that helps folks move from shelters to apartments. Expand CityFHEPS eligibility to more households, including undocumented households. 

Immigration protections: Increase funding by $150 million for immigration legal services that can assist NYC’s newest migrants while maintaining support for thousands of current clients. Refuse Mayor Adams’s proposed cuts to the Rapid Response Legal Collaborative; instead, guarantee at least $1 million in funding so that the RRLC continues to serve people who are detained and on the brink of being deported, or have orders of removal and are at risk of ICE detention.

Policing: Shift priorities from astronomical increases in the NYPD budget to robust funding of programs that create real community safety. Redirect resources to non-police mental health responses and anti-violence programs. Reduce NYPD’s communications and press budget by 50% to decrease their capacity for misinformation campaigns after they kill New Yorkers and in other cases of police violence. Establish police-free public schools and redirect the $400 million spent on NYPD’s School Policing Division to the direct support of youth learning and growth.

Health Care:  Expand funding to at least $100 million annually for NYC Care program that offers low- or no-cost services for New Yorkers who do not qualify for or cannot afford health insurance. Aggressively address healthcare disparities through increased funding for the Access Health Initiative, and maintaining funding for the Immigrant Health Initiative which inform immigrant families of their rights and available health resources.

 WHAT CAN WE DO?

2. Immigration Myths, Realities, and Perceptions

For a nation that was established, and grew, through migrations both forced and self-motivated, the United States has a long history of casting new immigrants as a source of concern or threat. The Axios News website recently showed the continuation of this trend when it released the results of the Vibes survey conducted with The Harris Poll. Various news sources chose to focus on the 51% of responses supporting mass deportation (including 42% of Democrats) and the 46% of Republicans responding who would end the 14th Amendment’s Birthright Citizenship. 

The Vibes survey also revealed that over 62% of respondents believed immigrants today have a “worse character” than those who came 50 years ago. Historian María Cristina Garcia provided Axios a reality check that 50 years ago Americans held the same opinion as today’s respondents. Not only do people today have misconceptions about immigrants seeking welfare benefits and committing crimes, Garcia says they have a romantic and unrealistic attitude about perceptions of immigrants of the past. 

This negative perception is not driven by the number of immigrants in the US. When we compare the data, in 50-year periods, from the Migration Policy Institute and USA Facts we see that, by percentage, current immigrant numbers show a return to previous periods in US history. In 1870 about 15% of the population were immigrants. By 1920 the immigrant population almost tripled, but the percentage decreased to 13% of the whole population. Fifty years later less than 5% of the 1970 total population were identified as immigrants. From 1970 to 2020, the number of immigrants in the US increased from 10 to 45 million people which, at 13.5% of the population, matches with those earlier periods in US history. The lower percentage of immigrants from 1920 to 1970 can be seen as an anomaly in US history.

Another difference in the 50 years after 1920 was that immigration management was transferred from the Department of Labor to the Department of Justice (in 1940) when the deportation of undesirable aliens was made its main function. When the labor contributions of immigrants are highlighted, a more positive story emerges. Indeed NYC Comptroller Brad Lander issued a report in January of this year busting various myths about immigration and pointing out how immigrants benefit our economy; an opinion supported by recent economics research at Boston University. These claims are also backed by findings from the Center for American Progress which, in 2021, published four scenarios showing how citizenship for undocumented immigrants would boost US economic growth. 

In contrast to the negative perspectives expressed in the Axios report, a recent Gallup poll found that two-thirds of respondents consider immigration to be a “good thing.” Despite a 9% drop from 2020 in those who value immigration (from 77% to 68% in 2023), this positive opinion is significantly higher than the 27% who think immigration is a “bad thing.” Perhaps if we moved immigration management back to the Labor Department and provided more pathways to legal immigration, the US could move forward with progressive legislative changes to the immigration system, instead of promoting an unfounded fear of new immigrants.

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN. 

 

 

JHISN Newsletter 02/25/2023

Posted on February 25, 2023 by - News, Newsletter

Dear friends,

While immigration politics at the national level feels like a familiar quagmire, we report this week on a new federal program to reorganize the sponsorship of refugees in the US. The ‘Welcome Corps’ enables community-based groups of five or more people to sponsor a refugee family or individual refugee, ending the decades-long practice of refugee resettlement being managed by a small number of agencies nationwide. The change, we hope, has promise, including for potential sponsorship groups here in Jackson Heights.

At the same time, we highlight the current migrant emergency here in NYC. The crisis appears to be hiding in plain sight as tens of thousands of new migrants arrive in the city, many of them transported here as part of a Republican plan to strain resources, undermine asylum-seekers, and embarrass municipal leaders. It’s working.    

Newsletter highlights:
  1. New sponsorship program welcomes refugees
  2. NYC’s migrant crisis a Republican dream 

1. Biden Team Introduces the “Welcome Corps”

Despite a campaign promise to create more humane immigration policies, the Biden administration has struggled to create significant movement on the way immigration policy is debated or implemented. Although efforts were made to repeal the Title 42 border restrictions, Homeland Security recently proposed the Circumvention of Legal Pathways rule to create a presumption of asylum ineligibility at the border. But there has been a potentially positive development: the creation of the Welcome Corps which was proclaimed “the boldest innovation in refugee resettlement in four decades.” It’s not really an innovation as it is modeled on the Canadian “group of five” program which has successfully relocated over 327,000 refugees since 1979, and has been copied by both the Australian and UK governments.

“Under the Welcome Corps program, you and a few of your friends can pool together funds to provide an immigration pathway that allows vulnerable people who may not otherwise be able to immigrate the ability to rebuild their lives in the US. Forming a private sponsor group involves bringing together at least five adults in your area and collectively raising $2,275 for each person you want to resettle in your community. With that money, sponsors commit to helping them through the first three months there, which can include securing and furnishing housing, stocking the pantry with food, supporting job hunts, and registering kids for school.” Vox

The US has had prior experience with programs like this. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 brought European refugees from the war and relied on individuals and organizations to help people find jobs and homes. After the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s,14,000 children were provided with places to live throughout the country. 130,000 Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian refugees were resettled thanks to the Indochina Migration and Refugee Assistance Act of 1975. 

Jimmy Carter signed the Refugee Act of 1980, which created the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), formally adopted the United Nations’ definition of refugees, and established the practice of setting numerical limits on how many refugees the US would accept. The ORR was located inside the US Department of Health & Human Services and “partnered primarily with non-profit resettlement agencies to provide initial resettlement assistance to newly arriving refugees.” There have been only nine federally funded nonprofits managing all US refugee settlements—until now.

Budgetary constraints during COVID under the Trump administration forced nearly a third of the country’s resettlement offices to close permanently or suspend operations. The graph below from the Migration Policy Institute shows how Biden’s recent increase to the ceiling of how many refugees can enter the US did not result in a similar increase in the number of refugees admitted. In November of 2022, experts stated the US would not reach that refugee ceiling unless it changed many shortcomings of the process. Although we should not let the government off the hook for fixing those shortcomings, Welcome Corps is one change that can help.

According to Welcome.US, over 20,000 people signed up during the week after the Welcome Corps program launched on January 19, 2023. Yougov polling found that 60% of US adults favor the new program (53% of Republicans and 76% of Democrats) and over 25% expressed interest in actually becoming sponsors. One of the hopes for the Welcome Corps is it will allow refugees to receive support in locations where the current refugee support organizations do not have a presence (or had to recently close) and thus expand the reach of resettlement throughout the country.

“Refugee newcomers who arrive through the Welcome Corps will follow an established government process that includes extensive security vetting and health checks. They will have refugee status, employment authorization, access to key public benefits like health insurance, and can eventually apply for U.S. citizenship. The Welcome Corps program provides sponsor groups with access to tools and resources, including a budget template, fundraising support, an arrival checklist, and ongoing guidance throughout the initial sponsorship period.” –CISION PR Newswire

The Welcome Corps Getting Started webpage clearly outlines the steps involved from watching an info session, through having all five sponsors complete their background checks, attending training and support sessions, developing Welcome Plans, and signing the commitment form. New York already has a number of refugee assistance organizations in place. But perhaps their knowledge can be mined and areas like Jackson Heights will become another model for the nation by gathering together many groups of five people who will sponsor refugees to come to the neighborhood.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

2. How to Create a Crisis: Brutal Playbook by Republican Governors Unfolds in NYC

It’s hard to fully grasp what is taking place in New York City: a migrant emergency and humanitarian crisis created purposefully and with impunity by Republican governors targeting ‘blue’ cities with unexpected busloads of immigrants who crossed the southern border. The vast majority of the recent arrivals are from South and Central America with a smaller, and less publicly visible, number from West Africa. Nearly 44,000 asylum seekers have arrived in the city since last spring, many sent with right-wing fanfare by Republican governors betting that the migrants cannot be effectively housed and socially supported here. 12,000 new migrants arrived in NYC in January 2023 alone.

 Let’s be clear, more than 3 million New Yorkers were born outside the US; NYC is built on immigrant labor and culture and power. But the city was not prepared for—was intentionally caught unprepared for—receiving tens of thousands of migrants in such a short period of time, with no capacity to anticipate or coordinate the budgetary, legal, social service, educational, health, and housing resources necessary to support them. And many new migrants, unlike earlier groups, are landing here without existing community or family ties, without extra clothing or winter coats, or without sometimes knowing that NYC was their destination. City Comptroller Brad Lander reports that the city likely will spend $4 billion this year and next funding recently-arrived asylum seekers. 

 The city has publicly flailed while trying to provide adequate housing for migrant newcomers. But that was the point. Migrants are caught in a catch-22 of not being able to get legal work permits because of roadblocks in filing their asylum case which is required before they can work lawfully. But that was the hope. City resources are strained to the breaking point; Mayor Adams has declared a state of emergency and begged for more federal and state funds. That was the fever dream of Republican governors in Texas, Arizona, and Florida—a cascade of public crises in northern cities.

 Criticism of the city government for its abject failures to safely house new migrants is warranted. Yet why is one of the few cities in the US with a progressive right-to-shelter law in the crosshairs of a migrant housing crisis? Volunteers, immigrant justice organizations, and mutual aid groups in NYC have stepped up to provide resources and material aid to new migrants. Yet how long can the city support the unexpected challenges intentionally created by Republican electeds who have, for decades, blocked immigration policies that could address the economic, geopolitical, and environmental disasters fueling increased migration?

WHAT CAN WE DO?

 

In solidarity and with collective care,

Jackson Heights Immigrant Solidarity Network (JHISN)

 

Follow @JHSolidarity on Facebook and Twitter and share this newsletter with friends, families, neighbors, networks, and colleagues so they can subscribe and receive news from JHISN.