A new directive implemented by New York’s state administration under Gov. Kathy Hochul is seeing thousands of illegal immigrants receive taxpayer-funded cash—despite not otherwise qualifying for welfare assistance payments.
The implementation follows a modification of New York’s “Safety Net Assistance Program” (SNA) in May of last year. The change saw an expansion of the program’s eligibility rules, and authorized payments to non-citizens with pending asylum applications.
The program was put in motion by the state’s Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA), and was quietly announced to multiple social service departments.
“Effective immediately, OTDA recognizes non-citizens in any of the following categories as PRUCOL (Permanently Residing Under Color of Law) for the purposes of SNA eligibility. If otherwise eligible, individuals presenting immigration documentation evidencing any of the categories below can receive SNA. Individuals in these categories are not qualified non-citizens,” Section 3 of the document states.
While the OTDA refused to divulge exact figures on eligibility, the organization estimated that 90 percent of illegal immigrants won’t see any change to their payments under the new directive. Given that New York City’s illegal immigrant population has increased by more than 170,000 since early 2022, however, if just 10 percent of illegal immigrants received payments, it would amount to over 17,000 migrants.
Almost 70,000 illegal immigrants in the city are currently in receipt of social welfare support.
According to OTDA spokesman Anthony Farmer, the new SNA payments represent but a small portion of the nearly $4.5 billion allocated by Hochul to deal with the illegal immigrant crisis “in the absence of new federal aid.”
“At the request of New York City, OTDA made a technical update to allow a small percentage of migrants to receive certain additional support in compliance with state and federal law,” he said, according to the New York Post.
Previously, the SNA applied only to those New York residents who didn’t qualify for conventional welfare, such as single adults and childless couples, as well as, for example, families stricken by drug and alcohol abuse, who would receive monthly handouts of several hundred dollars toward rent, utility bills, and other necessities.
The new directive comes on top of an already extensive list of measures implemented by the city to accommodate migrants, according to critics. This includes a recently introduced pilot program by Mayor Eric Adams, which allocated over $50 million dollars to provide food and baby supplies to migrants by issuing them with pre-paid debit cards.
According to Republican New York Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, the situation is getting out of hand.
“It’s horrible that Gov. Hochul found another way to attract migrants” to New York, she said. Ms. Malliotakis also accused Gov. Hochul and her administration of simultaneously “putting the squeeze” on longtime lower- and middle-class New Yorkers, who she said cannot afford to have their tax dollars spent on the assistance of illegal immigrants.
“You have people from all over the world coming to New York to take advantage of all these left-wing programs the governor, the mayor are implementing, while at the same time, they’re clobbering taxpayers over the head. SNA is a program that’s supposed to be for New Yorkers who temporarily need it to get through a difficult time in their lives,” she said.
Her statements were echoed by New York’s Democratic Councilman Robert Holden, who said that the “endless handouts to the entire world are a slap in the face to every citizen who has contributed to and sacrificed for this country,” adding that “it’s time to end this madness.”
Moreover, critics have warned of the increasing burden on taxpayers, amid a soaring illegal immigrant population and an immigration crisis that continues to unfold in New York City—which already has a considerable population of U.S. citizens in need of welfare assistance.
Currently, more than 700,000 New York residents are in receipt of welfare assistance—the highest number in around 25 years.
According to Mayor Adams, an additional $10.6 billion is needed to carry the increase in the number of illegal immigrants until mid-2025.
NTD contacted New York’s Department of Social Services for comment, but did not receive a reply before this article was published.
