NEW YORK, CMC—Immigration advocates here have applauded the passage of a US$112.4 billion executive budget for the 2025 fiscal year (FY25), saying that it represents “wins” for Caribbean and other immigrants.
The New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella policy and advocacy organization representing over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups, has applauded New York City Mayor Eric Adams and the City Council for passing the budget that NYIC said are “several priorities.”
Murad Awawdeh,
It said they include US$25 million for Promise NYC (New York City), US$100 million for early childhood programming, US$14 million for adult literacy, an additional US$58.6 million for initiative programs, alongside an increase of US$4.4 million for legal services for immigrant families; US$3.8 million for language access worker cooperatives and an interpreter bank; US$3.6 million for Access Health; US$700,000 for Key to the City; and US$58 million to reverse cuts to the city’s public libraries.
“We commend NYC Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and the entire City Council for championing low-income and immigrant New Yorkers in this budget,” Murad Awawdeh, NYIC’s president and chief executive officer, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC). “The final New York City budget for FY25 brought major reversals to Mayor Adams’ unnecessarily austere proposed budget that would have left too many New Yorkers in need,” he said.
“This budget will give our immigrant neighbors, whether they arrived here 30 days or 30 years ago, a better opportunity to fully integrate into their lives as New Yorkers. It will ensure that families can stay together while contributing to our economy and that their children are safe, learning, and cared for.
“We look forward to building on these investments in the year to come to ensure that everyone who calls New York home can thrive here,” he added.
Zara Nasir, director of The People’s Plan, an immigrant advocacy group in New York, said this year’s budget stops far short of reversing the Mayor’s multiple rounds of cuts, which have decimated core city services and harmed millions of New Yorkers who need and rely on the social safety net and public education.
He said Mayor Adams pushed through many cuts to foundational services and programs that will further criminalize New Yorkers.
“The Mayor’s last-minute reversals don’t fool us. Funding cuts for libraries and other vital programs should never have happened, and the Mayor deserves no credit for such a cynical tactic. We must ensure future budgets won’t be dictated by revenue underestimations and budget games.
“We applaud the City Councilmembers who stood by their principles and voted no on this budget, as well as those who used their votes to counteract the worst cuts,” Nasir added.
Theo Oshiro, the co-executive director of Make the Road New York, said that “instead of investing in New Yorkers, Mayor Adams repeatedly threatened cuts to our education, housing, legal services, adult literacy programs, and other crucial services.
“And, once again, we saw the mayor’s determination to increase the size, scope, and power of the NYPD (New York Police Department) at the expense of our communities,” he said, adding, “Over the last months, our members have fought fiercely to restore the mayor’s draconian cuts.”
New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, the son of Grenadian immigrants, said he was “glad to see a budget agreement on time, and with many important initiatives intact.
“I thank the Council and the Speaker in particular, in partnership with advocates, for their relentless efforts to not only secure capital investment in key initiatives such as affordable housing but to oppose austerity and preserve vital programs,” he told CMC.
“Nowhere is this more clear than in our libraries and cultural institutions, and I am grateful that the final budget deal restores crucial funding in these areas. At the same time, we should not let relief at undoing the administration’s unnecessary and high-profile cuts to libraries obscure the reality. There are still other unnecessary, less visible cuts in this budget, and these will have an impact far beyond the fiscal year,” Williams added.
New York City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Finance Committee Chair Justin Brannan, and New York City Council members voted to adopt the US$112.4 billion budget for FY 2025.
The FY 2025 budget restores and funds over one billion dollars of the Council’s priorities following the Mayor’s executive budget, including full library service, cultural institutions, school, and student support programs, and a comprehensive plan to fund and fix the early childhood education (ECE) system.
The ECE plan would provide funding to add seats and childcare vouchers for children without them, advance operational solutions to problems in the system that can fill vacant 3-K and Pre-K seats, and strengthen them.
The budget also secured the addition of two billion dollars in capital funding over the next two years to support the creation and preservation of more affordable housing.
Mayor Eric Adams thanked all stakeholders “in the City Council for joining us in passing a budget that addresses the affordability crisis head-on and invests in the future of our city and the working-class people who make New York the most fantastic city in the world.
“Despite facing unprecedented challenges, including a US$7.1 billion budget gap, a US$4.9 billion international humanitarian crisis, and hundreds of millions of short-term stimulus dollars used to fund crucial long-term programs, we still passed a collaborative budget that addresses the three things that cost New Yorkers the most: housing, childcare, and health care.
“This adopted budget reimagines early childhood education to set our working families and youngest New Yorkers on a path to success. It also allocates a record US$26 billion in capital for affordable housing, addresses rising health care costs, ensures hospitals and health care providers are not gouging New Yorkers”.
Adamas said it makes numerous investments to improve quality of life, such as enforcing regulations against illegal cannabis operators and funding cultural institutions, libraries, parks, and transit.
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