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Council Member Julie Menin opens joint hearing on combating immigration services fraud
0:12:24
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127 sec
Council Member Julie Menin, chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection, opens the joint hearing on combating immigration services fraud and introduces two pieces of legislation. She discusses the historical context of immigration fraud and emphasizes the need for comprehensive action by the city to protect immigrant New Yorkers.
- Menin references her past experience as commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection and her involvement in a task force to combat immigration fraud.
- The hearing will focus on the administration's efforts to educate and protect New Yorkers from immigration services fraud.
- Two pieces of legislation are mentioned: Introduction 205 and Introduction 980.
Julie Menin
0:12:24
Thank you so much Chair Aviles.
0:12:25
I'm Julie Menon, chair of the Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection, and we want to welcome you to today's joint hearing on combating immigration services fraud as well as a hearing on introduction numbers two zero five and nine eighty.
0:12:41
When I previously served as commissioner of the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection, president Obama had announced a series of broad administrative reforms to the immigration system.
0:12:53
This unfortunately created new opportunities for fraudsters looking to profit from immigrant vulnerability.
0:13:00
At that time, in response to the increased risk for immigrant New Yorkers, I co led a task force in partnership with the office of the New York attorney general and the mayor's office of immigrant affairs that dedicated increased enforcement resources and conducted a public awareness campaign to stop predators from taking advantage of our immigrant communities.
0:13:23
Once again, recent rapid changes in federal immigration and enforcement policy have created, unfortunately, a ripe environment for immigration services fraud, and comprehensive action by the city is absolutely necessary to combat this increase in vulnerability for immigrant New Yorkers.
0:13:43
At today's hearing, we look forward to learning more about the administration's work to educate and protect New Yorkers from immigration services fraud and to enforce laws that regulate the behavior of immigration service providers.
0:13:57
The Committee on Consumer and Worker Protection will also be hearing feedback on introduction number two zero five sponsored by council member Hanif.
0:14:05
In closing, I want to thank our committee staff and my staff for their hard work in putting together today's hearing and my colleague council member Aviles for all of her hard work in making today happen.
0:14:17
I wanna first of all recognize our colleagues who have joined council member Abreu, council member Brewer, and we will acknowledge additional colleagues as they come in.
0:14:27
And I'm now gonna turn it over to the public advocate to make a statement.