New York City is ending its controversial plan that gave immigrant families prepaid debit cards worth a total of $18,500 each.
City Hall made the announcement Thursday, as Mayor Eric Adams finally listened to critics of the Big Apple’s immigration policies and Adams himself became friendlier with Donald Trump, who plans massive reforms to the immigration system.
City Hall spokesman William Fowler says the program will expire at the end of the year after providing a total of $3.2 million in cash value for 2,600 families to purchase essential items.
Debit cards could only be used at supermarkets and grocery stores, Adams said when he started. A family of four with two children could receive up to $350 per week, depending on the age of the children.
The program became more inconvenient after Brad Lander, the city comptroller, stripped Adams of his power to make “emergency agreements” with companies like MoCaFi, who were given $400,000 in a no-bid contract to run the program.
New York City is ending its controversial plan that gave immigrant families prepaid debit cards that gave immigrant families a total of $18,500 each.
Debit cards could only be used at supermarkets and grocery stores, Adams said when he started. A family of four with two children could receive up to $350 per week, depending on the ages of the children.
“We will continue to implement and learn from innovative pilot programs like the immediate response card program as we serve hundreds of newcomers each week,” Fowler said in a statement.
However, Fowler did say Gothamist The program could potentially be restarted, but would have to go through an open bidding process to determine who would run it.
Critics, including Adams’ rival in the immigration crisis, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and Queens-born rapper 50 Cent, have questioned why immigrants are receiving the cards before struggling New Yorkers.
Abbott called the “offensive” plan “insanity,” but supporters say it will help the city deal with the strain on its services caused by a surge of immigrants in recent months.
Adams insisted that debit cards save the city $600,000 a month, or $7.2 million a year, by allowing immigrants to spend money that will go into the local economy instead of the city spending funds on food boxes.
Meanwhile, 50 Cent shared a post on Instagram about the plan to give prepaid cards to immigrants to buy food and baby items.
“WTF, Mayor Adams is calling my phone,” he wrote. ‘I don’t understand how this works, someone explain to me. I’m stuck, maybe TRUMP is the answer.’
It comes after the artist, who was born in New York City, questioned why immigrants are given free healthcare in California.
Joseph Borelli, Republican minority leader on the City Council, acknowledged there would be savings, but questioned the amount being spent on immigrants.
The plans went ahead despite fierce backlash from people including Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (left) and Queens-born rapper 50 Cent.
During the crisis, immigrants have often been herded to the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan.
“Many New Yorkers are going to take this as fundamentally unfair,” he told New York Times. “There are many New Yorkers struggling to pay their bills.”
Trump is expected to crack down on illegal immigration and try to restrict legal immigration when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20, following up on campaign promises and unfinished efforts from his 2017-2021 presidency.
He has pledged to launch the largest deportation effort in U.S. history, focusing on criminals but aiming to send millions back to their home countries, an effort that is expected to leverage resources across the U.S. government. United but also facing obstacles.
Trump has said he would restore his 2019 “remain in Mexico” program, which forced asylum seekers of certain nationalities trying to enter the United States at the southern border to wait in Mexico for the resolution of their cases.
The program was canceled by Democratic President Joe Biden, who ended his faltering re-election campaign in July, making Vice President Kamala Harris the candidate.
Trump would also restore the COVID-19-era Title 42 policy, which allowed U.S. border authorities to quickly expel migrants back to Mexico without the chance to apply for asylum, he told Time magazine in an interview.
He would use record border crossings and trafficking of fentanyl and children as reasons for the emergency measures, Time reported, citing comments from advisers.
Trump has said he will seek to detain all immigrants caught crossing the border illegally or violating other immigration laws, ending what he calls “catch and release.”
Trump is expected to crack down on illegal immigration and try to restrict legal immigration when he returns to the White House on Jan. 20, following up on campaign promises and unfinished efforts from his 2017-2021 presidency.
At a campaign event earlier this month, Trump said he would ask Congress to fund 10,000 additional Border Patrol agents, a substantial increase over the existing force.
Harris criticized Trump for helping kill a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year that could have added 1,300 more agents.
Trump focused on building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border during his first term and has pledged to close gaps in the border wall if elected.
He criticized Biden’s asylum ban implemented last June and promised to reverse it during a campaign event in Arizona.
Trump said the measure would not adequately secure the border, even though it reflects Trump-era policies to deter would-be migrants and has contributed to a sharp drop in the number of migrants caught crossing illegally.
He also said at the campaign event that he would consider using tariffs to pressure China and other nations to prevent immigrants from their countries from reaching the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, said in a New York Times interview published in October that deporting 1 million immigrants a year would be “reasonable.”
He has said he would implement travel bans on people from certain countries or with certain ideologies, expanding a policy upheld by the Supreme Court in 2018.
Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, said in a New York Times interview published in October that deporting 1 million immigrants a year would be “reasonable.”
New York City was one of the epicenters of the crisis after Abbott bused them to the Big Apple from Texas.
Trump previewed some parts of the world that could be subject to a new travel ban in an October 2023 speech, promising to restrict people from the Gaza Strip, Libya, Somalia, Syria, Yemen and “anywhere else that threatens our security”.
The president-elect said last year that he would seek to end automatic citizenship for children born in the United States of immigrants living in the country illegally, an idea he flirted with when he was president.
Trump said last June that he would seek to block the entry of communists, Marxists and socialists into the United States.
Adams, who has become the much-maligned face of New York City’s immigration disaster, has recently become friendlier to Trump, even before his victory on Tuesday.
The Democratic mayor of New York City criticized the party’s harsh rhetoric against Trump.
The mayor congratulated Trump on his victory and said he spoke with the president-elect by phone privately on Wednesday.
‘Yesterday I contacted the president to tell him that there are many problems here in the city that we want to work together with the administration to address. The city must move forward and that is our call to make.”
Both Adams and Trump have sympathized with each other’s legal difficulties in the past.
Trump defended Adams at Al Smith’s benefit dinner, which Harris skipped, by mentioning the mayor’s federal indictment for bribery, fraud and soliciting foreign campaign donations.
