PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Margaret Martin, Co-Director of Immigrant and Refugee Services Division at Catholic Charities Community Services
4:58:14
ยท
3 min
Margaret Martin, representing Catholic Charities Community Services, testifies about the organization's work supporting immigrant communities and expresses concerns about protecting immigrants in light of potential changes to sanctuary policies. She emphasizes the importance of legal services and highlights the challenges faced by service providers.
- Discusses the impact of sanctuary policies on immigrant communities' willingness to engage with public services and law enforcement
- Highlights the increasing demand for legal services, including know-your-rights presentations and rapid response to ICE arrests
- Raises concerns about the potential loss of federal funding for crucial legal service programs, such as the immigration court help desk
Margaret Martin
4:58:14
Good afternoon.
4:58:16
Thank you, council chair Aviles and members of the immigration committee.
4:58:19
I will try to keep this short.
4:58:21
And just to reiterate, like, so grateful to you for holding this hearing and listening to all of the testimony today, particularly at this time when we're all waiting to see what happens, over the next several days.
4:58:33
My name is Margaret Martin.
4:58:35
I'm the codirector excuse me.
4:58:36
I have a little bit of a cold.
4:58:38
I'm the codirector of the immigrant and refugee services division at Catholic Charities Community Services with the Archdiocese of New York.
4:58:46
Catholic Charities is proud of our decades long tradition of welcoming New York's immigrants and refugees.
4:58:52
We have a long history of partnering with New York City, New York State and other nonprofit organizations on protecting New York's immigrant communities through a wide, and robust variety of legal services programs, case management services, ESOL programs and day laborers support in programming in the Bronx.
4:59:11
These programs directly impact tens of thousands of New Yorkers every year.
4:59:16
Like everybody else in this room, we are concerned, with how best to protect and assist New Yorkers, and our immigrant communities in the coming days, weeks and, and years.
4:59:29
And so just to highlight a few items from my testimony, I'm going to skip over all the reasons why it's important that we have sanctuary policy law in New York, and not only have it, but as other people have so well articulated, ensure that it is actually upheld and followed.
4:59:45
We are getting reports at Catholic Charities, as I'm sure others are as well, of people who are concerned with whether they should send their children to school.
4:59:53
With whether it is okay to interact with a police officer or should they encounter somebody, walk to the other end of the platform, or even call the police in an emergency, if that will somehow entangle them in the immigration system.
5:00:07
So we are very concerned with the communication that's coming out about our sanctuary laws in New York, and what may happen with those.
5:00:16
Wow.
5:00:16
I thought I was being really quick.
5:00:17
Okay.
5:00:17
I just will say very quickly, on legal services, thank you for bringing that up.
5:00:22
We are an Action NYC legal service provider, as well as many other programs.
5:00:27
And in addition to the rapid response, that I think we're all going to be seeing, the real need for legal representation that you yourself raised this morning, the know your rights presentations, we are getting many requests for those already.
5:00:40
All the nonprofit service providers that are doing that work now, we're operating beyond our capacity to do that.
5:00:47
And once rapid response starts, which it will, as ICE begins arresting and detaining people, we will again be operating, beyond our capacity.
5:00:55
I just want to note as well that, many of us have some federal funding for legal services, programs.
5:01:02
And some of that federal funding, well, much of it is at risk and some of it is at more risk than others.
5:01:07
We operate the immigration court help desk.
5:01:10
It is not a mandated program.
5:01:12
It is federally funded.
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We've been doing it since 2016.
5:01:16
It's also not a very expensive program, but it is proved critical to unrepresented people in removal proceedings.
5:01:23
And immigration judges rely on us to be able to send confused respondents down the hall to seek out the charities to get information and a legal screening.
5:01:31
And then whenever possible, we will take those cases.
5:01:34
Even though the federal government won't pay for representation, we will try to take them in house or send them to a trusted provider.
5:01:40
I will save the rest of my comments for my written testimony.
5:01:42
Thank you.