Serving Immigrants and Immigrant Families in New York

Over the last several years, local communities throughout the United States have prioritized initiatives to regularize the lives of persons in need of protection, including families with members that lack immigration status. In the New York metropolitan area, public and private entities have devoted extensive resources to a coordinated legal and resettlement response to unaccompanied children and families who have fled violence and privation in Central America and Mexico. They have also mobilized in response to the Deferred Acton for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program for unauthorized persons who entered the United States as children. In recent weeks, they have planned for the massive executive action program announced by President Obama on November 20, 2014.  The two most prominent executive action programs, which have been temporarily stalled by a federal lawsuit, would expand the DACA program and extend a reprieve from removal and work authorization to the unauthorized parents of US citizens and lawful permanent residents through the Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA). These programs, combined with additional executive action initiatives, services to other special populations, and a high volume of day-to-day work, create immense service delivery challenges, as well as opportunities, for immigrant-service agencies and other stakeholders.

This event explored the evolving response of public, private, and non-profit entities to address challenges and needs presented by immigrants and immigrant families in the New York metropolitan area.  It sought to place these challenges in a broader policy, moral and demographic context; describe coordinated responses to select immigrant populations in the New York metropolitan area; and identify lessons, successes and continued challenges in responding to these populations and to immigrant families more broadly.