Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Year : 2, Issue : 13
Officials in New York City have begun giving out prepaid debit cards to migrant families residing in the Big Apple.
The first batch of debit cards, which are reportedly meant to be used by the illegal immigrants to purchase food and baby supplies, were handed out Monday to a handful of migrant families in the city, New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ office confirmed to Fox News Digital.
The effort is part of a reported $53 million pilot program to hand out prepaid credit cards to migrant families housed in hotels despite public outcry.
The program, which the mayor’s office confirmed will provide migrant families of four with two children under 5 with up to $350 each week until the end of their stay, began with a limited number of families on Monday and will expand to about 115 families, or roughly 460 people, over the next week.
The prepaid cards may only be used at bodegas, grocery stores, supermarkets and convenience stores. Migrants eligible for the program must sign an affidavit stating they will only spend the funds on food and baby supplies, or else they could lose access to the funds, Adams’ office said.
Additionally, the mayor’s office confirmed that the pilot program was launched using a phased approach, starting with only a few hotels. City officials have noted that the cards will be loaded with one week’s worth of funds at a time and that their use would be monitored.
The cards are reportedly being distributed at the city’s arrival center, the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, to the migrant families who are staying at hotels that are being used as emergency shelters. Under the pilot program, which is expected to last for six weeks, migrants could receive more money from the city than the state gives to low-income and elderly New Yorkers under SNAP benefits.
New York City’s government has projected it will spend at least $10.6 billion on migrants by summer 2025. New York state has already vowed to contribute about $2 billion in the current budget cycle to the migrant crisis, but Adams told lawmakers that the state pledge would only cover one-third of the city’s migrant costs.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, another Democrat, has suggested the state earmark $2.4 billion to go toward migrant services in the next budget cycle, but the details have not been ironed out before the state legislature. Adams’ office said even that allocation proposed by Hochul would be $600 million short of what the city needs in its next budget cycle, the New York Daily News reported last month.
Fox News’ Danielle Wallace and Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
