QUESTION
What updates are there on the city's legal service efforts for asylum seekers and budget allocations?
1:18:05
·
152 sec
Molly Schaeffer provides detailed updates on asylum application efforts and budget allocations for the Mayor's Office of Asylum Seeker Operations (OASO).
- Over 37,714 asylum, work authorization, and Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applications have been filed through asylum application help centers.
- Efforts include re-contacting individuals for work authorization and collaborating with federal partners to prioritize and efficiently file applications.
- The preliminary budget for FY 24 is $11,000,000, with an expansion in collaboration with the state's commitment of $40,000,000.
- The preliminary budget for FY 25 is also set at $11,000,000, with updates on the executive plan pending.
- Funding includes continued support for the asylum seekers application center and satellite sites for Blitz clinic collaborations with the federal government.
Shahana Hanif
1:18:05
Could you provide an an a program update on the city's legal service efforts for asylum seekers?
1:18:11
Would like to know specifically how many TPS asylum and work authorization applications have been filed.
1:18:18
So far, how many have been accepted, rejected, and how many are pending?
Molly Schaeffer
1:18:23
So I can only talk about the work that we have been doing in our asylum application help center, which is, you know, something that we are act that we are actively doing, obviously, there's a lot more work happening through Aslan and the other broader legal service provider networks.
1:18:39
But through our asylum application help centers, we've applied for or we've filed more than 11,630 as silum applications, more than 15339 work authorization applications, more than 10,745 TPS applications, and the total across all of that is 37,714 of those 3 categories.
1:19:07
We've also done other light touch legal help there too.
1:19:13
We've also been calling everyone back who's applied for asylum more than 6 months to go to see if we can get them in for work authorization.
1:19:22
And we've been working with our federal partners to both prioritize our packages but also help file more efficiently the work authorization and TPS applications.
Shahana Hanif
1:19:38
And then how much money in FY 24 has been allocated to these efforts from the city?
Molly Schaeffer
1:19:44
So in the preliminary budget, There was $11,000,000.
1:19:49
We are actively expanding.
1:19:53
The state has committed 40,000,000.
1:19:56
But we are working with them on that.
Shahana Hanif
1:19:59
And how much is allocated in FY 25 preliminary to these specific efforts?
Molly Schaeffer
1:20:05
In the preliminary budget was 11,000,000.
1:20:07
I I will give you an update on the executive plan when we have it.
Shahana Hanif
1:20:13
And then and then is there money allocated for the con continuation of the asylum seekers application center and the satellite sites for Blitz clinic collaborations with the federal government?
Molly Schaeffer
1:20:26
So that is part of our satellites.
1:20:28
1 of our satellites is specifically the federal the federal clinic, and we're really excited to figure out how they can stay for for asylum.