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PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Sarah Nolan, Managing Director of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND)
5:04:37
·
3 min
Sarah Nolan from Kids in Need of Defense (KIND) testified about the urgent need for increased funding for legal representation for unaccompanied immigrant children. She highlighted recent policy changes and threats to protections for these children, emphasizing the importance of local funding due to uncertain federal support.
- Nolan described ICE's intimidating "wellness checks" and potential changes to detention policies for unaccompanied children.
- She shared examples of children affected by recent federal funding cuts to legal services.
- KIND requested $6.3 million in renewed funding and an additional $5.4 million to address increased needs and uncertain federal funding.
Sarah Nolan
5:04:37
Hi, good afternoon.
5:04:38
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today, chairs Brennan and Aviles.
5:04:42
My name is Sarah Nolan.
5:04:43
I'm the managing director of Kids in Need of Defense, known as KIND's, New York office.
5:04:48
We are also here as a member of the I Care Coalition.
5:04:52
KIND thanks city council again for your support in providing free legal representation for unaccompanied children.
5:04:58
To add a little color to Sierra's testimony, we are also here to ask for incredibly important increased support for our work to counter the relentless efforts to strip away legal protections for unaccompanied children who are now on the front lines of the mass deportation agenda.
5:05:16
ICE is conducting what they call wellness checks at homes with the intent to intimidate and further traumatize children and their sponsors.
5:05:24
The reconciliation bill that just passed the house eviscerates protections for unaccompanied children and could charge them up to $15,000 for many of them to be released from custody and to apply for legal status, which would bar them from accessing any kind of protection.
5:05:41
The administration is also seeking to end the florist settlement that limits the amount of time children can be detained and requires they be held in safe and sanitary conditions.
5:05:49
We've seen children who would have been out of detention within weeks be held for now months because their parents and caregivers cannot provide the ID or proof of finances for them to be released.
5:06:03
At this moment, unaccompanied children are in dire need of secure, robust, local funding for legal services as the future of the federal support for this work remains very uncertain.
5:06:13
In March, the federal contract that funded over half of our work was abruptly cancelled.
5:06:18
In the weeks that followed, the children who would have received KIND's advice and assistance under this contract no longer had access to counsel.
5:06:25
This included four children who decided to return to their home countries without their parents or legal guardians even there to receive them.
5:06:33
It includes a teen from West Africa who has already been in foster care for eighteen months who confessed to us later how scared and confused he was to suddenly have to go to court alone.
5:06:42
It includes a four year old girl from Central America who was separated from her grandmother at the border.
5:06:48
After litigation was filed and an injunction was entered, federal funding for these services has been temporarily restored, but the administration continues to fight this case in court and signal its intent to take away all protections from unaccompanied children.
5:07:01
We cannot rely so heavily on federal funding in this climate to provide the foundation for legal assistance that these children so desperately need.
5:07:10
Data shows immigration judges are almost a hundred times more likely to grant legal relief when an unaccompanied child is represented by counsel.
5:07:18
This legal representation provided by KIND and iCare members is the key to increase stability for unaccompanied children and safeguards them from human trafficking and exploitation.
5:07:27
We respectfully ask city council at a minimum to support the 6,300,000.0 in renewed funding requested by iCare and to allocate an additional $5,400,000 in funding given the increased needs and uncertain future of funding.
5:07:39
Additionally, we ask for the renewed funding for the IOI initiative.
5:07:42
Thank you so much for your commitment to ensuring that all unaccompanied children in the city remain safe and achieve their full potential.