TESTIMONY OF:

Anya Mukarji-Connolly

BROOKLYN DEFENDER SERVICES

Presented before

The New York City Council

Committee on Finance

Executive Budget Hearing

May 25, 2021

Introduction

My name is Anya Mukarji-Connolly. I am the Associate Director of Policy at Brooklyn Defender Services (BDS). I thank the City Council Committee on Finance, and in particular Chair Dromm, for this opportunity to testify about our work and the importance of funding for indigent defense providers in New York City.

BDS provides multi-disciplinary and people-centered criminal, family, and immigration defense, as well as civil legal services, social work support and advocacy to nearly 30,000 people and their families in Brooklyn every year. Through specialized units of the office, we provide extensive wrap-around services that meet the needs of traditionally under-served clients in a comprehensive way. In addition to zealous legal defense, we provide a wide range of additional services to meet our clients’ unique needs, including help with housing, benefits, education, and employment. In many cases these services are of a preventive nature, helping people avoid loss of housing or immigration status, assuring benefits are available when needed to avoid hunger, or addressing education issues before a student leaves school.

This Council has been responsible for legislating and funding groundbreaking programs to meet the needs of communities that are highly surveilled but unreached by other service providers— including the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, which is ensuring universal representation to immigrant New Yorkers facing deportation and the Family Advocacy and Guardianship Support initiative, which provides advocacy to families being investigated by the Administration for Children's Services.

This is a unique moment in our City’s history as a world-wide public health pandemic has laid bare the profound inequities nationwide and further deepened the disparities in healthcare, employment, and housing, making marginalized communities more vulnerable to legal systems involvement. As a nation we are also experiencing a long overdue public reckoning of systemic racism and police violence. How a society allocates its budget is a statement of its values.

While the City begins to reopen and rebuild, there is an opportunity for the Council to invest in communities and ensure that New Yorkers receive the support and resources, not surveillance, that help our City thrive.

Our Work

BDS is proud to say as we move into Fiscal Year 2022, we will be celebrating 25 years since we opened our doors and began representing clients in Brooklyn. We have worked to protect the rights of the people in our communities every day since, but the need for our services is more acute than ever.

BDS’ diverse staff of approximately 450 is comprised of over 280 attorneys, 50 social workers, and 120 support staff including investigators, paralegals, re-entry specialists, jail services advocates, community liaisons, policy specialists and administrative professionals. Our specialized approach allows us to provide targeted services for clients in each of our practices who have unique needs, such as veterans, people with mental illness or developmental disabilities, young people and victims of trafficking. We thank the City Council for your consistent support of indigent legal service providers.

BDS is one of the largest intuitional providers of indigent defense in the State. Our criminal defense and family defense practices are funded by the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice (MOCJ) contracts for mandated legal defense. We are grateful to receive this funding from the City, but regrettably those contracts do not fully fund the entirety of our programs or costs. While we rely on this funding, the Mayor’s Office has created extraordinary and unnecessary challenges that have resulted in the City owing BDS in excess of $12 million -- mostly because of delays in contracts that go back years at this point.

In order to fill the gaps in funding for our social work practice, wrap-around services, community engagement and education programming, we turn to the City Council to provide additional support through initiatives such as NYIFUP, Alternatives to Incarceration, Immigrant Opportunities Initiative (IOI), Domestic Violence and Empowerment Initiative (DOVE), and the

Family Advocacy and Guardianship Support. We are extremely grateful for that support and leadership from the Council and the Speaker.

Criminal Defense Practice

BDS provides criminal defense representation to nearly 30,000 people arrested each year in Brooklyn. BDS has over 140 criminal defense attorneys, each extremely dedicated and skilled in all aspects of criminal law. Our attorneys are availed of extensive training and supervision throughout the stages of their legal practice. They provide wrap-around services in collaboration with interdisciplinary teams of Padilla immigration attorney specialists, social workers, client advocates, paralegals, investigators and administrative staff. In order to address the unique needs of our clients, BDS’ criminal defense practice has a number of dedicated and specialized units which provide targeted services to adolescents, clients with mental illness, victims of trafficking, veterans and clients with overlapping criminal, family court, and immigration issues.

Although most courts remain closed, the criminal courts are hearing essential applications and are conducting arraignments day and night by video. BDS staff has adapted to handle these arraignments throughout this challenging and constantly evolving process. In many instances there is no way to resolve cases, so most of the pending cases and new cases are currently ongoing. Despite the changes and uncertainty, our staff has stepped up and remains flexible and ready to see our clients through this pandemic. While still representing thousands of existing clients, BDS is also getting new clients daily. We have made sure everyone knows they are not alone during this extremely difficult time and we will do anything we can to keep the people we represent safe and healthy during the pandemic as we fight for a good outcome on their case.

We respectfully request that the City Council continue to insist that the City fully fund indigent criminal defense, and that the Council holds the Mayor’s office accountable to moving our contracts through the process in an expeditious manner.

Family Defense Practice

BDS is the primary provider of representation to parents and caretakers in Brooklyn who are facing ACS investigations or child neglect and abuse cases in Family Court. Our Family Defense Practice represents about 4,000 parents each year. We have represented over 13,000 parents and caretakers in Brooklyn Family Court and have helped more than 20,000 children remain safely at home or leave foster care and reunite with their families.

The family defense practice includes over 50 attorneys, 10 social workers, plus paralegals, parent advocates, and administrative staff. Most of the people we represent are people of color living in poverty, raising their children in homeless shelters or public housing, and in highly policed neighborhoods, making them vulnerable to government surveillance, including ACS. While our clients usually have many needs that impact their ability to keep their families together, in our experience many of these families are traumatized by separation and receive little government support to stay together with services in place. Our family defense clients live primarily in the low-income neighborhoods of East New York, Brownsville, and Bedford Stuyvesant.

In addition to representing parents who have cases filed against them, crucial funding from the New York City Council allows BDS to advocate for parents facing child welfare investigations by ACS before a case is filed in court. BDS’ Right to Family Advocacy project—part of the City Council Family Advocacy and Guardianship Support Initiative—provides parents and caretakers information and legal advice to navigate the child welfare system, advocacy at Child Safety Conferences, referrals for services to help address any underlying issues, and support in developing safety plans to prevent cases from being filed in court or having children removed.

In addition to zealous legal advocacy that often results in keeping families together, BDS is able to provide social work support to parents and caretakers. Combined, these services dramatically increase the likelihood that families will be able to stay together or eventually reunify.1 The time frame that our clients’ children stay in foster care is shorter when these additional resources are available, resulting in monetary savings and very tangible benefits to children and families in New York City.2

It is important to note that the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice has cut funding for Family Defense every year even as the pending caseload has continued to grow. As a result, at our current level of funding, BDS is unable to represent all eligible clients in Family Court, thus denying Brooklyn residents the array of services that BDS has available and better outcomes on their cases. Furthermore, the current level of funding is insufficient to sustain our representation model at current intake targets, and further cuts would be extremely harmful as we work to keep families together. BDS requests that the City Council insist that the Mayor restore our FY22 funding to match our FY21 allocation.

Immigration Practice

BDS’ multi-unit immigration practice works to minimize the negative immigration consequences of criminal charges for noncitizens, represent our clients in applications for immigration benefits and defend our clients against ICE detention and deportation. Since 2009, we have counseled, advised, or represented more than 15,000 clients in immigration matters including deportation defense, affirmative applications, advisals, and immigration consequence consultations in Brooklyn’s criminal court system.

BDS is one of three New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFUP) providers and has represented more than 1,500 people in detained deportation proceedings since the inception of the program in 2013. Our NYIFUP team represents people in detained and non-detained removal

proceedings in bond, merits hearings, release advocacy with ICE, administrative and federal court appeals, and federal district court challenges to unlawful detention.

Our Immigration Community Action Project (ICAP), which receives Immigrant Opportunity Initiative (IOI) funding, represents people in non-detained removal proceedings as well as applications for immigration benefits, including family-based applications for lawful permanent status, fear-based applications, U & T visas, Special Juvenile Immigrant Status (SIJS), DACA renewal and related applications. BDS’ ICAP team specializes in providing affirmative immigration legal services in complicated cases and prioritizes people that are current or former clients of BDS and their families, formerly justice-system involved non-citizens, community residents referred from partner organizations, and individuals referred by constituent affairs offices.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, BDS’ immigration team sprang into action to fight for the release and safety of our detained clients and the due process rights of our non-detained clients. While some deportation cases have been postponed, filing deadlines are still in effect in some immigration court cases in New York. Meanwhile, hearings for detained individuals are still taking place at Varick Street Immigration Court.

None of the work that the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project providers—Brooklyn Defender Services, the Legal Aid Society and The Bronx Defenders—do would be possible without the support and funding of the New York City Council.

As we move into a new era where we hope the cruel immigration policies of the prior presidential administration are put to an end, the need is actually greater for this important program. While it seems that deportations will be less common, there are still hundreds of people whose cases have already been filed and whom we currently represent. In addition, there is the hope that many people previously unable to obtain status will have a new opportunity to stay with their families in the United States. One example is DACA, which has already been reinstated. Many of these programs require complicated documents and a thorough risk analysis before filing, particularly if someone has been arrested in the past. In order to meet that need, and possibly stave off deportation and allow Brooklynites to achieve status, we need the continued support of the City Council for the NYIFUP program. BDS requests that the City Council continue to fund the NYIFUP providers at their current level to fully fund the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project in FY2022.

Civil Justice Practice

BDS’ Civil Justice Practice assists clients on essential civil matters that affect them, including housing, education, employment and access to benefits. In the past year the Civil Justice team represented or connected BDS clients with services in approximately 1,000 cases. The Civil Justice Practice seeks to reduce the civil collateral consequences for low-income clients who have had interaction with the criminal, family or immigration justice systems. Through legal advocacy in court and at various agencies, we assist people in remaining in their homes, maintaining their public benefits, staying in school, keeping their jobs, and protecting their consumer rights. In order to achieve these ends, we practice in almost all of New York City’s courts at every level from trial to appeals.

BDS’ Civil Justice Practice is working with clients across all practice areas to help them access benefits, remain in housing, and assure their children obtain the education they deserve and to which they are entitled. Our attorneys and social workers are working with most of our clients in very direct ways to assure they have access to food and healthcare, are aware of and have assistance applying for benefits, are aware of their children’s educational rights, and are getting the paid sick or family leave they require.

FY22 Priority City Council Budget Requests

We are extremely grateful for the financial support the Council has provided BDs over recent years. Though the City provides contracted funds for our core indigent defense representation in Criminal, Immigration and Family Court, the wrap-around services that make our model unique and transformative are only possible because of your support. Every program you help fund— NYIFUP, our pre-entry/re-entry program through Alternatives to Incarceration, our Immigrant Communities Advocacy Program through Immigrant Opportunities Initiative, family defense through Family Advocacy and Guardianship Support—plays an essential role in providing critically needed services to New Yorkers, which would otherwise go unfunded by the City.

We would like to highlight our priority Council funded asks for FY22:

1. NYIFUP Funding: BDS’ New York Immigrant Family Unity Project

The New York Immigrant Family Unity Project (NYIFIUP) is the national’s first-ever universal representation program for detained immigrants facing deportation. The partnership of Brooklyn Defender Services along with The Bronx Defenders and The Legal Aid Society is requesting $16.6 million ($5,533,333 per organization) to continue serving as NYIFUP’s three legal service providers. This request will allow the program to maintain capacity to handle the large volume of direct representation to low-income detained New Yorkers facing deportation and challenge unlawful or unconstitutional government action in federal court. With increases in immigration enforcement and detention, this project is more important than ever to prevent New York families from the devastating consequences of detention and deportation. With the potential of meaningful legal remedies for the clients we already represent under the Biden administration, NYIFUP stands ready to help each of our clients apply for status, as well as fight the pending deportations that are left over from the prior administrations harsh and unfair policies. To preserve this Council's commitment to the groundbreaking NYIFUP initiative, we ask that the initiative be baselined in the City budget.

The NYIFUP Coalition submitted a joint request for $16,600,000, split evenly among the three providers, to fully fund the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project in FY21. BDS is requesting $5,533,333 as our proportionate share.

1. Family Advocacy and Guardian Support: Right to Family Advocacy Initiative

The Right to Family Advocacy Initiative is a two- year-old initiative that provides desperately needed due process, representation and advocacy services to individuals and families involved in the child welfare system. Brooklyn Defender Services, with the Bronx Defenders, Center for Family Representation and Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, is requesting funding of $3,000,000 ($750,000 for BDS) from the City Council. With this funding, the four offices that represent parents involved in the child welfare system will continue to advocate for parents during ACS investigations before a case is filed and represent parents with the State Central Register to clear their child abuse and neglect records for employment purposes.

BDS submitted a joint request for $3,000,000, divided equally among the four providers, to fully fund the Right to Family Advocacy Initiative. BDS is requesting $750,000 as our share.

1. Immigrant Opportunities Initiative: BDS’ Immigration Community Action Project

BDS’ Immigration Community Action Project (ICAP) team serves a large number of individuals in naturalization, adjustment of status, DACA, SIJS, and other affirmative asylum applications with USCIS. Working in collaboration with our NYIFUP team, once a person is released from detention through BDS's NYIFUP representation, if there is a benefit that requires an affirmative application, our ICAP team assumes their immigration case through a seamless internal referral process (e.g., if they can apply to USCIS for a benefit that the judge does not have jurisdiction over, such as a U visa, SIJS, or a spouse’s visa petition on their behalf). ICAP also assists people after a removal case is complete such as when relief is granted and there are next steps like green card renewals, citizenship, petitions for other family members, citizenship, orders of supervision, applications for employment authorization, etc. These critical immigration services comprise BDS’ non-detained immigration legal and social services and are a necessary component of supportive immigration assistance for people in New York.

Increased funding is needed for BDS to more comprehensively serve New York City’s immigrant youth, families, and communities with desperately needed high-quality immigration legal services. This funding would help BDS continue serving New York City’s immigrant families by providing legal screening, advice, and direct representation to low-income immigrants in their pursuit of affirmative immigration benefits such as citizenship, lawful permanent residence, asylum, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, special trafficking and victims’ visas, VAWA relief, TPS and DACA, and in their defense against deportation in non-detained deportation proceedings and orders of supervision.

We ask that the Council support our IOI ask of $200,000 to expand our ability to provide direct immigration legal services and Know Your Rights trainings to Brooklyn residents.

Conclusion

BDS is fortunate to have the support of the City Council to supplement the services we provide as a public defender office in Brooklyn. BDS’ requested funding will ensure we can continue to provide quality legal services to indigent New Yorkers. We thank the City Council for the opportunity to testify today and for your continued support of the people, families and communities we represent in Brooklyn.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me at amukarjiconnolly@bds.org or Kristine Herman, Managing Director of Policy and Advocacy at kherman@bds.org.