As record numbers of migrants invade the U.S., causing pain in New York City and other communities, one group is winning the big time: public advocacy advocates. Their job is to continually file lawsuits to gain more so-called rights for migrants. Rights to shelter, right to meals, right to health care, even the right to vote in local elections.
Who pays the bills on both sides of these lawsuits? You do. Taxpayer money largely funds these legal fighters, including the Coalition for the Homeless, Legal Aid Society, and the Vera Institute of Justice.
You pay to be legally forced to offer more to migrants, even at the cost of cutting vital city services – a bit like hiring your own killer. It’s absurd, but it gets worse.
On December 14, the New York City Council passed Resolution 556, calling on the state legislature to guarantee as a right that all immigrants have lawyers paid by taxpayers when they go to immigration court. It would be a first-in-the-nation guarantee.
Resolution 556 would give immigrants more rights than U.S. citizens. No one else is guaranteed a government-funded attorney in civil lawsuits, such as housing or divorce disputes.
Sure enough, the City Council’s proposal would make the Big Apple even more of a magnet for migrants than it already is.
Who is behind this push? The Vera Institute for Justice, for example.
Vera claims we “need a federally funded universal legal defense service” for immigrants. In short, a national army of left-wing lawyers, paid for by you. What better place to launch this crazy idea than the New York City Council?
The Vera Institute is not the only organization that makes money from the rights of migrants.
In October, Mayor Eric Adams went to court seeking temporary relief from the rigid rules and regulations governing what the city must provide to homeless people as tens of thousands of homeless migrants arrive. Immediately, the Legal Aid Society and the Coalition for the Homeless intervened, claiming his plan would “undermine” the long-standing rights of homeless people.
These lawsuits are largely funded by you, through city and state grants and contracts. Judge Gerald Lebovits of Manhattan urged the parties to compromise, arranging for lawyers from all sides representing the city, state and immigrants to meet several times in his chambers.
This scam is being repeated across the country. The Justice Action Center — also publicly funded — is suing the Biden administration on behalf of Haitian asylum seekers whose rights it says were violated by mounted U.S. Border Patrol agents who tried to stop them as they crossed the Rio Grande. Lawyers for the migrants and lawyers for the Biden administration will cross swords. It doesn’t matter who wins. They are all paid by us.
It’s a free country. Anyone can file a lawsuit. But why should we have to pay for these legal boxing matches?
Disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo wrote last week that the cure for New York City’s mounting misery is to sue the federal government for more money. Wrong. That would send even more wasted money into the legal process.
Cuomo also argues that the “right to shelter” should apply to all counties, rather than just Gotham, and that state lawmakers should “equitably distribute” the migrant burden statewide. Spoken like a police officer who keeps an eye on a position in the city and no longer cares about the rest of the state.
The idea that there is a “right to shelter” in the state constitution was coined by the Coalition for the Homeless in a lawsuit in 1981. Since then, city leaders’ hands have been tied. It must be challenged legally. Extending that dubious right to immigrants who have just arrived here, and then imposing it statewide, would compound the harm.
Tell lawmakers to stop funding the legal advocacy industry with our money. It is time to break the stranglehold that these government-funded lawyers, under the guise of doing good, have on our city and nation.