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NYC council hearing presses MOIA on tiny headcount and urges a stand-alone immigrant agency
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Summary
At a Council hearing on the FY2027 preliminary budget, Councilmember Elsie Encarnacion and immigrant advocates challenged the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs's small direct headcount in the preliminary plan and urged baselining staff and creating a dedicated city agency to coordinate immigrant services.
Councilmember Elsie Encarnacion opened the Committee on Immigration's FY2027 preliminary budget hearing by saying the session would examine how the mayor's plan prioritizes immigrant services and whether the administration is resourced to deliver them. "How can we expect an office to meet our immigrant communities' growing needs when it lacks sufficient centralized personnel to do the job?" she asked.
Faiza Ali, the newly appointed commissioner of the Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA), testified that MOIA oversees legal services, a legal-support hotline, a Rapid Response Legal Collaborative and language-access work while noting the preliminary MOIA plan shows only about $782,000 in direct MOIA lines to fund five staff positions. "New York City remains committed to the protection of all New Yorkers regardless of immigration status," Ali said, while describing program investments and the office's broader resourcing across other agencies.
Ali told the committee MOIA is resourced through many staff lines housed in other agencies and cited an approximate FY26 programmatic resourcing figure of $42.3 million that supports contracts and services across the city. She said two of the five MOIA-dedicated positions are currently filled—her own and a communications director—and MOIA is assessing vacancies and the process to backfill lines.
Advocates and former Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito urged the council to use the budget to strengthen city capacity for immigrant services. "Our upcoming budget negotiations are a critical opportunity to aggressively meet these dangerous times," Mark-Viverito told the committee, arguing a stand-alone immigration agency could reduce fragmentation and speed responses to emerging needs.
Committee members pressed MOIA for specifics: what the five identified roles are, how the office will track and coordinate the larger set of 64 staff lines that support MOIA programs across other agencies, and whether MOIA is requesting additional headcount or multiyear contracting to stabilize services. Ali said MOIA plans to work with OMB and contracting agencies to assess gaps, expand baseline funding where possible, and move conversations about multiyear contract options forward.
The hearing also covered MOIA's operational priorities: expanding rapid-response capacity, strengthening legal support infrastructure, increasing language access and embedding know-your-rights resources in schools and community settings. Ali described recent investments, including an $18 million multi-year commitment to newly launched immigration legal support centers and an increased $3 million investment in rapid-response legal efforts for the current fiscal year.
The committee did not take votes; members and MOIA staff agreed to follow up on staffing counts, contract details, and the IRC/audit deliverables so council staff and agencies could finalize recommendations ahead of executive-budget negotiations.
Ending: The committee moved from administration testimony to a lengthy public-comment session featuring providers and service users; no formal council action was taken during the hearing.
