Representatives of local community aid organizations testified at a City Council hearing on Tuesday that immigrant New Yorkers are forgoing doctors' appointments, failing to report domestic violence, and doing without public benefits such as food stamps out of fear of immigration enforcement.
What the advocates described as the chilling effects of President Donald Trump’s renewed immigration crackdown is reshaping daily life for thousands of immigrant families, creating a mental health crisis as people avoid accessing critical services that could keep them safe and healthy.
“ Under Trump 2.0, we are seeing increased isolation again, this time with immigrants fearing completing daily tasks due to the potential for ICE enforcement,” said Rachel Goldsmith, the Legal Aid Society’s director of social work.
The hearing centered on the mental health needs of immigrant New Yorkers, which advocates said have multiplied with a surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests since Trump returned to office on Jan. 20. The Arab American Family Support Center has seen an 80% surge in requests for mental health assistance in recent months, one staffer testified.
Over 3,300 immigrants have been arrested since Jan. 20, a 56% increase over the same period last year, according to a Gothamist analysis. As of early March, about 43,000 asylum-seekers were staying in city shelters, according to city comptroller data.
Mayor Eric Adams administration officials, in hearing testimony, urged families to continue sending their children to school, accessing medical care, and calling 911 in emergencies. The city spreads that word through flyers, social media, events, workshops, and roundtables with ethnic and immigrant media outlets, according to the officials.
“Mayor Adams has been clear that no New Yorker, regardless of their documentation status, should be afraid to use resources — like calling the police, sending their kids to school, seeking medical care, or going to a court hearing — and feel forced to hide in the shadows," Liz Garcia, an City Hall spokesperson, said in statement issued after the hearing.
Erin Byrne, a staffer for the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, said the administration’s “first priority” for detained immigrants has been connecting them with legal services.
Ashley Lin, a staff member at the Korean American Family Service Center, shared an anecdote about a Korean immigrant woman without legal status who reached out to her organization for assistance with domestic violence.
The woman was “terrified” to call police, Lin said, fearing that she might be separated from her children and deported.
“In this current political climate, the challenges are even greater,” Lin said. “Language barriers, immigration concerns, and the fear of deportation leaves survivors with nowhere else to turn.”
Stephanie Rovine, development director at the Healing Center, a nonprofit serving individuals affected by sexual and domestic violence, said children coming to her organization worried about attending school because they feared their parents might be detained while they were away.
Councilmember Alexa Avilés, who chairs the Council's immigration committee, criticized Adams’ administration for what she called a lack of appropriate services to address immigrants' mental health needs.
She said she was “incredibly frustrated” by what she called a failure to address critical needs, such as long wait times for the city’s suicide and mental health crisis hotline, called 988.
“ No mention of specific programs, no mention of acknowledgment of waitlists and how to handle that. No mention of anticipating increased burden and what that would look like,” Avilés said in an interview after the hearing. “ But in many ways it's more of the same from an administration that refuses to prepare and really deal in earnest with the situation that we're in.”
Garcia said in the statement the administration has been "dedicated to ensuring immigrant New Yorkers feel safe through providing an unprecedented amount of resources, like investing $120 million in free immigrant legal services, creating the new Office to Facilitate Pro Bono Legal Services to connect more individuals with free, existing legal support, and expanding our Know Your Rights trainings to the largest in the nation."
She added, "It’s despicable that, in a moment of heightened anxiety, an elected official has chosen to spread misinformation about the crucial work of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs ... instead of working collaboratively with the agency in a meaningful and productive way.”
This article was updated with comment from the mayor's office.
