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Council member challenges MOIA's ability to address critical policy issues
2:23:36
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128 sec
Council Member Avilés expresses frustration with MOIA's apparent inability to provide information or take positions on critical policy issues affecting immigrant New Yorkers. MOIA Commissioner Castro explains their approach to monitoring and communicating policy changes.
- MOIA monitors policy changes closely and provides regular information
- They avoid weighing in on proposals to prevent community confusion
- MOIA is not an independent body and must go through approvals as part of the administration
Alexa Avilés
2:23:36
Yeah.
2:23:37
Which is why we're asking why why a million dollar reduction in this in this context of increasing ongoing need.
2:23:47
So let me this this theme has continued to come up today with Moya since since your office seems not to be able to have any information or you're authorized to speak around the critical issues, policy issues that are impacting immigrant New Yorkers at hand?
2:24:10
Like, who should our community be going to to get answers to these critical policy concerns that our city is currently facing if Moya cannot speak to anything?
Manuel Castro
2:24:26
With respect to proposals or
Alexa Avilés
2:24:28
Yeah.
2:24:29
With respect to all the policy proposals that are impacting our communities, you cannot you seem to not be able to have a position on anything.
2:24:38
And so my question to you as the mayor's office of immigrant affairs, who do we direct our community to to get real information about what is occurring and its potential impacts and the position of our city, if not you?
2:24:56
Cool.
Manuel Castro
2:24:56
So again, to clarify, we monitor policy changes very closely, and we put out information about these policy changes on a regular basis.
2:25:12
What we don't want to do at this moment is weigh in on proposals and the commentary around possible changes to sanctuary laws and policies so as not to confuse our community further.
2:25:27
But we'll continue to do the work to to clarify things for our community as best we can.
2:25:31
And again, as we shared earlier, we're not an independent body.
2:25:36
We have to go through the many approvals that all city agencies and offices have to go through as part of the administration.