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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Margaret Martin, Co-Director of Immigrant and Refugee Services at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York
5:16:26
·
4 min
Margaret Martin testifies on behalf of Catholic Charities Community Services, advocating for sustainable funding for non-profits providing immigrant legal services. She highlights the challenges faced due to increased immigration enforcement and complex cases.
- Requests continued funding for programs like the Haitian Response Initiative and their hotline, noting the loss of ASLON funding
- Emphasizes the need for increased funding to meet growing demand and complexity of cases
- Advocates for a $4,970,000 increase for the Day Labor Worker Initiative in FY26
Margaret Martin
5:16:26
Good afternoon Chair Aviles, Chair Brennan, committee members.
5:16:29
Thank you so much for the opportunity to testify today.
5:16:32
My name is Margaret Martin.
5:16:33
I'm the co director of immigrant and refugee services at Catholic Charities Community Services in New York.
5:16:39
I'm here today to ask you to continue to advocate for a city funding and awards process that meets the need of non profits to operate sustainably and recognizes this moment that we're in of increased and shockingly aggressive enforcement including at our New York City immigration courts.
5:16:58
And, at the same time, as the federal administration is ending multiple pathways for immigration status.
5:17:04
And, Chair Abelis, as you recognized earlier, that has made many of the cases that we do in legal services more complex and more urgent than was true six months ago.
5:17:15
Catholic Charities is a member of two IOI coalitions, including IOI Cilic and with the Legal Aid Society, as well as the Eye Care Coalition.
5:17:23
We are also one of the organizations that, along with others up here, had our funding terminated abruptly by the federal government to represent unaccompanied children in March.
5:17:35
And I support and agree with the positions that my fellow panelists have stated with respect to those programs.
5:17:44
Catholic Charities is grateful for recent contract notifications from Moya for renewal and a new award of some contracts.
5:17:53
So first of all, we received notification that the HRI, Haitian Response Initiative legal services was renewed as well as our hotline.
5:18:02
Unfortunately, those renewal amounts were not increased to keep pace with our increased expenses.
5:18:09
In fact, for both HRI and hotline, we lost ASLON funding that we were awarded last year to supplement the baseline funding.
5:18:17
For both HRI and the hotline, that means that we will either need to supplement those programs with other funding or reduce services.
5:18:27
For HRI, many of the individuals that we serve through HRI are facing increasingly complex and more urgent cases.
5:18:36
And for them to lose our assistance now, for us not to be able to respond to the community need would be extremely unfortunate.
5:18:43
So we ask that you advocate for more funding for that program, as well as the hotline where we continue to see more urgent callers.
5:18:52
Particularly as you noted with the closing of OASO and the Asylum Application Help Center, we may see more of that in coming months.
5:19:00
And then finally, Catholic Charities is a member of the Day Labor Worker Initiative along with five other providers and we request an increase to $4,970,000 for fiscal year twenty six to fund the day labor workforce initiative.
5:19:15
Thank you so much.
Alexa Avilés
5:19:20
Thank you so much for all of your testimony and work.
5:19:24
I think I'd like to start with a question for you that you noted, losing Aslan funding.
5:19:31
I'm deeply apologetic of not honing in and asking them exactly where that money was going.
5:19:40
I don't think I was gonna get an answer anyway because they don't seem to answer any much much of anything.
5:19:46
But in terms of, I guess, the reconstructed contracts.
5:19:53
Like I feel like all we're doing is moving chairs around the deck and calling it something different and wasting a lot of time and resources and aggravation for providers to have to reapply to these new programs and constructs.
5:20:08
But I guess you noted renewals of some contracts that have remained flat, but then losing others from the same entities that are gonna be deciding and saying there is seemingly more money.
5:20:22
I don't know where the more money is.
Margaret Martin
5:20:26
I don't think I have an answer to your question.
Alexa Avilés
5:20:29
I don't know if I even have a question for you at this point.
Margaret Martin
5:20:32
I did wanna note we did get a legal support center award as well.
5:20:37
Although as we've testified and many others have as well, those awards do not cover the required staffing or deliverables.
5:20:45
And we are also, and this may in part answer what you were getting at, we are one of the Action OIC providers that was notified that we got a a one year contract extension.
5:20:57
I think that's separate from the OSLAN funding, but I'm not entirely sure.
5:21:01
Yeah.