New York City’s Democratic Mayor Eric Adams’ office recently announced plans to expand a debit card program for undocumented immigrants living in taxpayer-funded shelters.
The initial pilot program included 3,000 undocumented immigrants, and the administration now expects to provide preloaded cards to an additional 7,300 people over the next six months, at a cost to New York City taxpayers of $2.6 million.
“We are under no obligation to house, feed or clothe these people.”
New York City Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Anne Williams-Isom said the city’s program “[s] It serves “the people” by “helping them achieve self-sufficiency and realize the American Dream.”
“They can shop locally, support small businesses and control their own resources,” Williams-Isom said, noting that undocumented immigrants can choose the items they want to buy “for themselves and their children.”
One illegal immigrant said: Winnie There is very little “fresh food” in the taxpayer-funded shelter where she and her three children have been living for the past nine months.
“I don’t eat here much because you can tell right away that the food isn’t fresh,” she said.
She told the news outlet she hopes to be given one of the debit cards as part of the city’s extension program.
Those who receive the preloaded card will receive a 28-day allowance to buy groceries and baby products at certain stores. A family of four with a child under the age of five could receive up to $350 per week, or about $18,200 per year. Centre Square The debit card program reportedly exceeds the $291 per month in food stamps provided to low-income, elderly and disabled U.S. citizens through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, according to a group of Republican lawmakers.
Adams city officials have billed the program as a “cost-saving measure” that will cost half the price of delivering food to undocumented immigrants living in city shelters. The city says the debit card program has already saved them more than $598,000 and is on track to save about $4 million by the end of the year, WNYW reported.
The Adams administration’s debit card program could cost up to $53 million, he said. WNBC.
City Councilman David Carr opposed the plan, saying the city has “no obligation to do anything.”
“We have no obligation to house, feed or clothe these people, and as we’ve been saying for nearly two years now, what the city is doing is creating an incentive for these migrants to come here,” Carr argued.
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