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Q&A
Strategies to address distrust and encourage reporting of immigration services fraud
0:48:43
ยท
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Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga discusses strategies employed by the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) to address distrust and encourage reporting of immigration services fraud.
- DCWP allows complaints to be filed by relatives, friends, community organizations, or council members on behalf of affected individuals
- Anonymous complaints are accepted, though they pose challenges for follow-up investigations
- The agency acknowledges the stress and difficulty individuals face in coming forward
- DCWP offers options for individuals to ask questions before filing formal complaints
- The agency held a roundtable with stakeholders to gather feedback on improving their reporting process
Julie Menin
0:48:43
Yeah.
0:48:43
I I'm concerned because we all know in this climate people are not going to go onto the portal and report this.
0:48:50
So what other ways is the agency working to try to address that issue and get over the distrust and mistrust of government?
Vilda Vera Mayuga
0:48:58
100%.
0:48:59
And that's why we were mentioning before that one of the ways is like it doesn't have to be the individual, right?
0:49:05
It could be a relative, it could be a friend, it could be a community based organization, could be a council member, it could be over the phone, it could be, you know, an email.
0:49:12
There's different ways.
0:49:13
It could be anonymous.
0:49:14
Obviously the challenge with an anonymous complaint is that we can't have that interaction with a complainant to get more follow-up questions answered that would assist in developing our investigation, but it is you know anybody can file it on behalf of an individual and not identify that individual at least not immediately.
0:49:33
We need more information.
0:49:34
We'll engage in that back and forth to see what we can get and getting the comfort level to be high enough for the individuals who's impacted so that we can help them.
0:49:46
It is very stressful.
0:49:48
I often say, it's easy for me to say please come.
0:49:50
We'll help you.
0:49:51
But I'm not the one going through it.
0:49:53
So I don't we don't take it lightly that it is a big challenge for people to overcome and just even take that first step.
0:49:59
So sometimes, for example, when you go to the portal for in the case of worker protection, for example, people can just ask a question.
0:50:06
Perhaps you don't want to really file a complaint yet.
0:50:08
You just have a question.
0:50:09
So we're going to figure out whatever ways is part of I think what we're here today to continue finding ways to improve what we do and how we do it.
0:50:18
And that's why we held a roundtable a couple weeks ago with also those in this space so that we could get that feedback and say, how can we make sure that people really come to us and tell us so that we can do our best to stop the illegal behavior?