Reports say that New York City officials are making it easier for illegal immigrants to get a city residency ID card. This makes it easier for them to get housing and free medical care.
A change was made by the City Council that Mayor Eric Adams supported. It lets foreigners get a New York City residency card with 23 more types of ID.
According to the New York Post, immigrants can get an IDNYC card by showing about 100 different types of ID, such as an expired driver’s license, papers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or an expired driver’s license.
The city IDs were first made by the government of former Mayor Bill de Blasio in 2015 to help immigrants get free medical care, go to school, open bank accounts, and do other things.
Anyone in New York aged 10 and up can join the program, even if they are not a citizen or legal resident.
The ID card has been given to almost 1.7 million people so far. The number of IDs given out went up from 127,859 the year before to 132,054, according to the city.
Some people don’t think it’s a good idea to make it easier to get a city ID. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., told The Post that it was a “terrible idea.”
“To provide a legitimate government ID to individuals in the country illegally then gives them access to government buildings and services is just another incentive [to come here],” she told the magazine. “Most disturbing is that there is no vetting, no process to ensure documents provided to prove identity are not fake and, to boot, they destroy these documents that could be helpful in an investigation.”
Still, a city official told The Post that they carefully check the backgrounds of applicants to see if they have any criminal records.
Adams wrote an opinion piece for Harlem World Magazine in which he talked about what his government had done to help immigrants.
“New York City is a city built by immigrants, and we are not just stronger because of our diversity – we are the greatest city on the globe because of it,” he added.
He said that starting in 2022, the city was hit with an “unprecedented influx of asylum seekers,” which his government dealt with in a tough way.
Adams said, “Thanks to our efforts, over 189,100 of the 232,600 migrants—or 81 percent—who requested services from the city in the last three years have taken the next step on their paths toward self-sufficiency.” He also said that 84% of the adults who were asylum seekers pursuing the American Dream got or applied for work authorization because of the help his administration gave them.
Adams also said that the city bought more than 53,000 tickets to help people seeking asylum get to their “preferred destinations.” This cut down on the long-term costs for taxpayers of keeping them in the city.
Adams told people last week that the Manhattan migrant center at the Roosevelt Hotel will be closing in a few months.
The hotel was turned into a home for migrants and now has about 1,000 rooms. Since May 2023, it has helped over 173,000 migrants. There were a lot of people coming to the city in 2022 looking for refuge, so it was turned into a shelter for them.
A person told the New York Post that the shelter at the Roosevelt Hotel and the Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Center that was there will be shut down by June.
“While we’re not done caring for those who come into our care, today marks another milestone in demonstrating the immense progress we have achieved in turning the corner on an unprecedented international humanitarian effort,” Adams said in a tweet last week.
This week, he kept talking about the city’s work.
He said that the New York City Department of Small Business Services helped migrants find hundreds of jobs, and other parts of his administration were still looking for ways to help newcomers by doing things like holding resource fairs and direct outreach as well as English as a Second Language classes at shelters.
“Our actions have shown an entire nation what can be accomplished when we lead with compassion and resourcefulness,” he said. “Because of what we’ve done, we will be stronger than ever when this gets over.” We are all from New York, so anything that happens to one of us happens to all of us. I believe that our wonderful city will always be a source of hope and a place where people from all over the world can start over.
