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John,
On Saturday morning, the NYS Legislature voted on and passed New York State’s budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Thanks to tireless organizing by our members and partners, and the leadership of Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousin and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, we secured a few meaningful reforms for our communities—but Albany needs to do much more to ensure that every immigrant New Yorker has an opportunity to thrive.
This year’s budget expanded Medicaid coverage to all eligible women, regardless of immigration status, for up to 12 months post-pregnancy, and removed the citizenship requirements for access to Medicaid for those 65 years of age or older. This was an important step for New York State, but far more needs to be done to ensure the health and security of tens of thousands of immigrant New Yorkers who still cannot access affordable health care because of their age and their immigration status. All immigrant New Yorkers deserve a truly equitable healthcare system—and Governor Hochul has failed to deliver this basic right for our communities!
We won a $20 million investment in legal services funding—the largest increase since 2017—providing immigrants facing deportation proceedings with critical legal aid. Immigrant New Yorkers will finally have the chance at fair representation to ensure they can keep their families together!
New York’s budget also included a vast expansion of language access programs across the state, so that immigrant New Yorkers can access essential services in their preferred languages.
Despite these critical investments, Governor Hochul still failed to fully invest in all the hard-working immigrant families keeping our state open for business throughout the pandemic. Albany fell short in expanding access to childcare for immigrant families, regardless of immigration status, while continuing to exclude them from economic relief and rolling back critical reforms to our pretrial system. Nearly 173,000 immigrant New Yorkers will be shut out of accessing any relief to help pay bills and feed their families, and tens of thousands will continue to be barred from access to affordable health coverage. The Governor’s inaction jeopardizes the future of our immigrant communities and New York’s recovery—but the fight is far from over.
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