Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Kayt Tiskus, Principal at Collective Public Affairs
6:05:14
ยท
154 sec
Kayt Tiskus from Collective Public Affairs testified about the impact of federal immigration policies on various NYC initiatives and the crucial role of nonprofits in providing services to immigrant communities. She emphasized the widespread fear among clients and the ability of nonprofits to conduct outreach and provide alternative intake points in response to ICE presence.
- Tiskus works with multiple initiatives, including domestic workers empowerment, worker cooperatives, and trans equity support.
- She highlighted that the federal administration's stance on immigration affects every issue area in the city.
- Tiskus stressed the importance of nonprofits in conducting community outreach and providing alternative intake points for services, as they can operate more quickly and flexibly than city agencies.
Kayt Tiskus
6:05:14
Sorry for that awful sound.
6:05:17
Hi, my name is Kate Tiscus.
6:05:19
I work with Collective Public Affairs and first I want to thank you so much for holding this hearing.
6:05:27
It has been really wonderful to sit with colleagues working trying to solve the crisis that is barreling down on all of us who care about New York, a city of immigrants.
6:05:42
And I work with a number of initiatives.
6:05:44
I work with the domestic workers empowerment initiative, initiative, the workers cooperative business development initiative, trans equity, support for persons in the sex trade, pride at work, the initiative to prevent sexual assault, and beyond feeling like I've been aging in dog years since January 20.
6:06:01
'2 things are really coming out at me really hard that I wanted to emphasize in this hearing.
6:06:06
The first is that the federal administration's stance on immigration affects every issue area in our city.
6:06:14
That's a pretty wide range of things that I spend time on and with, and literally everyone who I work with has talked about how clients are afraid, clients are coming in greater numbers, or worse, clients are afraid to come to intake points.
6:06:32
And that's the second thing that I wanted to sort of really emphasize and that's what can non profits funded by city council do that city agencies can't do.
6:06:44
And one of the major things that we've heard about in fact from my colleague who testified right before me is conduct outreach right out in the community because right now you know some folks asked me to literally tell you that they were afraid to come testify today because they were afraid being on the record would endanger their work or themselves.
6:07:04
People are afraid to come to usual intake points because even places like youth shelters have been targeted by ICE, and so coming up with alternative word-of-mouth places where we can do intake for services is something that nonprofits are able to do with a speed that city agencies just can't match because they have less process.
6:07:25
And so you know I guess the, you know I'll send you details with numbers and budget asks, but the two things I really wanted to emphasize were everybody's under fire and we're really noticing the presence of ICE on the streets, and non profits can do some sort of underground things to make sure that people can still access services even when ICE is on the streets.
6:07:48
Thank you.