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Immigrant legal providers urge the City to baseline and expand deportation-defense funding
Summary
At a council hearing on the FY2027 preliminary budget, NYFA, Legal Aid, Bronx and Brooklyn defenders and coalition partners described surges in enforcement and asked the council to baseline higher, multiyear funding for city-funded deportation defense, rapid-response legal efforts and youth-focused services.
Legal services providers told the Committee on Immigration that heightened ICE activity has increased demand for immediate and complex courtroom and appellate work and pressed the council to sustain and expand permanent funding.
Catherine Gonzalez, associate general counsel at Brooklyn Defender Services, testified about the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYFA), saying recent enforcement surges have forced providers to litigate in federal courts and to follow clients transferred out-of-state. "We are currently representing New Yorkers detained in at least 15 states…
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