The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Advocates call immigrant aid plan ‘crumbs’
HARTFORD — A month after Gov. Ned Lamont pledged $3.5 million in aid for immigrant families, activists and members of Connecticut’s immigrant community are asking for more.
Immigrant advocacy groups want additional funds, access to health care and the cancellation of rent to ease the hardship caused by the coronavirus pandemic that has disproportionately affected their community as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We need to avoid the next public health crisis: an eviction crisis,” said Eric Cruz
Lopez, of the non-profit CT Students for a Dream, at a Monday rally on the steps of the Capitol. “Renters should not be evicted and forced into crowded courtrooms to lose their homes because they have not paid rent due to the economic impact of the pandemic.”
Lopez was one of more than 50 advocates from a coalition of non-profits — collectively called the Coalition for People’s Liberation — who gathered on the steps of the Capitol Monday morning to demand “liberatory policies from Gov. Ned Lamont.
He and others called on Lamont and his administration to extend the existing eviction moratorium — which provides temporary protection to renters but is scheduled to end Aug. 22 — through the end of the public health crisis and allocate $140 million to a rental assistance fund for all renters, regardless of their
immigration status.
“The health of our communities depends on it,” Lopez said.
In addition to aid for immigrants, the group demanded the de-funding of police and large scale decarceration, along with public divestment from the prison industrial complex ahead of a legislative special session to begin this week.
Those gathered represented a diverse set of advocacy groups from throughout the state, including representatives from Black America Undivided, the Citywide Youth Coalition, Hearing Youth Voices, Radical Advocates for Cross-Cultural Education, the Semilla Collective and Make the Road CT. They held up signs that read “Defund Police,” “Black Lives Matter,” and “Economic Relief Fund Now” and passed around “Cancel Rent” facemasks.
But a segment of the event was focused on aid to immigrants.
In June, Lamont announced
the allocation of $2.5 million in housing assistance for immigrants (a separate $10 million has been allocated toward housing assistance statewide, as well) and an additional $1 million through a new program, called 4-CT, which is meant to cover other needs associated with the virus.
But, with 120,000 undocumented immigrants in the state —who do largely do not have access to health care or federal aid, and have been disproportionately impacted by the virus —advocates have expressed concern that the relief package does too little to help those in need. Divided evenly between each of those 120,000 immigrants, it would amount to roughly $8 per person. Many residents, no matter their immigration status, are thousands of dollars behind on their rent as a result of lost jobs and wages during the pandemic.
Several speakers referred to the aid as “crumbs.”
“The governor’s $3.5 million program announced on
June 3rd is one more example of how the state continues to throw crumbs at deep systemic issues instead of addressing the roots of the problem,” said Fatima Rojas, of the Semilla Collective. “$3.5 million is simply not enough and disregards the full needs and demands that immigrant and working class communities have put forward.”
On Monday afternoon, Lamont acknowledged that many Connecticut residents would owe their delinquent rent lump sum once the moratorium ends. He said rental assistance was in the state’s budget and that he hoped federal aid would include rent support — though federal aid would likely not extend to the undocumented community.
Lamont has previously defended his administration’s aid to immigrants and said no more could be done, touting especially the 4-CT program, which gives qualified immigrants debit cards that can be used to buy food, groceries and other necessary items.
“Our immigrant community,
we’ve got a variety of programs in place to make sure they have the resources and the safety they need as we get back to our new normal,” Lamont said at his July 14 press briefing. “We’re doing everything we can for the immigrant community.”
But advocates have complained recently that the system is confusing and their remains uncertainty as to who qualified for the program.
“The program itself was very small and really only crumbs,” Carolina Bortoletto, co-founder of CT Students for a Dream, said last week. “Then how the program itself is being implemented has left a lot of frontline organizations with a lot of questions. In terms of 4-CT gift cards, there hasn’t really been an effort to inform the community about how they can get the cards.”
And still, many expressed dismay at the continued lack of access to health care for many undocumented immigrants.
“We are ineligible for Medicaid
and HUSKY, and can’t buy into Access Health CT,” said Anghy Idrovo, who is undocumented and a member of Connecticut Students for a Dream. “Our families cannot seek the proper health care we need. With 120,000 estimated undocumented immigrants residing in our state, this is a massive public health crisis.”
Idrovo noted Lamont’s expansion of the state’s “Emergency Medicaid” program to cover uninsured, undocumented individuals’ Covid19 treatment and testing, but said the measure doesn’t go far enough.
“This is not enough! It is only a band-aid solution,” she continued. “We demand Governor Lamont actually address the healthcare crisis in the immigrant community. There is no other option - it's time to fully open HUSKY to all regardless of immigration status, so that everyone has access to care- not just during emergencies.”
justin.papp@scni.com; @justinjpapp1; 203-842-2586