Mayor Eric Adams has announced the end of a controversial taxpayer-funded initiative distributing pre-paid debit cards to illegal immigrants.
The program, which was initially launched as a pilot earlier this year with a $53 million budget aimed to assist around 3,000 illegal immigrants and was set to expand its reach to over 7,300 individuals within the next half-year, will not see its contract renewed after January 2025.
The debit card initiative was designed to enable illegal immigrant families, temporarily housed in upscale hotels like the Roosevelt Hotel, to buy their “groceries and baby supplies” instead of receiving predetermined food services.
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Managed by the New Jersey-based Mobility Capital Finance (MoCaFi), the program allowed for a variable amount to be loaded onto the cards based on family size and income, with a four-person household receiving as much as $1,000 per month. These cards will be reloaded every 28 days.
According to the Office of the NY State Comptroller (OSC), by May 31, 2024, the city reported spending $1.47 billion in Fiscal Year 2023 and $2.72 billion in Fiscal Year 2024 on expenses related to “asylum seekers.”
This latest cash infusion brings the total expenditure on this initiative to an eye-watering $2 billion, according to the New York Post.
Moving forward, the city plans to revert to food delivery services for illegal immigrants under their care in the hotel voucher program.
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PIX11 reported:
The City Hall spokesperson said the contract for the pilot program will not be renewed when it ends in January 2025.
“As we move towards more competitive contracting for asylum seeker programs, we have chosen not to renew the emergency contract for this pilot program once the one-year term concludes,” the City Hall spokesperson said.
The city will instead transition back to food delivery services for migrants in their care in the hotel voucher program, according to the City Hall spokesperson.
“For over two years, we have provided care to more than 222,000 migrants while saving $2 billion in asylum seeker-related costs. Thanks to our resettlement efforts, intensive case management, and national-leading Asylum Application Help Center, more than 160,000 migrants have left our shelter system and taken their next steps towards self-sufficiency,” the City Hall spokesperson said.
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