TESTIMONY
Antonia House, CILEC Coordinator for TakeRoot Justice, on Recommendations for Revising the Immigrant Opportunities Initiative
5:08:37
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126 sec
Antonia House discusses the need for revisions in the Immigrant Opportunities Initiative to better support immigrant communities through legal services.
- Advocates for increased funding to ensure fair wages for staff and comprehensive support in areas such as supervision, language assistance, and administration.
- Calls for reinvestment towards employment-specific legal services to address wage theft, which negatively impacts the city’s economy.
- Emphasizes the importance of prioritizing full legal representation over pro se assistance to prevent undocumented statuses and secure economic stability for immigrants.
- Highlights the open bidding process as an opportunity to address previous challenges and adapt to New York’s current social and economic conditions.
Antonia House
5:08:37
My name is Antonia House.
5:08:39
I coordinate Cylac, which is a collaborative of 13 legal service providers and CBOs.
5:08:44
That work together to strengthen low income immigrant communities in the city through employment and immigration legal services, outreach education and advocacy.
5:08:53
Our work is funded by the immigrant opportunities initiative, the baseline contract that's administered by DSS's office of civil justice.
5:09:02
It has been a successful contract serving thousands of New Yorkers over the last 8 years and is now scheduled to be put through an open bidding process.
5:09:11
This open bidding process creates an opportunity to respond to the challenges that the contract has faced and the new social and economic landscape we're dealing with now.
5:09:20
And to reverse the funding stagnation and the disinvestment of $2,000,000 from employment related legal services.
5:09:27
Providers funded by this contract have issued a series of recommendations to DSS, and we would like to share those with the committee now and also in my written testimony.
5:09:36
So first, baseline IOI must be funded at a level that allows legal service providers to pay staff fairly and to provide adequate funding for supervision language and administrative support as well as community outreach education and advocacy.
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2nd, DSS must reinvest in baseline employment to specific legal services as part of this contract.
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These services are necessary to fight wage theft in the city, an enormous drain on our economy, and an up and obstacle to the economic stability of new immigrants in particular.
5:10:08
And finally, while the contract must credit prosay assistance, it must continue to prioritize full legal representation.
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Because while prosay assistance can help us meet urgent deadlines, it it won't ultimately stop the creation of a new generation.
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Of undocumented New Yorkers because most unrepresented people in removal proceedings will ultimately be ordered, removed, but not actually deported from the United States.
5:10:33
This means that they'll remain here with removal orders, lose their employment authorization, and a clear cost of offer status, and face an incredibly precarious future.
5:10:42
And contrast people who are
