NYU Study: Americans should Help Illegal Immigrants Access Government Benefits, Programs

New York University’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change published a study, which advocated for helping illegal immigrants gain access to government benefits and programs.

The authors of the report are Hirokazu Yoshikawa, Ajay Chaudry, and Trenel Francis, and the two contributors are Sarah Rendon Garcia, a Harvard doctoral candidate, and Columbia University assistant professor Heather Koball.

The report makes a stand against the Trump administration’s immigration policies and claimed that the Trump administration’s immigration stance has “led more mixed-status immigration families to live in a climate of fear and anxiety.”

The NYU study advocated for state and local governments to lessen the impact and effects of the federal government’s immigration policies and enforcement, such as helping illegal immigrants avoid the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) agency. Other recommendations are awarding illegal immigrant students in-state tuition rates for college, providing (i.e. paying for) federal immigration lawyers, and urging officials to “decouple federal immigration detention and removal proceedings from local law enforcement for different types of offenses.” Or, in other words, the NYU study advocates for more state and local control over immigration, at the expense of safety concerns.

The study proposes a lot of spending, but does not account for how states and local governments can fund these immigration-related spending proposals. Since states are turning to the federal government to foot the bill for Medicaid expansion and other programs, it calls into question whether states can take on more financial expenses.

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