Evert Rada, Venezuelan immigrant arrived from Venezuela a week ago. She heard about the nonprofit New Immigrant Community Empowerment, or NICE, which she says has helped her tremendously.
“Uff…, they provide a lot of help either with food or with their workshops, their instructions, they are handy tools that maybe can’t be used at the moment but it’s developing so that in the future I come here to make preparations in advance for someone who wants to build a better future for our families and ourselves”, says Ewart Rada.
The federal public health policy known as Title 42 expired and now organizations like this one with their workers are preparing for the potential arrival of more asylum seekers in our city.
“We are moving them around and they have covered certain areas to be able to handle the volume,” says Hildeline Colon, deputy director of NICE.
More than 65,000 asylum seekers have arrived in New York since last year, according to city government figures. And just in the past week, the city has welcomed more than 4,200 such immigrants.
This Friday, a bus with asylum seekers from the south of the country arrived at the Port Authority terminal. Ombudsman Jumane Williams was there to receive him.
In light of the state of emergency, Manuel Castro, commissioner of the Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs, announced a series of videos in English and Spanish to inform immigrants about the process of seeking asylum.
For her part, Governor Cathy Hochul sent a letter to President Biden, asking him to send resources to New York State to deal with this crisis.
Hochul is applying for additional financial aid.
In addition, it calls on the federal government to declare what it calls a disaster declaration to address the issue.
Meanwhile, a busload of immigrants arrived in the Orange County town of Newburgh on Thursday as part of the city government’s plan to offer temporary shelter to new arrivals in areas outside the city. But the plan is facing criticism.
“If we send it where we send it and there’s no plan, then that’s a problem,” says Hildeline Colon, deputy director of NICE.
