BxD Urges Mayor de Blasio to Reconsider Position on Exceptions to City-Funded Immigration Representation
May 4, 2017, New York – In response to the ongoing debate between Mayor de Blasio and Speaker Mark-Viverito regarding City funding for the New York Immigrant Family Project (NYIFUP), The Bronx Defenders, one of three NYIFUP providers, issued the following statement:
“At a time when we should be radically reimagining what it means to be a sanctuary city, Mayor de Blasio has decided to lower the bar by choosing to exclude certain immigrant New Yorkers from access to legal representation under the New York Immigrant Family Project. By doing so the Mayor is playing into the Trump administration’s divide-and-conquer strategy and falling in the trap of the ‘good’ vs. ‘bad’ immigrant narrative. Now more than ever, we call on the Mayor to stand by this City’s commitment to immigrants and recognize that everyone deserves the fundamental right to a lawyer in their deportation proceedings. We applaud Speaker Mark-Viverito for standing by the core principles of our program and urge the Mayor to reconsider his position.”