The city is rolling out the red carpet to undocumented children who have come to the United States without an adult or immigration papers.
Mayor de Blasio announced Tuesday that he is dispatching health and school workers to immigration court to help children facing deportation — the first time the city has provided such direct services.
“These children have come here because they have families or sponsors in New York City, and it is our responsibility to assist them,” he said.
Under his plan, the Department of Education would help kids sign up for English language classes and enroll in school, the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene would enroll them in a state-funded health insurance, and the Health and Hospital Corp. would offer medical and mental-health treatment.
Advocacy groups testifying Tuesday at an Assembly hearing on the influx of immigrant children from Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala said they’re buckling under a flood of cases.
In many cases, the children are fleeing threats of violence in their home countries.
“What these children need are lawyers,” testified Eve Stotland, director of legal services at The Door, which provides outreach to at-risk city kids, including immigrants. “The legal services community is at capacity . . . We are tapped out.”
Finding pro-bono lawyers is also tough because immigration cases involving unaccompanied minors are complex and can drag on for up to two years, according to lawyer Lenni Benson, director of the Safe Passage Project.
State funding for more court officers and an attorney hot line for immigrants would help, she testified.
Monsignor Kevin Sullivan suggested the state lay out $24 million for caseworkers to follow up with kids once they’ve left immigration detention centers.
Additional city services being offered in the federal courts come at no extra cost, de Blasio’s Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Nisha Agarwal said.
“This is staff that’s already doing school enrollment. It’s staff that’s already doing [health insurance] enrollment,” she said, adding that two to four city employees would be working at the courthouse on a daily basis, depending on the day’s docket load.
The rollout comes as the city is being inundated by unaccompanied immigrant children, most of whom don’t know the language or how to navigate a complicated maze of immigration and family courts.
At least 1,350 have landed with a family member or other sponsors in the city since January, according to the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement.
As of July, 587 of those children have settled in Queens, 362 have gone to Brooklyn, 347 to The Bronx and 54 to Manhattan.
About 4,244 children have arrived statewide, making New York second only to Texas in the number of recent unaccompanied arrivals.