City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. Good morning. My name has been your Culpepper District 7 City Council or. Someone has made at large this morning, but I'm. District 7 City Council chair of the Boston City Council Committee on Civil Rights, Racial Equity and Immigrant Advancement. Today is September 25th. And the exact time is 1005. This hearing is being recorded. It's also being livestreamed at boston.gov backslash citycouncil-tv and broadcast on Xfinity Channel 8, RCN 82, and Fios Channel 964. Written comments may be sent to the committee email at ccc.civilrights.barson.gov and will be made part of the record and available to all counselors. Public testimony will be taken at the end of this hearing. Individuals will be called on in the order in which they have signed up and will have two minutes to testify. If you're interested in testifying in person, please add your name to the sign-up sheet near the entrance of the chamber. If you're looking to testify virtually, please email our central staff liaison, Megan Kavanaugh at megan.kavanaugh at boston.gov for the link and your name will be added to the list. Today's hearing is on docket number 0299. Order for a hearing to confront the termination of federally protected status for Haitian immigrants and examine the city of Boston's response to protect affected residents. This matter was sponsored by Councilors Minyard Culpepper, Councilor Julia Mejia, and Councilor Ruth Z. Louis-Jean. I'll refer to the committee on February 4th, 2026. Today I am joined by my colleague, Councilor Ruth Z. Louis-Jean, and will acknowledge the letter from President Councilor Braden. I'll read it into the record. to occur her request. Dear Chair Culpepper, I regret that I am unable to attend this morning's hearing on Docket 0299. Order for a hearing to confront the termination of federal protected status for Haitian immigrants and examine the city of Boston's response to protect affected residents. The possible termination of federal protected status for Haitian nationals poses profound risk for families across Boston. As a representative of a welcoming city with a longstanding Haitian community, I remain committed to ensuring that affected residents receive the support, legal protections, and coordinated services they deserve. While I am unable to attend today's hearing, members of my team will be listening into this critically important discussion, and I plan to review the record. I kindly ask that you read this. Letter into the record, thank you. Elizabeth Braden, President, Austin City Council. Document number 0299. Good morning, everyone. I want to thank my colleagues, my colleague, and my panelists, advocates, community organizations, and members of the public for joining us today. with this important follow-up hearing on the termination of temporary protected status for Haitian nationals and the city's response. We held our first hearing on this issue on April 9th. At that time, Haitian TPS remained protected by the federal courts. The litigation was before the Supreme Court, and much of our discussion focused on preparedness. What could happen if those protections were terminated? how Boston residents could be affected, and whether the city was prepared to respond. Unfortunately, the circumstances have changed dramatically since then. On June 25th, the Supreme Court ruled the litigation involving the termination of TPS for Haiti and Syria and Haitian TPS subsequently ended on July 27th. We also have a clearer picture today of the scale of the impact in Boston. The administration's updated analysis estimates that approximately 5,790 Haitians in Boston were previously covered by TPS significantly more than the estimate we discussed at our April hearing. The administration has also identified approximately 1,800 children and more than 8,300 other adult family and household members who could be affected by the deportation of Haitian non-citizen adults, demonstrating that the consequences extend far beyond individual TPS holders. So today I want to understand what has happened since July 27th, what we are seeing on the ground, and whether the response matches the scale of the need. We need to understand what is happening to residents who lost their work authorization, Whether people are finding alternative forms of immigration relief, whether our legal service providers have sufficient capacity, and what additional resources the city and this council can provide. And finally, we need to hear directly from the organization serving Boston's Haitians community, Our second panel includes representatives from MIRA, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, and the Immigrant Family Services Institute. These organizations can help us understand what residents are experiencing on the ground, where the city's response is working, and where additional support is needed. With that, let us get started, and I'd like to announce the arrival of one of and co-sponsors, Councilor Julia Mejia. I'll give each councilor six minutes for their opening statement, and then we'll turn to our panelists. Our first speaker. Councillor Roussey, Lejeune. Councillor, you have six minutes.

Good morning, everyone. Bonjour tout le monde. Merci parce que nous l'avons. This is a topic and an issue that my office has been working on endlessly, day and night. And I mean that literally and figuratively. I was talking to Brian Cuncannon, the head of the IJDH, Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, about how, you know, I fell yesterday, had a lot of issues going on, and at the same time got a call from a constituent who was being rejected from services at a legal services organization. I got on the phone in the middle of everything with the head of the immigration clinic there to make sure that that woman could turn around and receive services. We are in a dire, dire strait. Since the Supreme Court decision came out in late June, people's immigration status has terminated, which has led to their inability to do things like pay their rent and pay mortgages. So thank you to all of the different organizations that have worked in partnership with our office to put on food pantries. Obviously, IFSI will be on the panel later. We've done a number of joint legal clinics with them, and we still know that there are not enough attorneys. We know that the state's Macy hotline, in partnership with MIRA, has a six-month backlog. and we have people who need attorneys yesterday. Thanks to a wonderful coalition of people, thanks to our fearless Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, we got a TPS bill passed out of the House, and it was a bipartisan bill to extend TPS. That same effort is being done in the Senate. Today is part of a national day of action across the country where cities are calling members of the Senate to make sure that they sign on as co-sponsors to SB—to Senate bill There are only three Democratic senators who have not signed on to the bill. So later today, if you would like to join us, we will be at MIRA making phone calls to those senators. We passed a resolution, I believe, a few weeks ago after it was initially blocked. alongside myself and Council President Liz Braden, calling on a resolution to streamline housing assistance for those who are affected by TPS. Not solely assistance, but a plan, looking at the regs, looking at what can or what needs to be adjusted. And I want to thank the state for their partnership in reviewing and in working with IFSI in our office and in the Office of Housing Stability and recognizing that there are issues that we need to, upstream issues that we need to address now to prevent the downstream issues of more and more people going into shelter. And so these are extremely and incredibly hard times. It weighs heavy on so many in our community and on our backs. And I just want to thank everyone who has been fighting together. We have a lot of—we've seen a decline in our Boston public schools, of our student population, of TPS holders, of Haitian students. There's been a precipitous decline. Even after last year, we're seeing a continued decline. We know that there are other countries—El Salvador's status right now for TPS is murky. There's a lot of work that we have to do collectively and collaboratively, and I am so grateful for all of the people who are doing that work together. In Haitian Creole, we have a saying, . Many hands make the burden light. And I want to thank everyone who has been part of making that burden. I'll end in saying I look forward to hearing the work of Moya. Two weeks ago, I received a text message from a TPS recipient who told me that her child was having suicidal ideations and that she had hit the end of her road because of the lack of employment and because of her—and because she didn't know how she was going to pay her mortgages. We need to make sure that we are putting all of the resources that we have available to address the mental health issues and the housing needs of all of our residents.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor. Councillor Mejia, you have six minutes.

Wow, you're very generous, Councillor Chair. Normally opening remarks are only two. You want me to take two? Yeah, I'll take two. I also want to be mindful that we're here to listen. And so I am grateful to Councillor Louis-Jean for her steadfast leadership and commitment. I know what it is like to see my people suffer, right? And sometimes we hold these things so much more at our heart when it's, you know, our loved ones. And I think this advocacy in regards to what the city can do in terms of increasing our support services it's not just a conversation for the sake of having one it's really understanding that this moment is going to require us to pour our dollars into funding whatever it takes to to ensure that the safety net I'm thinking specifically around some of the mutual aid we've gotten a lot of car we've gotten a lot of calls from our office in regards to folks now afraid to go to the food pantry, so asking for support for delivery drivers. We've been getting a lot of calls from folks who now, as a result of this, are feeling the crunch, not just with housing, but also with whether or not they're losing their jobs, too, so they can't collect unemployment. And so what does that look like? And so what our office did in February in preparation for this earlier, we hired someone specifically just to help us to be the Haitian liaison to help us get ready for this, but it never came. And now that it is here, now we also have to figure out how we supplement that work from our office so that we have someone in direct communication. So I think that this is staffing, funding, And then coordination. And I'll just end with, I always say that Boston is resource rich, but coordination poor. This is really an opportunity for us to look at all city departments. And I'm glad that Moya is here. But there are other departments that interface. There's housing. They play a role in this, right? And I think that there is an opportunity for BPS to also be involved in this conversation for our legal department. So I'd like to hear from you. COURTNEY HOW MOYA IS INTERACTING AND INTERFACING WITH OTHER CITY DEPARTMENTS AS IT RELATES TO THIS SO THAT YOU'RE NOT THE SOUL, YOU KNOW, PERSON CARRYING THIS. SO JUST LOOKING FORWARD TO DIGGING IN A LITTLE BIT DEEPER ON THAT. THANK YOU.

THANK YOU, COUNCIL MEJIA. AT THIS TIME I'D LIKE TO NOW INTRODUCE TODAY'S ADMINISTRATION PANELIST COURTNEY WHITE, OUR INTERIM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR THE MAYOR'S OFFICE OF IMMIGRANT ADVANCEMENT Mr. Moroni, you may as well stay there. Now that you're there, you can stay there. Even though you'll be on the second panel, you can stay there. There's plenty of room at the table. Courtney, you have six minutes.

I will try to go fast. But thank you, Councillors, for calling this hearing today. Thank you for highlighting some of the concerns that we've really been seeing in our communities through our constituent services team, through our community outreach. and you'll hear from the panelists a lot of what they're seeing on the ground. So as Councillor Culpepper said, my name is Courtney White. I am the interim executive director for Moya. I was previously our director of constituent services, so interfacing really closely with our community partners and our constituents. I wanted to do a very quick background on temporary protected status for folks who might not be familiar. So it is a form of temporary status. It's a humanitarian immigration status granted by the Department of Homeland Security. It allows for folks to generally not be deported, allowed to work, but does not provide a direct pathway to permanent residency. And as Councillor Louis-Jean alluded to, you know, particularly with the situation with El Salvador, typically 60 days before a status is due to expire, a Homeland Security Secretary must determine whether to renew it, designate, redesignate, or expand it to include new arrivals from the country or terminate it. So just zoning, I was zooming in on TPS for Haiti in Boston in particular. It was first designated in January 2010 following the devastating earthquake. then redesignated subsequently in 2011, 2021, 2022, and 2024. Really showing the need for continued protections for this community. Unfortunately ended in July following a US Supreme Court decision and lifting of court pauses. And we estimate that around 55,000 Haitian immigrants in greater Boston are impacted. And as we were talking about before, Haitians in Boston are the third largest foreign-born group in the city. We estimate that there are around 15,851 in the Boston area, with 5,700 being non-citizens. And as Councillor Culpepper mentioned earlier, we do have a little bit of some different statistics than we last presented. That is because the data was not quite available when we first presented. So as you can see, the number has definitely grown. There are about 5,790 Haitians in Boston who were previously covered by temporary protective status. And you'll see also a population of 1,302 for El Salvador. as well as numbers for Ukraine, Venezuela, and Honduras. So a bit of an update on where litigation stands. So just going quickly through this, in November of last year, the federal administration announced that Haiti's TPS designation and benefits would terminate on February 3rd. There were some court cases to attempt to stay this decision, and it went up all the way to the Supreme Court. Um, and on June 25th, the Supreme court ruled that the immigration and nationality act prevents judges from second guessing or blocking government decisions to grant extend or end a country's TPS designation. Um, so what that did was it lifted blocks in place by the lower court and paved the way for the federal administration to terminate TPS. And we're really concerned about the broader implications and impact here because it set a precedent for termination of other forthcoming designations. because future legal challenges will become difficult so you'll see that el salvador is up for termination the designation expired on september 9th but protections and work permits are still in place and then we're really concerned for sudan ukraine and lebanon in particular and in congress very quickly because i know i am running short on time i'm just gonna um you know, reference what Councillor Louisian was mentioning that there is, yes. Oh, thank you. So what we were seeing is we did have Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley's DISCHARGE POSITION THAT WENT THROUGH, AND NOW WE ARE WAITING TO SEE WHAT WILL HAPPEN IN THE SENATE, AND WE ARE HOPING THAT THE SENATE BILL WILL PASS. WE'RE WAITING, I THINK THERE ARE 38 FOLKS WHO HAVE SIGNED ON, AND WE ARE WAITING FOR A MAJORITY OF 60. SO I'LL GET TO NOW WHAT EVERYONE, I THINK, IS HOPING TO HEAR THE MOST ABOUT. SO THESE ARE THE ANTICIPATED COMMUNITY IMPACTS, AND SOME OF THESE WERE ALREADY SEEN IN OUR COMMUNITIES. So housing insecurity, families facing eviction and returning to shelter, loss of access to safety net programs such as home base. We're concerned about notario fraud and scams, people taking advantage of our community members being really fearful and scared about their status. Benefits on enrollment, families losing access to their benefits. And for those that are still eligible with the new public charge rule, seeing a chilling effect of people either not enrolling or unenrolling. As the counselor alluded to, increased levels of anxiety, fear, and emotional distress, educational disruption. So we're seeing increased absenteeism as well as anxiety due to looming threat of parental deportation. And then, of course, immigration enforcement of people with no status leading to family separations. We also saw in Ohio, you know, we're seeing that individuals are reporting to their ICE check-ins and they're having their passports confiscated and are being forced to wear ankle monitors. And we witnessed the tragic death the other week of the college student in Ohio, Pierre Damas Bell, who died by suicide because he was bullied and felt ashamed of having to wear that ankle monitor. We're also concerned about the impacts on the families and the children that might be left behind that know the United States as their home. So of the 1,800 children and other adult family members that would be impacted, 75% of those children are U.S. citizens. And we're really concerned that these families will be forced to make that challenging decision, whether to return to Haiti together or separate. And so these are the community needs that we've been identifying and underneath as bullets are the responses that Moya along with other city departments have had. So we're really seeing a need for broad based community support. So alongside Councilor Louis-Jean, Mayor Wu led over 100 mayors and local officials in urging the U.S. Senate to pass Senate Bill 4814 and extend temporary protected status. We're also showing our support and presence at rallies in support of the community. We're signing on to amicus briefs. And we're also ensuring that we're having ongoing dialogue with community partners such as the MIRA Coalition and IFSI. We're seeing the need for quick and accurate and language accessible information. So we created a Know Your Rights dissemination campaign. You can visit our website boston.gov slash belonging to receive all of these materials for your communities in Haitian Creole. And we also hosted in collaboration with the MIRA Coalition a family preparedness webinar for service providers. So how can service providers have that really challenging conversation with families about preparing for your future? We're seeing emergency shelter and safety net benefits access challenges, as I mentioned. So we are having ongoing conversations between our office, the Office of Housing, and the Executive Office of Housing and Livable Communities. And then we're also collaborating with the Health Commission on a health benefits awareness campaign. And most importantly, enforcement related legal support. So we are really grateful to the council for the amendments that you all filed that have enabled us to continue a fifth round of our immigration legal access grants. We tried to get those out as soon and early as possible. So we anticipate, we are currently reviewing applications and anticipate getting funding out to community in November. We continue to offer our twice monthly free immigration consultations. And we are really working hard to strengthen legal referral networks and partnerships so that, as the counselor said, right, we can have these warm handoffs. We can help troubleshoot and work closely alongside our legal aid providers to make sure that folks who are reaching out to our office get the help that they need. And then lastly, other support. So when ongoing litigation was happening and employers were concerned about their rights and responsibilities, we hosted, in collaboration with the state, an employer-focused webinar. We're also exploring entrepreneurship as a pathway for income generation. We provided training and guidance for city staff while litigation was pending to make sure that other departments were providing accurate information and could point their constituents to adequate resources. And then, of course, we have our ongoing constituent support. So we actually have three Haitian Creole speakers on staff to ensure that we can answer and have these conversations with folks in a language they understand. And then, of course, we have our Weaving Well-Being mental health grants that will be coming out as well in early November, again, with the intention of making sure that we can support our most vulnerable residents and making sure that they have access to culturally responsive mental health supports. I think that is the end of my presentation for now, but happy to answer any questions that you all have. And thank you for the additional time.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor. Lord John, you have six minutes.

Thank you, Courtney, for that presentation. I'm just going to continue to highlight the work that we need to continue to do with the Office of Housing Stability around the issues that you mentioned and been having calls on when it comes to RAP and when it comes to home base. I want to continue to highlight, I don't know if there are, and I think Emily called your office to talk about this, but how we can be more embedded in the mental health work. are other organizations that are also leading in the work i know united way is also putting together and has we're on calls um every other week talking about this but really making sure that we're plugging in and getting um connecting with with folks who need mental health support i think that could probably be done um better and you know there's a lot of insurance issues that providers who want to do the good work face so i'm not sure if there are um Funding mechanisms mechanisms there. I know that at one point there was the weaving well-being grants are those still By are those still happening in life?

There we go, thank you counselor So those are the the grants that I was mentioning those are currently open for applications through next week So I'm happy to send to your teams the outreach material if there are folks that you do want to send it to and I'm happy to have conversations with organizations who might be interested in applying.

And who can apply? Can a mental health, for example, consortium, can they apply for it?

So our focus is on non-clinical mental health, just filling that really what our office is trying to do is fill that gap, knowing that there is existing funding for really clinical support.

Where is that funding from?

Private agencies. So we've been working very closely with, for example, Blue Cross Blue Shield. We've been referring organizations to them. that is one of their priorities. And we also work really closely with the United Way, Boston Foundation to make sure that the funding that we're doing at the city is complimentary and we're not overlapping. So they're really focused on the mutual aid aspect. And so our area of focus is really the mental health and the legal aid. But I'm happy to connect you with our contacts there as well.

Thank you. Yeah, and I'm glad the work that we did back in February and March with bringing the United Way together with the Boston Foundation to make, because we saw this coming down the pipe, but there's still not enough incoming funds, even for those large institutions, to do all of this work. I work very closely with the Mental Health Consortium, and they're who I send when I get these text messages, when I get that direct outreach. But they have funding issues, so we could maybe probably talk about how to support them as they're serving a very vulnerable population. I think those are just the things that I wanted to uplift. Housing, mental health, continued support in our schools because we know that we're, as I said earlier, we continue to lose Haitian students in our Boston public schools. And continued work and advocacy alongside Dr. Cabot just walked in for a Senate bill for 814. We are only three Democrats shy of having all Democrats on board for the bill. So there's been a lot of progress in the last month But I think those are just the things that I wanted to continue uplifting and the continued need for legal resources. I will say, has there been progress made on those every two week calls? One of the feedback that I've given is like having them in different languages or having translators. Is that something that we're doing, able to do longer periods of time? Like what does the handoff, are there warm handoffs from there?

So are you is that the the immigration consultations? Yes. So we have our access to our language lines So those are those have always been completely Multilingual so we do make sure that when we're connecting with someone that we confirm what language they would like to speak with the attorney in we have tried really hard to get more Haitian Creole speakers and we would love to help build up the pipeline of those folks if you do know anyone that is interested in volunteering and

because obviously that that helps in that exchange um i know that you have our list of haitians speaking speaking attorneys so if i mean i'm happy to send you if they're maybe you're missing one or two yeah who but it's also time consuming for them because they're also the people who i send emergency legal issues to in addition to other attorneys so it's just uh but i remember pasta kiki highlighting language issues and the amount of time yes the 15 minutes is really short and needing to do more warm handoffs. And I think we, I'm just going to say this for everyone, right? Yesterday was an example. Like we definitely, when it comes to legal issues, need to hold people's hands so that they have legal representation. Last week, we were in a fight calling all sorts of attorneys. Someone was, they had to appeal their case. It was, they called our office on a Wednesday and that Thursday was the deadline for the appeal. And so we just need to make sure that we're finding solutions. Yeah.

No, I appreciate that. And that is something that our legal access project manager is really working closely with the attorneys on is making sure we have a good understanding of what someone's next steps are and how we can kind of guide them in that process. The length of time is a bit challenging, as you said, right? The same pool who's providing these pro bono services is also providing legal aid. But we have been fortunate that we have some attorneys that typically go a little bit longer. But that is something that we are trying to explore and unfortunately has been a challenge just because of the commitment. I did also just want to flag on the BPS part. We do have biweekly calls with senior leadership, including from the legal team, their social work department, policy, and so on and so forth, to really see how our offices can complement one another. So that is something that is continuing, and we're making sure that we elevate concerns across both teams. And then lastly, when we do award our mental health grants, we are planning to create kind of a referral based system to let folks know what organizations might be open for referrals. And so I'm happy to to connect with you all once that is available later this year. Thank you.

Here you have six minutes.

Thank you. Thank you, Council Culpepper. And it's great to Always here, all good work that's coming out of Moya, so I'm really grateful. And I just have a few questions. I'm curious about how many organizations, through some of the grant opportunities, are we funding and supporting?

So for the legal aid grant I can get you the the final number from last year But I believe it was around 20 ish and those are varying pots of funding. So we were funding Organizations that were doing both information. I'm sharing like know your rights court accompaniment as well as representation for last year's Weaving well-being mental health grant. It was around 30 organizations and we anticipate that with the funding that we have, which is about equal, that we should be able to fund around the same amount of organizations this year.

And what about safety net, like food access, stipends for housing?

Yeah, so last year we did have our mutual aid grants. This year in consultation with organizations like the United Way, TBF, that is really the work that they are trying to uplift. And so we decided to ensure that we could really robustly fund legal aid work which they are not able to fund at this time the mental health work so really working together in partnership to determine where their funding is best placed and where our funding is best placed that's good and what about the boston public health commission that's a city resource especially around mental health and wellness so what does that look like in terms of partnerships Yes, so I actually, our office has a monthly meeting with their behavioral health department, some folks that are focused specifically on work in the community. And so we regularly coalesce around concerns that they're seeing, concerns that we're seeing, and brainstorming together. So they actually put together a resource guide for us that we have made available, that they have made available. And we're working with them this year as a complement to our Weaving Well-Being program How can we continue to train up folks so that they can also deliver mental health services? So that's kind of a separate project aside from grant funding that we're pursuing with them.

And what role, if any, or any type of communication with the Office of Workforce Development? Like, given the fact that so many folks are losing their status and are unable to work, what if any conversations you have been having with our city workforce development?

Yes, so that's another one of the main departments that we've been focused on partnering with, particularly around workers' rights. So again, I think Our office takes this standpoint. We want to make sure that folks know their rights and then also have access to resources. So really connecting with the worker empowerment cabinet, making sure that workers know their rights, making sure that employers know their rights and responsibilities, and then exploring opportunities such as entrepreneurship as pathways for folks.

So those are ongoing conversations. Yeah, talk to me a little bit more about the entrepreneurship because I know that, you know, the Neighborhoods Jobs Trust, we've been able to,

Be creative in terms of some workforce development stipends that we've been able to provide to folks and programming Yeah, so our office unfortunately cannot provide stipends just because of the operating budget fund but we're trying to figure out ways that we can partner with community partners to enhance access and awareness of worker-owned cooperatives. How can folks be worker owners? So that is another area that we're partnering with both community and departments on. I'm happy to hear that. Now, just two more questions.

Yeah, sure. One is specifically around the return on those investments. Like some of the organizations that you've been working with, you mentioned I think 30 or so in the legal space and also in mental health. high level, you know, what type of technical assistance, capacity building, ongoing communication do you have with these organizations? And when you hear what they have to share, how are you adapting kind of your service deliverables and RFPs?

Sure. So for return on investment, we're actually in the process of getting those final reports from this past fiscal year from the organization. So we're happy to get back to you with some more high level details on what that looks like. But I would say we really closely work with our organizations to make sure that they have support both through the grant application process. We know that a lot of our organizations are newer or maybe they don't have a grant development person. So really providing that technical assistance so that way we're not overlooking really strong applications just because they don't have that grant rating capacity. So that's one thing that we offer at the beginning to make sure that folks who are really good fits for the application can actually apply. And then myself and my colleague Hannah have conversations with organizations to kick off their grant period. So making sure that they know that we're here for them throughout the grant period, if they have any questions. And then we always do a retrospective. So I actually maybe two months ago or a month ago met with the organizations that received Weaving Wellbeing funding, asked them, what else do you need? What could be better? What can we improve? And so we used a lot of that feedback to inform this upcoming cycle of the grant.

And where is that information?

So I have that information in my own notes, but I would say just in terms of Weaving Wellbeing's impacts on our website, we rigorously evaluated the first three years of the program. So I'm proud to say this is the sixth year. And you can find the reports about the community impacts, how it impacted well-being, belonging, community empowerment, just having a place to go where someone speaks your language and understands your culture. So I'm happy to share those three reports as well with you all.

I'm happy to see that. And, you know, because I'm going to have to be leaving early, I wanted to just also note that Pastor Homasil, we worked a few years ago on a wellness program for recent arrivals, specifically to help young people acclimate to the culture. Many of them have experienced trauma just to get here. And so it's really hard for them to access the curriculum when they have so much going on. And so they created an after-school program where they were able to provide not just academic, but also emotional and mental well-being support. So I think that the intersection, especially with our Boston public schools, is something that I'm really excited and interested in learning more about, and I just want to say thank you. I'm not going to hold anyone hostage because I know we have other speakers, but thank you for your work. Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Mejia. Courtney, I've got a few questions. Of the 5,790 folks that we know that are affected by the TPS, do we know how many lost their actual TPS status?

We don't have that number. It is challenging to get that information just because folks may feel uncomfortable with providing that information. It is something that is not typically collected.

So we don't know how many have another status or

No, unfortunately, we don't. But that is why legal representation and access to consultation is so important. And that is something that our office, along with, you know, Counselor Louisian's office and other folks were really making sure in the lead up to the potential termination that people were having access to an attorney to determine if there was an alternative pathway for them.

And I've heard over and over about the lack of legal counsel. Have you talked it out to the black women's attorney to see if they can help with the pro bono service?

We have not had that opportunity, but I would love to connect with you and your team about that.

Or with the mass black lawyers that may be helpful. Sure. And we can talk. And I can make a contact in Jesse because I think they may be able to be helpful.

Yes, that would be wonderful. I think in our office in particular, we are looking for folks with immigration experience, but there is also the statewide habeas project, which maybe some other folks can talk about where there are opportunities for folks who maybe do not have the immigration experience to also contribute to the legal landscape and prevent folks from getting moved from one facility outside of the state. So I think there are a few opportunities for attorneys of all shapes and all experiences to get plugged into this work. I'd love to continue the conversation.

So yesterday I was talking with some folks about the number of people who had been detained or arrested. They mentioned the number 40 came up. Do you have any data on the number of folks that have been arrested or detained? And if not, you can...

Yes, we don't, I can certainly try to get that information for you if you have a specific time period or time frame that you're looking for, that would help us kind of narrow that down.

Since the Supreme Court case. Since the case, okay.

Great, we're happy to follow.

And if you don't have that information, are we receiving any information about the ICE activity in Boston?

So our office is really connected with a lot of the ice watch hubs. So making sure that we are aware when there are, you know, when there is ice activity locally, we are seeing particularly at our courthouses, particularly in East Boston. So there has been a lot of work done by the community there to support our community members. We're seeing a lot of activity kind of in the suburbs, as we saw the other day in New Bedford as well. particularly seeing it at our courthouses, right?

So does the city have some kind of mechanism to track the arrests or detentions in place?

Unfortunately, not at this time. That information can also be really challenging, and that's why, of course, Mayor Wu put forward the executive order for transparency to ensure that we could be making these best efforts to get that information from the federal government.

And what are the best efforts to date?

I can certainly get information on that. That would be the legal department that has been filing these FOIA requests, but we can certainly check in with them.

And if there's not some way of tracking the arrest or detention, Courtney, you may want to think about trying to establish some way of trying to track that information so that you can have some idea of the number of folks that are being arrested or detained.

Yes, I appreciate that.

Thank you. And so in July 27th, July 27th, the presentation identifies housing insecurity, benefits and enrollment, education, disruption, family, separate scams, increased activity. Do we have any data or information on what the city is seeing with regard to these findings?

We don't have any specific data. It's more anecdotal from what we're hearing via constituents reaching out to our office, to Councillor Louisian's office, to other departments who are then referring their constituents to us. Because our office is so well known for our immigration consultations, that is primarily most of the requests that we see. I'm sure Dr. Gabo and Moroni and folks on the panel can speak more to the numbers of what they're seeing on the front lines. But we are seeing a vast percentage of our folks really in need of legal representation. That consultation to determine what alternative pathways to status they might have, and then that representation potentially in an asylum hearing, in front of a judge, and so on and so forth. So I would say about 25% of the calls that we've been receiving recently have been specifically from Haitian TPS holders. And that's why we've been really trying to strengthen our referral network so that way we can make sure when somebody was calling us and said, I'm from Haiti, I have TPS, we know exactly where to refer them to and do that warm handoff.

Do you have the number and data on how many people the twice monthly consultations actually serve?

Yes, we can certainly get that information to you. I'd say we serve probably from 35 to 40 individuals every time. We don't necessarily dig in and always ask people, which country are you from, right? We try to keep a semblance of confidentiality there. I can say that on average we support around 35 to 40 folks per consultation.

How does that compare with demand?

There's always going to be more demand than unfortunately there is space. And that's why we're, you know, through our immigration grant, we're making sure that we're providing grant funding for all these different aspects. So how do we support organizations that are doing know your rights campaigns, family preparedness campaigns? How are we supporting organizations to meet that need? for consultations, and then the third bucket of representation.

And what about wait times?

Wait times for consultations or wait times for... Seeking legal assistance. I think it can vary depending on the type of assistance that someone is looking for. As Councillor Luigiand said, the hotline currently has a six month wait list for really urgent like deportation type cases. Our consultations, we do have a lot of room typically. So please feel free to connect with us directly if there are individuals that are in need of a consultation. And then we work closely with other providers to make sure that, again, we can try to support people with a direct referral. But it is challenging.

And in your presentation, you talked a little bit about housing insecurity. And how many families are we aware of that have already lost housing? or return to a shelter as a result of losing their TPS?

We don't have that exact number because, again, I think that the status piece can be a little bit complicated and folks are experiencing housing insecurity for many different reasons. So I don't know if the state has that number, but that is something, yeah, I didn't think so. Yes, exactly.

And what happens? What's a form of TPS? or to lose their employment, what happens? How do we service them? Let's say they have a rent issue. How do we service them? Do we send them right to housing?

So our office has been partnering with the Office of Housing to make sure that first and foremost, that the process that the landlord is following is accurate and legal. And so that is the first step of the process for us, making sure that someone is actually legally being evicted and then we are trying to work really closely with the state to make sure that we're reducing any of those barriers to re-entry into the shelter system and that those supports are existing for folks.

And what if they're no longer eligible for the safety net program?

Are you referring to housing?

Yes.

So we are, fortunately, many of our Haitian community members are still eligible as Cuban-Haitian entrants and are eligible to access different types of benefits. So that is why we're making sure with the state that there is a pathway for reentry into the shelter system and then that supportive system for them.

So what are you specifically asking the state?

to make sure that they have a good understanding of the challenges that our community members might be facing at this time and making sure that there is adequate staffing to support them, that there is not burdensome paperwork for re-entry and that they understand that those challenges that folks might be facing and that we have an adequate shelter system to support these families.

And so have we been given additional resources from the Commonwealth as a result of the conversations and the real need?

Not to my understanding. That could be a question potentially for the Office of Housing. Those resources would not have come to our office regardless.

Can you check with Sheila Dillon and just see exactly number one, what resources are needed, and number two, if they're getting additional resources from the state for housing.

Okay, thank you.

And I think that's all the questions I have.

Thank you.

Thank you. Council.

Council Weber.

Oh, good morning, Council Weber. I like that. Acknowledge the presence of council wherever I did not see you. It's my right stealthy I gave the council six minutes for an opening statement council move here Thought it should be two minutes. I'll give you two minutes for open statement and if you want And if you want six minutes for questioning you can have six minutes of questions No

Thank you very much, Chair.

And I am being awfully liberal to you.

Oh, yeah. Okay, you'd like me to keep this in the back of my mind if the rules are reversed? Please. We'll see about that. I guess, so maybe I'm sure somebody asked this already. What's your advice for us when we get a call from a family, from somebody who's who knows somebody, how would you, given your experience and what you're seeing across the city and the country, what should we do when we get that phone call from either somebody who's lost their status or somebody who just happens to know somebody who did? Yeah.

So our office has three Haitian Creole speakers on staff specifically dedicated to our constituent services work. We also have four additional folks, myself included, that speak Spanish. And so we're always able to pick up the phone, come meet someone in person, have those conversations. I was just troubleshooting someone's case yesterday where unfortunately they went to Burlington for their check-in and they were detained. Our office is always available for consultation. I know we had a really lovely conversation a few months ago with staff from your teams around those best practices and those supports. So our team would be delighted to have that conversation again to help you all really understand how to triage maybe the case and then refer it over to us for further support.

And then I guess, so what can we tell people to expect? So they refer them to you and then I guess, like, what are the kind of things in place? Is there any hope? You know, I mean, what can people expect to happen once they've gone through your office?

Yeah, so we really try to both provide some hope but also set realistic expectations for individuals. And so we do try to triage cases and have a really good understanding of, okay, what is what support do you need at this time? What other supports you may be not thinking about that you also need help with? And so primarily, our office really does more specific services around legal cases, so making sure that folks are connected to adequate legal support. And then also, if it is an issue around housing, We have really wonderful contacts at the Office of Housing that we can refer folks to warmly. So we always try to handhold the case a little bit because we know that these are really sensitive conversations and challenging times. So we do that triage and that assessment and then determine where is the best place to support them, whether that's our office, an external partner, or another city department.

Okay. And then I guess in terms of sort of planning, my sense is there's some aspect of this that's planning for the worst. So what should people be doing to prepare if they're gonna be deported or detained? What do you recommend we do?

So that's why a big part of our work is that preparedness piece, making sure families feel equipped to have that conversation with their loved ones, their children, and making a plan and also ensuring that they know their rights. And also making sure that they've connected with an attorney to explore all available options. So those are really the three things that we do recommend folks as they're going along in this journey. Making sure, have you talked to an attorney yet? If not, okay, let's get you set up with a consultation. Do you know your rights? Here's a red card. Here's a flyer from Moya. I was saying before that we have multilingual know your rights resources on our website, and we're happy to share printed materials with your teams as well to give out to folks. And then we also have... family planning documents. So deciding, does it make sense to have a guardian for your child? Does it make sense to have a caregiver for your child? And then referring folks to those organizations who can help them notarize, complete, and fill out those documents. So really just having a plan in place.

And then, yeah, I guess, so just for the family planning issue, because that's sort of unfortunate. I think people have to prepare, and that's one of the things to make sure your kids are taken care of. Do you need an attorney for that? Does your office do that? Who takes care of the family planning?

We do not provide that service in our office. We generally recommend that folks, depending on which level of authorization, they may need an attorney if they are to go to family court, for example. But we connect individuals who are seeking that to Harvard. They have a legal aid clinic that's supporting with this, as well as one of our partners, Agencia Alpha. And in our immigration legal access grant that we are, I was mentioning, which should hopefully be out to the community, the funding, I should say, should be out to the community in November. That is also one of the components. So making sure that our organizations who are doing that preparedness work also have funding. So we'll have a better list, one of additional referral locations once the funding decisions have been made.

Okay. Yeah, so I guess I think what I've been telling people is like there's re-screening for other, you know, avenues for status, essentially, because somebody might have another claim. Exactly. And then family planning. So am I missing anything?

And I would make sure that folks know their rights, right? If they are, if ICE, if they were to encounter ICE, our office has lots of red cards. Please come, you know, send your team up. We're happy to give you copies of those. And we also have some more printed materials that we are working on disseminating in the coming weeks.

Okay. Okay. And then what's the structure of the hearing? Is there, I see Moroni up there. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Mr. Minter wanted to make sure he got the first spot on the panel. We're going to start the second panel as soon as you finish.

No, no. I mean, I think it takes a lot of partnership. I'm glad to see Mr. Minter. You do? I do. OK. Thank you very much, Chair. I hopefully took less than the six minutes. And we can reminisce on that next time the rules are reversed.

Just one thing, Courtney. Can you send out some of those red cards?

I guess we can certainly, yes, we're in the process of actually reordering a ton of them. So please, I can connect with your teams to determine which languages might be the most supportive.

Thank you. And Councillor Lejeune has some follow-up questions.

Thank you. And I wanted to thank you, Courtney, for uplifting the name of Pierre Damas Bell and for really centering how important mental health is in this moment. It reminded me of a huge tragedy that we had in March at the passing of Emmanuel Damas, who was arrested by ICE right here in Dorchester and died of a toothache in Arizona. I'm wondering if we are seeing one of the things that happens when someone is detained by ICE is that they need to get an attorney as soon as possible, but also They need to make sure that that's an attorney who has experience not only in the immigration world but the criminal world and can understand or try to strategize about what makes the most sense. Are we seeing attorneys that have that nexus of criminal and immigration experience to properly give guidance to people who need it?

Our office does have one attorney actually who does volunteer with us that has that particular expertise. And we are forever grateful that she continues to volunteer with us because it is a real challenge just because of the way the federal government determines what a criminal charge is versus at the local level. So we have specifically been seeking more attorneys for our consultations that have that nexus. And so if there are other individuals, we would love to get connected to them. I think in terms of we have a really good relation with CPCS, the Center for Public Committee Services, I think. And so we try to work with them really closely to ensure that the immigration services and the criminal legal services are really well combined there.

Thank you. You know, there's so many offshoots to this work, and so sometimes things get lost. I remember one of the things that we were talking about was connecting with law schools. I know, for example, my alma mater, Harvard, they have an immigration clinic. It's an immigration refugee clinic. BC, I believe, also has a clinic. How have we been tapping into those clinics to also be of assistance, or where are they in terms of feeling like they can support this work?

Yeah, so we are actually in prime season for those reconnections. Sometimes the summer, to be honest, can be really challenging because there aren't as many students to take on these cases. We have funded some other organizations in the past. There's the Student Clinic for Immigrant Justice that does a bit of organizing and asylum application assistance. It can be challenging, right, because the asylum cases take so long. And, you know, often there's one, two students for one case. And so I think thinking about those strategies, how do we continue investing in, like, the growth and the future of attorneys that want to go into the really challenging field of immigration law.

We're seeing more of an edginess than we are seeing people go in.

Exactly. Yeah. And so our office is also trying to figure out ways that we can promote DOJ accreditation as well. And so that is another, yes, another.

I think that's something IFC is doing as well.

Exactly. So how can we support more organizations to do that work? Because they're also really well culturally placed to do that work with our community members. So that is another area that we are trying to fund as well. I'm grateful to the Mirror Coalition. That is also an area of work that they're supporting.

So if folks ask me who is leading on the work of making sure that our our law schools are integrated into sort of this environment of making sure we have lawyers for folks who need them or legal access, I could say that Moya is leading in on that charge.

I would say partnering with the state on this. The state, through their project on... Is that Susan? Yes, of course. Susan's working on it? Yeah. They're working really closely on the ICE CAP project, if you all have heard of that. So if you are hearing of any constituents that... maybe were hurt when they were detained or they had their civil rights violated. I believe they're partnering with Suffolk this upcoming year on that project, and were previously partnering with Northeastern.

Thank you. And have you been part of the cooperative work or the conversations around cooperatives?

Yes.

Yes, OK. Just wanted to make sure, because that, I think, is an important component to how we're looking at all of the things that are happening. When it comes to, and I know that Dr. Gabo will speak to this, and maybe Moroni will speak to this too, you know, During Trump 1.0, we had the legal defense funds. We had a lot of law firms who were stepping up to provide support. How has that engagement looked like with law firms? And who has been owning—I know it's been—again, everything has been different, and there hasn't been as many. But who is also owning that work to reach out to law firms to get them to do some of these cases pro bono?

Yeah, so I would say we typically reach out to the pro bono arms to try to get more support if we're hosting a clinic for our free immigration consultations. And then really the state and our community-based organizations have been leading in that work on taking on those cases. But even the pro bono arms, even the low bono, even full payment, we're seeing wait lists at the private level as well.

Yeah, because I like to move on to the community panel, if you don't mind.

Sure, sure. I'd like to see us do a little bit more work in that space. I haven't been seeing those private like big law firm attorneys involved. Someone can correct me if I'm wrong. But I also think like we need to be thinking about all the ways in which we can get lawyers involved in legal assistance. And so I'd love for your office to sort of, I'm putting it on you, to own that work. Because a lot of it isn't just about, a lot of it is about coordination. A lot of it is about, okay, we have folks who can and who are able. And a lot of these big law firms also have immigration lawyers who usually are, they're usually doing employment-based immigration work, but should have the capacity to take on one or two pro bono cases And we should encourage them to do that. We should have a letter, if needed, signed by the mayor, signed by myself, signed by whoever else needs to, to encourage these law firms that make millions of dollars to take on more of these cases. Thank you, Counselor.

Courtney, I just text the president of the Massachusetts black lawyers. Thank you. She said she's willing to help. Wonderful. I'll give you her information after the hearing. I appreciate that. Contact her directly. And then there's the women's black lawyers. I haven't heard back from her yet, but I can't say they will be willing to help what are able, but I'm asking them. So at least the mass black voice have said that.

Yeah. And I think the more people that are aware of this, right, they might not be able to help, but maybe they know someone in their network that they can pull on for that support.

Thank you. Courtney, do you have a last, any final?

No, I don't think so. I think just final remarks. Thank you all for, again, for this hearing. Thank you for your conversation and your questions. A lot of food for thought for our office in this direction. And we're grateful for all the advocacy as well. This really takes us all working together on this issue to make sure that we are supporting our, not just our Haitian community members, but all of our immigrant residents really holistically. So looking forward to continuing in that work with you all.

Courtney, thank you so much. Thank you. This time, I'd like to introduce our today's community panel. I see Mr. Mentor is already there, Brian Concannon, and Dr. Guilbeault. Good to see you, Dr. Guilbeault. That smile, you're always smiling.

I need like 10% of her energy.

Great. Courtney, thank you so much. And be in touch with me around about that information for the mass spec lawyers. There's that smile again. Thank you so much. I'm going to give each of you six minutes. Mr. Mentor, since you've been there for quite a while, why don't we start off with you?

All right, thank you. Thank you, Councilor Culpepper. Thank you, Councilor Mejia, Councilor Lujan, and Councilor Weber for this opportunity to testify. My name is Moroni Mentor. I'm the political director with the Massachusetts Immigrant Refugee Advocacy Coalition, MIRA for short. My boss, MIRA's executive director, Liz Sweet, testified before you two months ago about what we feel would happen if temporary protective status for Haitians was terminated. At the time, much of our testimony focused on what could happen. People losing their jobs, families facing housing instability, an increased demand for legal services, greater pressure on our social service infrastructure, and the possibility of increased immigration enforcement. Today I want to talk about what happens when those concerns become reality. The termination of TPS has not simply been a change in immigration status. For many Haitian residents in Boston, it has created a chain of reaction affecting employment, housing, family stability, access to legal services, and their sense of safety and security. And I want to emphasize something that is sometimes lost in discussions about immigration status. And that is that these are our neighbors. And I should mention that I'm a proud immigrant from Gabon myself. And immigrants are parents taking children to Boston schools. They are health workers, home health aides, workers, construction workers, restaurant workers, business owners, and community members. They have built lives here, they pay taxes, they pay rent, they care for their families, and contribute to their neighborhood they call home. For many, TPS provided a legal ability to work and remain in the United States, where Haiti continued to face extraordinary conditions. In late 2024, MIRA and a broad coalition of nonprofit organization, state partners, and volunteer attorneys came together to help more than 4,000 Haitian men, women, and children apply for TPS. We did that because we knew that TPS could mean, what TPS could mean for family. Stability, a work permit, the ability to plan for future, the ability to contribute openly economically to our communities. Today, many of those same individuals are once again trying to navigate a very complicated system. We are seeing a tremendous new need for immigration legal assistance as people try to understand what options, if any, remain available to them. And the legal services system was already stretched thin. Legal providers across Massachusetts are working to screen former TPS holders to determine whether they may qualify for asylum or another form of immigration relief, and help families understand what their options are. But here's a problem. There are not enough attorneys and resources to meet the moment, and we have heard that already. And even when someone may have another potential immigration option, there is often a gap between losing TPS-based work authorization and obtaining authorization through another process. That gap actually matters. A person can have a pending immigration case and still be unable to work legally. A parent can still have mortgage or rent payment, childcare costs, groceries, transportation expenses, and medical bills, even when their ability to earn paychecks has suddenly disappeared. That is where immigration policy becomes housing policy, it becomes a workforce issue, it becomes public health issue, family stability issue, and it becomes a city issue. We are particularly concerned about employment, because when someone loses TPS-based work authorization, the consequences do not stop with the worker or the family. Employers lose experienced employees, families lose income, businesses lose workers, they have invested in. And communities lose economic stability. Workers are suddenly placed in vulnerable situations, may also be at greater risk of wage theft, retaliation, discrimination, or even exploitation. That is why worker protections and outreach must be part of Boston's response. We also need to recognize the enormous amount of confusion and fear that exists in immigrant communities. People are asking very basic questions. Can I stay work? Can I keep my apartment? What happens to my children? What happens if I'm stopped by immigration? Do I qualify for another form of immigration relief? Where can I find an attorney? Who can I trust? For someone who has never had to navigate the immigration system before, these questions can be overwhelming. and for Haitian families, language access and trusted community-based outreach are particularly important. We believe Boston can play an important role in meeting this moment. First, the city should invest in immigration legal services. We need additional resources for organizations providing immigration consultation, legal screenings, applications, representation, and referrals for former TPS holders. I would say that through the Massachusetts Access to Counsel Initiative, or MACIE for short, MIRA has served over 180 Haitian individuals, and currently we have 308 cases on the waiting list. Second, Boston should strengthen its investment in community-based outreach and know-your-rights education. Information needs to reach people where they are through Haitian-led organizations, churches schools, health centers, employers, and other trusted institutions. And it needs to be available in the languages people understand. Third, the city should strengthen worker protection outreach. Former TPS holders need to know their rights in the workplace and where to report wage theft, retaliation, or discrimination. And fourth, Boston should prepare for a broader economic and social consequences of the loss of TPS. This includes connecting affected families to housing assistance, food resources, childcare, healthcare, or the available services before a crisis becomes an emergency. And finally, the city should continue to use its voice to advocate for long-term federal solution. Boston has already made clear that it supports TPS holders. The city adopted a resolution reaffirming that support following the Supreme Court's decision back in June. That leadership matters. But today we are asking the city to combine that advocacy and investment because the families affected by the termination of TPS are not just statistics. They are Boston residents. They are our coworkers, our neighbors. They are my son's teammates, classmates. They are our caregivers, our health care workers, our small business owners, and our friends. MIRA and our partners are committed to continuing to stand with Haitian community, but community organizations cannot do this alone. We need the city of Boston to make sure that families who are losing immigration status do not also lose their jobs, their homes, their access to legal representation, or their sense of their city that stands with them. Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look forward to, we look forward to working with this council. And again, I thank all of you for listening to me.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you, Mr. President. Dr. . You have six minutes. Thank you, thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for this opportunity to be with you today to testify about what's going on in our community. But before we do so, I just want to make sure that I share my sense of gratitude with the leadership of this council, especially to our dear, I call her a combatant with the vision who has always been a phone call away to step in and respond to the many calls that we are receiving, connecting us to all of the resources and really championing all of the fight that we are leading around TPS. And thank you for organizing this panel today means so, so much to us. So, my name is Dr. Agabo with Ipsy Immigrant Family Services Institute, and I am here not simply to talk about immigration policy, but also to talk about people, because that's what we do. We meet every day with families, we meet with people, we meet with parents, with children, with workers, with members of our community who are literally living with an extraordinary level of fear and anxiety every day. And you heard this week what happened in New Bedford. This raid that really happened through New Bedford has sent a shock of waves within our community. Even yesterday, I was in my office as I was leaving, I was receiving so many phone calls about, have you seen ICE in Mattapan? Have you seen, I heard that they are in Dorchester. I heard they are somewhere else. So again, Whenever those things happen, they send a shock of waves to the entire community who is already living in fear. But again, what I want you to understand is that we know that we are always talking about numbers, but those events, they go beyond numbers. Someone called me not too long ago and said, you know what, Dr. Gabo, I know that you are always giving hope to all of us, It feels like, to me, there's no life inside of me. And he said that I am tired. I am tired of living in fear. I am tired of not having any options. And when you hear those words, when you ponder on those words, you must say to yourself, what exactly is going on and what can we do? Because when you're talking about that person, it's someone who left Haiti, for example, because of fear. Left Haiti because, you know, his life was in danger. And here, again, the person is here legally, came here legally, and the person is now living again in fear. So it's almost like we need to think about the human consequences of what's going on right now. And this is something that we must never lose sight of. And the other very deeply troubling consequence that we must recognize is that many of the people affected by the situation now, they had begun to rebuild their lives here. You know, when we first met with them at EFC, they had nothing. They came only with an envelope. And they embraced their courage. They went to school. They learned English. They found a job. They are now able to rent an apartment. They are able to take care of themselves and take care of their families. So those are not people who are here just to beg and to ask for people to help. Those are people who are determined to make a life for themselves. to take care of themselves and to take care of their community. So now, through no fault on their own, they are back to square one, where they are again at our door asking for help. Why? Because they lost their TPS status. I heard the question about how many lost. Everyone was on TPS. All of them, they lost their status. So there is no TPS for Haiti, absolutely not. Like those 350 numbers, 50,000 numbers, everyone lost their status. So here they are. They can no longer afford their rent. They can no longer, they struggle to put food on their table. And some of them are afraid of even going to their medical appointments. My social service department called me the other day to say, we just lost someone. And I'm like, what happened? Because that person suffered a major stroke. And the reason why the person suffered the stroke, because the person did not want to go to the hospital because of fear. And by the time they called 911, it was too late. The person died. So again, we find people who cannot or are afraid of walking in the street to even go to do their grocery shoppings. So, and this is where, you know, through no fault on their own, that they started to work so hard to rebuild their lives and now being put to square one means that most of those burdens are placed on us, community-based organizations like IFSI, to really respond to the call to be there to assist those families. So again, we always welcome the opportunity to help, and we will continue to do whatever that we need to do to help. But we must also ask those questions. people who are working, supporting their families, contributing to our communities suddenly become people who now need emergency assistance to survive. So again, those families are not asking for an out. They are asking for the opportunity to work, to provide for their children, to pay their bills, and to live with dignity. So the desire to work. has not disappeared because they do want to work. The ability and willingness to contribute have not disappeared because they do want to contribute to their community. But what has changed is their ability to access those opportunities that they had worked so hard to build. And when those opportunities disappear, the consequences do not stop with one individual or one family. They affect children. We heard already for Boston Public Schools that this year they experienced a huge uproar in terms of the number of children who are supposed to return to school. They affect landlords and local businesses. They affect schools, health care providers, churches, non-profit and community organizations. A number of church leaders are complaining now on Saturdays and Sundays that their space is empty because people are even afraid to go to church. So they affect the local economy. And they place an enormous burden on organizations that are already doing everything they can do to respond to the needs of vulnerable families. The consequences of immigration raids therefore go far beyond the moment when someone is taken into custody. Fear can enter an entire household. Children worry about whether their parents will come back home. Workers are afraid to go to work. families become afraid to seek assistance, and an entire neighborhood begins to withdraw from ordinary public life. So we must take seriously the emotional toll, the psychological and consequences that fear has on families. When someone tells us, there is no life in me anymore, we cannot simply dismiss those words. because they go deeper than just the word. When people feel trapped, powerless, and without options, despair can become overwhelming. Some people may experience severe anxiety, depression, hopelessness, and thoughts of harming themselves. We must listen because, again, so often we talk about legal services. However, we need to also talk about the emotional well-being of our community. We must recognize that protecting a community is not only about physical safety, it is also about protecting people's sense of dignity, hope, belonging, and human worth. So again, we know Boston has always been a city shaped by immigrants. The people will live in our neighborhoods, work in our businesses, care for our children, serve in our hospitals, build our homes, and they contribute, as we say, they are part of the fabric of the city. So Boston must listen. And we must remember the human beings behind the headlines and statistics. So I ask you to remember the mother who is afraid to leave her home, the father who worries that he may not be there to pick up his child, the child who wonders whether or not the parents will come back home, the workers who is afraid to go to work, the family that can no longer afford to pay rent or to put food on the table, and the person who says, I am tired of living in fear. So we cannot allow fear to become the defining experience of an entire community. Whatever we think about immigration or immigration policy, we should all agree of that one fundamental principle. Every person deserves to be treated with dignity, and families and communities deserve access accurate information support and appropriate resources during moments of crisis so i'm asking this council to continue listening to the voices of our immigrant families to recognize the profound impact that enforcement actions can leave can have on our community and to stand with those who are experiencing fear and uncertainty most importantly Let us give people hope. We must do everything in our power to fight those evil attacks on our community. As you all know, we are fighting at the Senate level for S4814, which is a bill that will protect TPS for immigrant families. So we are asking this council to continue to push forward so that all senators, wherever they stand, can sign, can cosponsor S4814 so we can remove these barriers of fear that people are facing every day. So when people say, I have no options, we want to be able to tell them there is hope because we are here for you, because you are not alone, and because we are willing to do whatever it takes to support you.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Mr. Mkanon? You have six minutes plus.

Thank you, Councillor Culpepper, for for convoking this meeting and inviting me to participate. And thank you, Councillor Mejia, Councillor Louisian and Councillor Webber for for attending this hearing. This is an absolutely, as we've heard, an absolutely critical time where we're facing multiple crises for our Haitian neighbors in Boston. and throughout the country. My own work, so I'm the Executive Director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, and my work brings me less in day-to-day contact with our Haitian neighbors, so I don't think I have much to add to what IFSI and MIRA and MOYA have on that, but what we do do is we're working on the national efforts to to provide protection for Haitians, as well as documenting the human rights conditions in Haiti that establish why Haitians should not be sent back. And I serve as an expert on country conditions in Haiti in asylum cases. So I'd like to very briefly, and I should take less than my six minutes, address some of those issues. One important thing to note here is that You know, obviously the TPS crisis was not created in Boston. It's not our government, it is not our political leaders who were part of the problem. The crisis was generated in Washington D.C. and supported by political leaders from other states and enabled by a Supreme Court willing to ignore the rule of law in our country to get to a political result. But the solution is to a large extent made in Boston. And starting, we already heard about the discharge petition that led to the House passing in April the bill to extend Haiti TPS for three more years. That was done by City Council alum Ayanna Pressley. And we're trying to do a lot of hard things here, and some of them seem impossible. And I think it's important to note, as we're bracing and preparing ourselves to do these hard things, to acknowledge what a nearly impossible thing that Representative Presson's discharge petition. I mean, she got a law involving immigration passed in the US House, controlled by Mike Johnson. And that is an extraordinary accomplishment. And I think it opens the door to other extraordinary accomplishments that we're all called to do. The way that it happened was obviously visionary leadership. and incredible persistence by Representative Pressley, but she also did it in conjunction with activist groups, and a lot of them here, including IFSI, including the True Alliance Center, including the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee that sent out text message to every Unitarian Universalist congregation in the United States telling them to make calls. There were call centers, call parties run out of Hula Cafe in Jamaica Plain. There were partners in health engaged. They brought doctors and med students across the country to call their representatives. That's how the impossible got happened. And I'll mention Councilor Louisjean, who was calling leading call centers, using their social media skills. And I'd get texts at midnight, Brian, I just talked to my college roommate's ex-boyfriend's sister who works for such and such representative in West Virginia. They're going to sign on tomorrow. That's how this miraculous happened, was this day to day to day work by activists and political leaders. And we're trying to replicate the same thing in the Senate. It's been lots of frustration, but we've had nine more senators have joined in the last 10 days. We've got all but three Democrats in the Senate, and we're making some realistic progress with several several Republican Senate offices. And if I have a request for the Boston City Council, one, call your college roommate's ex-boyfriend's sister. Any context you have with city councillors. But I think we have a real opportunity. If you have connections with city councils in states with Republican senators, and I'll start with Maine. Susan Collins is probably our second easiest target. Ohio, Senator Husted is probably our third easiest target right now. But any other states where you have interested city councilors with Republican governors, their city council of their big cities can make a huge difference. And I forgot to mention, obviously, the fight in the Senate is being led by Senator Markey, who again is working, they're coming in every day, they're reaching out, they're coming to our calls every Wednesday at four o'clock. And again, he's working very closely with the activists to make this happen. One comment on the alternative immigration status. I mean, that can literally save lives. It can save people from incredible pain in detention, in fear of detention and in deportation to Haiti. But we have to realize that that's being taken. We have to do everything we can to take advantage of those. But we have to understand that that's taking place in a time when the executive branch is making an assault on the asylum system. So it's extremely difficult. Judges who rule in favor of Haitians and other groups are getting fired for doing so. Department of Homeland Security attorneys that two years ago would have stipulated to a case that's very compelling Now they're not stipulating to everything. They're fighting every case all the way. Even if they believe that the case is meritorious, they're fighting because they have to to keep from getting fired. And so we need to keep fighting those, but what we really need to do is to get TPS reinstated. And that's through pressure to the administration, pressure to the Senate, And if we have a new configuration in Washington in January, pressure to get a new bill through the House and the Senate. And again, Boston can play a leadership role. I'd like to talk briefly about the dangers in Haiti. The three largest departments in Haiti are largely under armed group control. Haiti's talking about having elections, but that's like having an election in Massachusetts. when armed groups are completely controlling Boston and Worcester and Springfield. It's not gonna be possible to have a fair election. Over 10,000 people were reported, this is what was documented and it's beyond the total amount, over 10,000 people were killed in gang violence in Haiti in 2026, 2025, it looks like those numbers are going up. The country is in a is in a social crisis as well. It's one of the top five hungriest countries in the world. The UN just came out with a report estimating that 250,000 kids are facing famine right now. There is absolutely epidemic sexual assault as the armed groups use sexual assault as a way to control women and girls.

Mr. Ken, let me ask you a question. What should the United States be doing right now? What should we be doing?

So there's a very long term answer to that and the short term answer. The long term is that the United States needs to support an independent, strong government in Haiti. That's something we've never done. Haiti became an independent country. as a result of formerly enslaved people self-emancipating. The United States, along with many of the other wealthy countries in the world, have never forgiven Haiti for that. And we prevented Haiti from serving its role as a leader in racial justice in the world. We have not allowed Haiti to do that. That's been a bipartisan policy. And obviously, that needs to stop. In terms of more short-term things, We need to, we're currently supporting a government that is supporting the gangs. We are, you know, even Haiti's last president, or second to last, most recent living president, Michel Martelly, who the United States supported, again, bipartisan support. He's running for president in the elections in December. And he's been sanctioned by the United States for supporting gangs and running drugs, but we knew he was doing that and we continued to support him. The U.S. continues to support people in Haiti because they will obey the U.S.'s orders, not because they'll represent the witches of the Haitian people. That obviously needs to change. We need most of the guns in Haiti. Haiti doesn't make any guns. Those guns are all coming from the United States, mostly from Florida. We need to stop that.

Thank you, Mr. President.

So just one more point on the conditions in Haiti. There are 1.5 million people in Haiti who are displaced by armed group violence. Just to put that into perspective, 1.5 million people is everybody in Boston plus everybody in Worcester plus Springfield, Cambridge, Lowell, Brockton, and New Bedford. That is how many people are displaced. out of their houses as a result of gang violence.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Kincannon. I said, Louise, you only have four minutes. Four? Four.

I got six last time.

I know. That's why you got four now.

Okay. Well, I know I'm going to need more than four, so I'm just going to say we'll do a second round. Let's start with four. Hopefully we'll do a second round and I can ask my additional questions.

Let's start with four. Let's start with four.

Okay.

And we'll go to a second and third round if necessary.

All right. Thank you. I want to thank all of you. Like Brian, I just like, you know, we've been in this fight for so long. Like the fight for, against anti-blackness, the fight for our immigrant communities, the fight for a free Haiti has been ongoing since 1804. and what would it look like for us really to experience the beauty of what it means to have the only country founded in the world from a slave revolt, to have them to be able to stand on their feet. And so there's so much going in in that. I also just wanted to state that this evening at 6 PM at Sorrel and Lime in Dorchester, they're filming a movie, Brian, since you mentioned it, called The Forgotten Occupation, Jim Crow Goes to Haiti. which tells the story, actually, for anyone who is interested, of how the United States has had its foot on Haiti's neck for a very long time. And so anyone who wants to learn more about that, shout out to Gina and the team over at Surreal Online. This was put on in partnership with the Boston DSA and others, just about what we're experiencing. And I want to thank the filmmaker, for coming out to make sure we're able to see that film, Alan Martin. And I know that Jean-Julien, the mayor's Haitian liaison, has been really involved. I want also something that didn't come up. We are often getting these scares about ICE is here, ICE is there, and everyone. And I do want to thank the commissioner, Commissioner Michael Cox, because he's always the first call to confirm what's happening, especially if there's any scintilla of an idea that there may be a Boston Police Office car or something involved. I think that was a scare that happened recently. And we were able to figure it out. So I do want to thank him and the superintendents for their diligence in trying to make sure when we know when people are and aren't in our city. I wanted to talk. Brian, you mentioned the current violence. We'd be remiss not to mention what happened in the peaceful town of Kenscoff just a month ago, where gangs bludgeoned an entire community, killing 47 people, injuring more than 50. These are the realities that are not our people, our family members, our communities are facing that are very real and are very Like, and so, you know, I want to uplift the work of the National TPS Committee. Doris, Ana, so many incredible people. My father and I hopped on the bus with them to go down and protest in front of the Supreme Court. But we've seen this administration do something interesting with El Salvador TPS. And I'm wondering, and I want TPS extended for all of the countries that continue to have the country conditions that would allow, require an extension of TPS. But Brian, if you could explain to us the difference between how this administration is treated, especially when we're talking about country conditions, and how it's very, how it, I'm leading you to, this is a leading question, what they would say in a court, but how it just affirms that what we are seeing is racism rooted in anti-blackness, because otherwise none of this makes sense.

Sure. Just one quick update on the Kenscoff numbers. The 47 is what was initially reported. A report just came out earlier this week that was put in at 165 after a more thorough investigation. Really horrific. It wasn't a surprise that that massacre happened late August. There had been a massacre in July. There had been a massacre in January of 2025. And Kenscoff was such a critical area that the US government, the UN, and Haiti got together and said, this is how we're going to protect Kenscoff. But in the months that followed, they got rid of 60% of the police that they had sent there to put in that plan. A week before the massacre, they took out the last armored car because there was no police officer to drive it. So that just shows how the Haitian police is either unwilling or unable to provide any protection. And of course, Haiti has been, was the first TPS that the president announced he was going to end a week after he came into office. Before he even got elected, so September of 2023, he was talking about making extremely racist and vile accusations about Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. Clearly demonstrated wrong, but he just kept making them. And so this is inseparable from racism. And obviously there's reasons for having TPS for El Salvador, but there's nowhere that the reasons are as compelling as they are for Haiti. And there's no group now, the Venezuelans were larger than Haiti, but after Venezuela, Haiti's by far the largest group of TPS recipients. So it's very clear they're going after Haitians. And then we talked about Pierre Damas Bell. You know, one of the things that made him so sad and desperate was the fact that he was wearing ankle monitors. And that was a deliberately produced result of the strategy. They did not need an ankle monitor to follow him. He was in junior ROTC. He was on a soccer team he was enrolled in. In pre-med classes, he was a volunteer. He had a job. They could have found him, of all people. But they didn't need to find him. They needed him to feel desperate and discriminated against. Thank you.

And quickly, just to mention what's going on right now with opening more opportunities for people from South Africa, white people from South Africa to come to the U.S. And every single week they are increasing the numbers for them to come. And before they even land here, everything is already waiting for them. Even their work permit is waiting for them before they even land. Compared to when our people were coming here, they had to wait for months to get their work permit. They had to wait for months to get any special benefits. Here we are with an administration that is opening doors to South Africans to come here, white South Africans to come here, while closing doors to their next door neighbors, Haiti. So I don't think that they are hiding anything in terms of, you know, their desire to discriminate against, you know, black people.

Dr. Gabo, it sounds just like after the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted, the first thing they did was they gave the white folks homes and mortgages and precluded black folks from even getting a mortgage. A mortgage. Those that were qualified. And so, Councilwoman here, I'll give you four minutes and then we'll go to Council Weber. Because I didn't ask any questions of Dr. Novo. I know you use all your time. Go on, one question.

I'll wait for a second because I have more.

Okay. I do. Okay.

4 minutes and as you should respect the lead sponsor who has been dedicating a lot of her time and her staff's energy to supporting this issue so I would I would I would second I know I'm using my four minutes to advocate for my colleague

I agree.

Uh-oh, he's trying to control everything here today. Normally that's my role. Stop it.

You taught me and you taught me.

No.

And you taught me. Okay.

Now you're using my time. No, but I just want to thank you all for... In this moment where we're experiencing so much, it's organizations like yours that are standing in the front line. And oftentimes, you don't even know where to go. And people come to you, and then you have to redirect them everywhere. I want to focus a lot of my questions around the support and funding, because I think the capacity in this moment is going to require, and I know, Roni, you talked a lot about what the city can be doing, and so did you, Dr. Jubbo, and I'd like to hear specifics in terms of numbers, like how many people, I know you had mentioned some numbers, and I know you both, but Now what are you seeing? Because the grants have come out already. Now we have to start thinking about next year's budget in terms of really meeting this moment. What does the financial outlook looks like?

So, I mean, again, the situation that we're facing right now is such an incredible level of, you know, unknown. that it's almost like no amount of funding will be able to really help us to do what we have to do. But again, we know that we must do something. So this week, I think, is it this week or last week, we were on a call with both the housing department here, the council in the region, and the state to talk about what we are seeing. Every week, close to 20 families are coming to our doors Why? Because they receive an eviction letter because they cannot pay their rent. And because, again, home base is no longer available to them because home base is a two-year program where those people have already used their home base. So they don't have the support that they need to maintain their rent. So think about IFSI, for example, serving close to 19,000 families over the course of 2024 to 2025. And out of those 19,000, let's say that half of them only had TPS. So you have to remember, we have, you know, TPS is good for everyone, but some TPS families applied for asylum. And because they applied for asylum, some of them received their work permit through that. So this group, again, although they are still living in fear, because even when you have a pending application, ICE does not respect that. I mean, if they meet you, you know, they take you. So let's say that half of them had applied for asylum, but the other half When they applied, they did not even receive their work permit on time. So which means that those are people who are now without work. So when we're thinking about all of those families who were renting an apartment and now cannot afford to pay for their rent, cannot afford to pay food on their table, cannot even afford to have legal, because again, no matter how you put it, Macy is doing a wonderful job to represent family in the court system. But guess what? Their wait list is so long that there is no way that they can really support everyone. And that's the reason why we need to be thinking outside of the box. What can we do? How do we bring those law firms? How do we bring those universities? How do we bring all of the schools to court? and support, because there is no way that any one of us can do this work alone. So when we're talking about funding, especially for an organization like us, because we are a one-stop service center organization, meaning that we are touching on different areas of someone's life, There is absolutely no funding that could help us do the work that we are doing. If we didn't have volunteers, if we don't have, you know, all the network around us, we would have closed out doors a long time ago. So, yeah.

Just, you already, Dr. Cabot, we can go forever, but.

Dr. Cabot, Council Mohir has just finished her time. You can finish your answer, and then we're going to move on to Council Weber, and then we're going to come back for a second round. and we'll start with Council Huijuan.

Well, awkward, because I do have a hard stop, so I wanted to just finish, and I want to think, is that okay? But, you know, I think, what I'll just end with, I'm not going to even ask another question, I'll just end with this, is that this whole idea of being innovative and thinking outside the box is exactly the type of conversations that we should be having. Because we have the BCYF centers, we have the YMCAs, we have the Boys and Girls Club that are not operating at night. And there's opportunities there for how do we utilize some of the spaces that we have publicly for shelter. You know, I also think that there are a lot of empty units of rental, empty units because landlords don't want to rent in this moment. How do we engage some of these landlords? I think I would be interested in the alternatives of what we can be doing now because no amount of money is going to solve it. So then we need to really start tapping into the greater community. I'm not going to ask any questions because I want to be respectful of my colleagues and Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilman here. Council Weber.

Sure, thank you. Okay, just to start, so for Mr. Concanon, you mentioned three Democrats had signed in the Senate. have not signed you have not signed who who are they um senator baldwin senator peters and senator kelly okay and then because i i i i participated in some of the the phone calling that uh that everyone set up and I'm sure the call from the district 6 City Councilor didn't sway anyone happy to keep doing that and Somebody who's lived in Tennessee and went to law school in Iowa. I know plenty of people Who are dating somebody who used to know somebody who works in people's offices?

So I'm gonna be particularly good because there's a there's a electorally vulnerable Republican

Yeah, I have former classmates running for Attorney General of Iowa. Anyway, so I'm happy to help there. I guess, so just in terms of, I think this is maybe more for Mr. Minter, but... and Dr. Goubeau, is there something that you can file now which preserves people's rights? I did some asylum cases as a law student. you know, what is the most effective tool to be like, is there one? And I guess one I was thinking of is guest worker status for employers. Should the employers be filing something? But I'm just interested in like, you know, from the law side, we're talking about getting these law firms in. What should we be, what do we want them to be doing?

I mean, the true answer is I'm not a, law expert myself, and so I'm not going to give you an answer that would satisfy you here. The truth is, I mean, the reality is there's not much, right, for an issue that we feel has to be resolved at the federal level. And so I can check with our attorney staff and get back to you, but... No, I mean, that's what I did not...

The hardest part about practicing immigration law was you're not going before an impartial judge. You're playing on their field, and you're asking them to do something. I never enjoyed that. It's obviously a very difficult fight. Thank everyone who goes into that. Sorry.

Can I say one quick response to that? So there's a group of immigration lawyers are preparing what's called an omnibus motion to prevent all deportations to Haiti. They're actually hoping to get that done this week. And the idea is they're going to get it out to everybody. And every immigration lawyer who wants to at every hearing can go in and say, you know. And then the letter basically says, that it's completely legally and morally unjustified to send anybody back to Haiti. It's not going to convince all the judges. They're hoping that it might convince some, but just, you know, it's another tool in the toolbox.

Okay, and then what about, I mean, so from the employer side, I mean, they can file for guest worker protection. They can say, I need these people or this person to be, like, a foreign guest worker, and that gives them, I think, worker authorization. I just... Is there any discussions about that?

I think that's difficult. I've been involved in a couple of cases of that, and it's a high bar. You have to prove that there's no... Or they want to fill out that position.

No, I mean, I represented migrant farm workers and a lot of the guest workers, H-2A, H-2B workers, and it's pretty much rubber-stamped, you just say. Like, I put an ad in the... You know, in, I don't know, like Cat Fancy magazine for cotton gin workers and nobody responded. Therefore, there's nobody who wants to do this work.

But we do need employers to step up. Because, again, you know, we have seen that despite everything else that is going on, we have seen some signs, you know, of victory, you know, in the court because people do step up. So when you take, for example, the healthcare industry, for example, and the impact of losing so many workers, so we need all of the major employers to start speaking out loud to say that there is no way that we can continue to work like this. when we're thinking about the economic impact of TPS termination, if all of the major employers were to raise their voice and to do something, I believe that they will find ways to support the workers that they are currently losing. But again, people need to have the courage to stand up and say, let's try, let's do it.

Yeah, and I think as you were talking about what's happening with white South African refugees, I'm pretty sure that when the initial challenges to the termination of TPS status, that there were court decisions finding on the record, on a summary judgment record, that the reason for terminating them was based on racial racism, say racial animus or something. And so I think it's plain that the only justification for this is just flat-out racism. And we see with the ankle monitors and the way people are getting detained near schools or laundromats, that the intention here is to inflict pain. So that's why, I mean, I, you know, I just want to thank Councillor Louis-Jean, honestly, for leading and we're, you know, I'm, wherever, whatever house you're running to, I'll be behind you, you know, if it's on fire. I think, you know, I just want to thank the panelists. I have some more questions, but I know I don't want to take away from Council Member Jones. What's your time? I'm aware of the time. Thank you. I can see that far.

And I did give you extra time.

Thank you very much.

We have one person that will present for two minutes on Zoom. And then we'll come right back to Councilor Louis-Jean.

Hello, can you guys hear me?

Yes.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify on behalf of my community. My name is Gital Moussadat. I am a journalist and activist in the Haitian community. I will use my two minutes to describe the situation that we have right now in Haiti. Most of the people were here in TPS. They left Haiti right after the earthquake. And they came here like President Obama was going to them, the TPS. You know, to see if they can, like, have the family back home. But month after month, year after year, the country's still the same. We have, like, a political instability that never change. We have some co-op government and that never do anything for the country. So those people... they are doctors, nurses, engineers, electricians, technicians, HVAC technicians. They're not the people that like audit, like just random people. And they came here not because they're looking for, I mean, to stay here or steal or use the government phone. They're here just because they was looking for a place safe, you know, to stay with the kids and then to get a better future. So as I'm talking right now, the place that they used to live, the area that they used to live are taken by gang. So even though they decided to go back, they don't have nowhere to stay. Even though it's their country, the house is destroyed. The way the gang take the country, every area, They operate. If you live in the area, if you have to go out, you have to ask them for permission. If you have to come to the area, you have to ask them for permission. So it's not safe at all for someone who lives in the US for 10, 15, 20 years to send back to this country. Yes, it's their country. They want to go back. So that's where they belong, they understand that. But as of right now, it's not safe for anyone, anyone to go there. So recently there was a woman that they sent back there, so two days after she get kidnapped and killed while she was living here for 15 years. She got there, after two days she get kidnapped and killed. So imagine that your sister, have to go through that. Imagine that. Your blood will have to go through that. So if there's anything that you guys can do to help this community to survive right now, because right now it's all depression. People are fear. They don't want to go to church. They can't go anywhere. And now they start losing house that they bought, that they worked hard for years to save money. and they are about to lose those efforts. So it's like when they left Haiti, they come here to start from zero and up. So now you want to send them back to start from zero and up. How old they are? So think about it, how you guys can do. I know this is a federal level that's supposed to be resolved, but I know you guys can put pressure, or in the city, what we can do to help these people to feel safe. As of yesterday, I spent all day in Brockton creating fear in the community. New Bedford, the same thing. So they don't respect anything at all. I don't know anything, if you guys can do anything to enforce this so that you can at least slow them down. I know you guys can stop them, but there's a way to slow them down. So this community need help right now. It's election time. So the community is watching. Who's supporting the community? We are watching. Who's there for us? Who's with their hand for us? to survive this crisis. We didn't come here by choice. We come here by force. Our leaders back home, they don't do a good job every time they take power. And most of the time, the US government are the one who pick and choose who have to be the president of Haiti. That's what happened. And that's the reason the country become worse and worse and worse and worse. We can't live in it. So please, guys, if there's something you can do, do it. Because you've got people that have kids in here, their kids are like 16 years, 17 years, five years old. You're going to send those back. How are they going to go to school? There's a country that doesn't have any infrastructure, nothing at all. So I know they are talking about election. There's no way this election will be fair. If this election happen, it's going to be the same whole thing. The US government going to pick and choose who they need to be the president, who they can have easy access to, who can do the job.

Please wrap up.

So please, if you guys can do something right now to help the Haitian who lives here in Boston, Massachusetts, it's an emergency. Do it as soon as possible. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Thank you so much. Councillor Lejeune will give you five minutes.

Thank you. My first question is for Maroney. What does it look like in Macy obviously has this backlog. What does it look like right now in terms of getting additional, the necessary funding from the legislature to further fund and support Macy? Yeah, because the six month backlog is too much. So what are the conversations, are there conversations happening now to help mitigate some of that backlog?

Yeah, I mean, Obviously, ideally, we would love to pass the bill itself, right? So folks need to understand Macy's initiative that came out of the Immigrant Legal Defense Act that Mira is pushing. And so while the legislature has been slow and hesitant to passing the bill, they have committed to continue to fund the program. There is actually a budget line item, which we feel good about. And so our hope is that as we start the next legislative session, we will have another ask for the legislature So right now how the product program is funded at seven million dollars And so the hope that we can come to back to the legislature when the session starts again to ask for hopefully to double That but I think also even though we advocate and have the funding I think we're something to think about You know, how can we utilize this funding to also bring more folks in the field? Because even with the funding, there is huge shortage of lawyers.

Thank you.

That's exactly what I was going to quickly mention. For example, this week, we had a couple of clients. They went to the portal and applied because they had an appointment. Portal? The MESI, because there is a portal where you can go and see that you need help. So they did that almost a month ago, right? And then their appointment was, one of them was on Monday, the other one was on Tuesday. And so we do have a messy attorney at our office to help facilitate those things. So I emailed my lawyer And I said, were you able to help those two? Because again, it's been a month. And she said, unfortunately, no. And we said, we need to call those people and find out what's going on. They went on their own to those appointments. And we know what it means when you go without a lawyer. So even when Missy, and that's the reason I'm really pushing for this idea of faking outside of the box. Because even if Missy had $100 million, We're talking about now. People need help now. It's not in two months. It's not in three months. A lot of people are receiving letters for them to go to court, to go. So those people right now, it's almost like their life is in danger because they cannot find. We don't have enough lawyers to go with them. So we need to be creative about how do we bring other resources along with Mercy to support those families. Because we're not talking about next month. We're talking about yesterday that those people needed legal support. So it's not just about funding. It's about how do we even recreate the system to really have others to come and join and support those families.

Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of hand-holding, right? Like, we can't let anyone fall through the cracks. I mean, we've got to, by hook or by crook, find people, attorneys in these situations. I'm wondering if DOJ accreditation is also something that we've been looking into. I think you had touched on it too, Moroni. you know, or DOJ accreditation so that there's not just beyond, it could just be beyond lawyers, right, because there's... Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I mean, yeah, DOJ accreditation is one of the more, I would say, efficient way for us to support families, especially when they can be supervised by an attorney. So you could have six, seven, ten, you know, DOJ accredited people with one supervisor. As long as they understand what to do, they can help a lot of families. Those are the things that we have to really be thinking about outside of the books to bring more resources to a community that is really in dire need.

Yeah. I'm going to piggyback off of something that you said, Dr. Gabo. You said, there are no reason there aren't enough resources. Or you said there, you said it in a way as though, like, we don't need the money, but like, we do actually need the money.

We do need the resources.

There's never going to be enough to like meet the full extent of the need. And so you talked about the human element, but I do think, I don't actually know if people really understand, like, I don't think that unless you are in it, that they give it, that you understand, like we are really literally talking about life and death on one of the, 4 PM calls, I couldn't be on the call because we were having a council meeting. My chief of staff texted me who was on the call and said, oh my gosh, a woman in another state, pregnant woman just drank a bottle of bleach because she lost her TPS status. We were talking about, so I mean, And I also want to say, because there's a lot of fear mongering that goes around with this all the time, is that we are talking about Boston residents. We're talking about people who have been here for years, who drive our buses, who work in various jobs, health care, transportation, entrepreneurs. So what does it look like when folks come to you with those very human, very real needs?

I mean, I always say to people that we can only do this job by grace because our team, our staff, because every single day, that's what we do. We meet directly with people in person or on the phone. We have, you know. You have nowhere else to turn.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And they are counting on us to give them this kind of a word of hope. And so often, when you cannot even find how to even say something, it is very painful. In fact, we're going to organize a mental health retreat, not only for our staff, but some of the community leaders, as a way for them to understand how to take care of themselves first so they can take care of others. So this is not a job for the faint-hearted, because again, It takes a lot of you to do this work, meeting families. You know, a young man, he's about to turn 21. And mom was waiting for that young man to turn 21 so that they can apply because, again, he was born here. And then as the birthday was coming, and then the idea of hope was coming for the family, and the young man said, I don't even know that I want to do that. It is so painful to live here. It's so painful to be. It's almost like the young man, although was born here, was born to turn 21. to help the mom, at the point of hope, he felt so discouraged by what he's seeing out there. So it's every day that our mental health providers, they have to sit down with families in tears, sharing the pain, the burden, the shame that they're carrying. Especially, remember, when you talk about immigrant families, there is this pride when you finally can get a key to your own apartment. And all of a sudden, for you to find yourself, the landlord calling you, you know what? You will be out. You'll be out with no other place to go for you to think that you're going to be in the street. Think about the pride of a family with children, giving them hope that mommy is going to do the best, daddy is going to do the best. Now we're thinking about going back to the street. That's the reason why if we don't act fast, People are going to fall into despair, and the consequences are something that we will be feeling for years to come. So mental health right now is a big thing that we need to pay attention to. You're absolutely right. It is. It is. It is a lot.

It is a lot. One more question, and then we'll move to Council Weber.

Louis, you're on finish, and then we'll come to you. Thank you. Brian, I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more around the long-term strategy around this TPS effort. I know, where do we go from here? How are we using this, you know, uplifting, you know, the recent meeting between President Trump and Mayor Mamdani? Like, how is this all going to work together? You know, and I know there are efforts in the fall about who's going to be leading the House thereafter, if you could talk a little about. Because I get these calls from people about like, why is this your focus? Because President Trump ultimately has veto power. It's going to be hard to get 13 Republicans to sign on. I think you did incredible framing. No one thought the discharge petition was going to go through. I remember being on the phone with Congresswoman Pressley at midnight the night that that bill, and was just crying. No one believed that it was going to happen. And there were people who were part of the coalition, if you're a member, who didn't believe. At the last minute, they were saying, we don't know if this is the moment. So I'm wondering, Brian, Dr. Gabbo, if you could talk about the strategy and why people should believe in it.

So I was one of the people, confession.

Oh, I remember talking to y'all, then having to talk to our congresswomen, and this is what the coalition is saying, and the congressman was like, believe we got this, and she had us.

Because there was, you know, so much against us, and that originally, and it was probably like November of last year when one of my colleagues said, let's do this. I said, we can't put too many resources, we're stretched so thin, and this is just not realistic enough. Um, and then what happened was we started working together and kind of buoyed each other and the excitement of, of collaborating kind of got people together. And then obviously the visionary leadership of representative Presley. But another key component was that the political winds shifted precipitously. And so Americans were okay with deporting Haitians when when they thought of Haitians as abstract and as criminals, the way that the administration was defining them. What happened between November of last year and probably March and April of this year was that people realized that the Haitians weren't these kind of abstract criminals. They were the people taking care of their mother. They were the people who were driving their bus or serving them food or doing any of the... Millions of things that Asian TPS holders were doing, and that completely shifted the political winds. And now there's clear majorities, even strong support among Republicans for not deporting Haitians. And the polls always say the same thing. And even individuals, they say, oh, yeah, we want to get rid of the criminals. We don't want to get rid of the people who are doing things right. And the vast, vast majority of Asian TPS holders are fit in the category of doing things right. And so that's a political reality that the Republican Party is faced with. And what DHS is now doing, DHS is trying to navigate between public opinion and Republicans wanting to win elections and the Stephen Miller wing, which is obviously white supremacist and is never going to change. So they're always going to be fighting, yelling that we need to deport more Haitians. But there also is public opinion that is strong and growing stronger against these. And we can take advantage of that. And the discharge petition did. The current Senate bill does. And yes, it's possible that the president can veto it. That's going to be a hard choice for him to make, because that's going to hurt his approval ratings even more. And this could literally make the difference between control of the Senate. I mean, Susan Collins' district alone, or John Huston's district alone, could be the difference between 51 Democrats in the Senate or 50, which makes all the difference to the president. And so we can leverage this in really important ways. And then we keep fighting. If we don't win then, we keep fighting in the new Congress, which may have a Democrat majority in one or both houses.

Dr. Gabbo? Yeah, and I was going to say also, this is what we call the power of working together. And this is also the power of faith. The reason why I'm saying the power of faith, I remember when we were on so many calls and then a couple of people said, oh no, this is not going to pass. And I'm like, why not? Because if we are doing it, we're doing it because we know, we believe that it could happen. So when we put our hearts together, especially fighting evil, and we put our mind and our hearts together against what miracle has happened. So that's the reason why I said I will never join a fight if I'm not sure that we can win. So the same way that we fought for the discharge petition, that's the same fervor that we want to see all across, that people fight with this idea that, yes, we can win. And as you are going to, you are saying, Councilor Weber, You know, when we are focusing on something, before we know it, so many other opportunities come our way, like thinking about my friends in Ohio, when I went to college with, who I was playing golf with, and so on. Before you know it, those people are coming into mind, and then we reach out to them, and they can support. So that's the reason why when we put our strength together, you know, our mind, our heart together for something that is so positive, because we're talking about people's lives, you know, against evil, guess what? We always win. And that's the reason why I want everyone to go to this fight with this idea that, yes, we will win, because at the end of the day, it's about protecting people protecting lives, protecting children. They meant it for evil, but the Lord meant it for good.

Exactly. Councilor Weber, I think we have two more folks that want to talk. Is there anyone on Zoom who's ready to testify now? Atiyah Yeda. Wilson Lewis.

Yeah, this is me. Hello, fellows. I'm in my car, sorry, and I have my bike.

You've got two minutes, Wilson.

Okay, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify, share a court paper. I'm very grateful to be here. I'm Wilson Telimudwi. I'm a member of the task force of the BNPT, which is the task force, the Blackman Political Task Force, and I'm also the CEO of a literary organization named ITIA Haiti. So I was at your last hearing about the TPS, Haitian TPS service people back in April. But today, I would like to reiterate some key point that I already discussed with you guys. And I think the US is now being seen as a country that is exposed or expose young ladies, young people like us, IOL female, to exploitation. So I am assuming that you understand what it means when you have young ladies these days who don't have access to a job or cannot even go to school. So in order for them to survive, they have to sell themselves. So I think that's exactly what the US is training now. I don't know if it's a good reputation for us as American, as a great country in this world. So this is exactly what Iowa TPS holders like who lost their job are experiencing right now. And also some of them are being exposed to under the table jobs and which have them even work for $4 an hour because they have to survive. They have to even send some money back home and even sustain themselves in the U.S. And the second aspect I would like you to highlight in your advocacy approaches, impact on American lives. I believe even Dr. Gabu, who is speaking here, she's also affected by these U.S., by the TPS holder status right now. As me also, I am among the... families who brought people in this country through this TPS program, which I believe I brought five people here from this program. It's very stressed on me because these people now, they lost their job and they have to leave. And they don't want to go back home because it's not secure over there. My grandma, she's like 79. She doesn't want to go back to Haiti because she said, okay, there is no food over there. And when I'm sick, I'm not being able to go to the hospital. So all of these are on our shoulder. Family stress now rely on us as American family, even you guys, even though you're not Haitian or have any Haitian background, you also must be affected by this trauma in this country. And the third thing I would like to highlight is uh a philanthropic philanthropic approach from you guys i understand you've been spending a lot of time by providing these people with um short-term needs like food uh shelter so i'm wondering also if there is no possibility to help these people get into training while you are waiting for a transition or for the work permit? Is there any way the city can help this category of people, these young people, family, to at least spend some time into training so they can study something, trade program, and when they get the work permit so they can restart on the workplace? And also, I would like to address the article first of the Human Rights Declaration that I think the U.S. also acknowledged back in December 1948, which says that every human is equal before the law. So as human, I think we, each other, should um participate in making other um either side each other's life better instead of trying to enslave some people you should remember that folks haiti is the first black independent country in this world and i'm taking that hate is becoming now the newest nation, slave nation. I think the US is trying to put Haiti again in slavery. Do you think that's a good reputation for you guys to handle on you to settle the history? This is exactly what's going on right now. If you are like, following the news like how Haitian president was killed. And the U.S. isn't even involved for all the gang, the guns that's going to Haiti now. Most of them have come from the U.S., even the gun that killed the president. It's made in the U.S. We don't make guns in Haiti. People, it's like you are living in a family where you don't have a mom, you don't have a dad. What should you do? In Haiti, we don't have a city council. We don't have any city council, even the lowest part of the public administration. We don't have that in Haiti right now. We don't have mayors. We don't have deputy. We don't have senator. We don't have a president. So how come we don't have a family and you go to your neighbors? House and now they're kicking you out and even they contribute on in blocking your house. Just like my my fellow colleague was saying in her testimony. My other approach would be. Mr Louie, please wrap up. Okay. The three legal lawyers, guys, you approach in your speeches, I think I am also, as I told you, a parent who welcome in TPS family here. I am assuming, I'm not assuming, I experience it. We should probably have more resources because I look for resources for these people. They don't find resources. They don't know. We call these lawyers. They like to turn you around until they never help you. And also... I think this will be my last approach. I don't know. I know you can do that as a city to see how you can implement some program to encourage inclusion in this city or in the state. Because us, as new immigrants, when we come to the country, we don't know how to navigate the country. So I know there are a lot of programs that can welcome us. But we don't want to go to this program Is there a way you can have some outreach people that could go to these people to get them into some program to encourage inclusion and social cohesion? Because they will not come to this program even though they made for them. Please, see if you can get some resource that can go and help them, reach them, and bring them to the program that are designed to them. And thank you for having me. I have a lot to say, but I would like to thank especially on share call paper for giving me this invitation and come to you guys and congratulations for the hard work that you're doing. And I know it's going somewhere and I'm glad that I'll be part of it.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Thank you. Are there any other folks on Zoom who came prepared to testify? You have two minutes. Why don't we go to Councilor Weber? You had, and I know you have other pressing matters. Councilor Weber, I'll give you three minutes.

Good to see you.

I want to acknowledge Councilor Flynn has joined us. Councilor Weber, right after you, we'll move right to Councilor Flynn. Then we'll go back to the folks on Zoom. They will have final and closing statements. I'll give Each of you, two minutes. Council Weber?

Okay, yeah, thanks. Just so it seems like, you know, getting enough qualified attorneys in place immediately is like one of the short-term needs here. So I guess, you know, what can we do? I know we talk about getting law firms involved, but, I mean, can we help with that? What are your, like, you know, instructions on that. Like, what's being done and what can we do to help with that sort of, you know, emergency?

Yeah.

Okay. So again, I think we need to bring more awareness about what's going on. Believe it or not, we're talking about this very crucial subject right here. So many people who are just next door to us do not have any clue about what's going on. I think bringing more awareness to everyone so they understand the gravity of the situation is step number one. Step number two, anyone who really has an influence who can reach out to other major, like I said, major firms, colleges and universities should do so. Even if we were to put together a training, because again, if you are a lawyer, I mean, you know that there is immigration lawyer that is completely different from other areas that you can work on. However, we know we have done it in the past when we had so many people where lawyers come and train others so at least they can be there, even if to hear, to listen to a conversation, they can do something. Because there is always something that someone can do, especially when families are left on their own to go to the court system. And I believe MIRA has always, they have done a number of training to help others so they understand. But I think right now the idea is that there is a lot of indifference around what's going on because people are not fully aware. That's usually why those sessions are critical important for us to bring that to others so that they understand there is a real need in our community to get others to come in and support our community.

I would also add in a part of this also Councillor Lujan mentioned getting us more people DOJ accredited, right? And that's one of the things that Mira is trying to do. But to your question specifically, I think one of the things we also need to do is to streamline the firms, right? Because one of the things we're hearing, if you have a firm who has tied to the federal government or you know, have funding through the federal government, those firms are likely not going to be working on these cases, right? So how do we streamline to make sure that we actually identify firms who have no tax with federal government, who don't depend on federal government and are more likely to work with us? So I think there's some work to be done there as well.

Okay. And I guess, so for accreditation, because this is new to me, like we have JP fights back and they have 200 plus people signed up for Luce training. Can I push those people over into this? Is that who you're talking about?

We are at the point where Any help is helpful, as long as the intention is there. So no one is there, because again, we have to be careful not to hurt instead of helping. But again, as long as people are coming with the idea of helping, we can use that help in so, so many ways.

Okay, well, if you haven't spoken to... I mean, there's a fundraiser event in JP next week, and it would be great to have somebody. I'm happy to speak, but maybe we can bring you up on stage. Anyway, so thank you very much. Thank you to the chair.

Thank you, Mr. Weber. Councillor Flynn, I gave the council six minutes as opening.

if you could just use that six minutes for your opening and questions and then we can wrap up thank you thank you mr chair and thank you for sharing this important hearing and to the sponsors as well for bringing this forward i do apologize for being late but i will watch the video over the weekend to learn more about the subject during during the haiti earthquake I was living in Guantanamo at the time, which is not very far from Haiti, and the base at Guantanamo, the airfield really, was used as an airfield for supplies getting into Haiti by the Navy as part of the relief effort, but have tremendous respect for the people of Haiti and support, strongly support TPS for the Haitian community. And I know the contributions they have made to our city and country. So maybe just following up on Councilor Weber's question, if private citizens want to help support legal efforts to help on legal matters as it relates to immigration, What is the best way for private citizens to get involved and be helpful?

I mean, if they are a private citizen with a low background who are willing to help with immigration legal, obviously we at MIRA, we encourage folks to reach out and volunteer with our office. So I would absolutely encourage you to refer them to our office, and we're always looking for a volunteer to step up. Okay.

We, attorneys or non-attorneys, it doesn't matter, right?

Well, I think it's very, look, this is, there is a lack of qualified attorneys, and while we are in this, there are also folks out there who want to act like they are attorneys. We know there are folks who are there who are using this moment to steal and fraud folks. So I would be very careful for us, especially someone who's going to volunteer. We want them to actually have the experience.

Could someone make a donation that might help offset or help support legal efforts? Could they make a financial contribution? Is that something people could do also?

I always say with what's going on right now, the sky is the limit in terms of what people can do. Because we set up a couple of months ago a family emergency assistance fund to support families. Because again, as we said, it's not just the legal aspect. It's now people, especially the winter months, are coming upon us. People would not have any place to stay because they cannot afford to pay rent, not because they don't want to pay the rent, but because they are out of their workplace. They cannot go and work. So we're talking about families who need access to food, especially, you know, given everything that is going on, even though Haitians are qualified to be Cuban and Chinese, but not everyone understands what it means, and they're not everyone is able and willing to go out there knowing that we have what we call terror industry. So we are living what we call a time where it's almost like wherever you go, you are at risk of being detained. We have a testimony of someone who is a U.S. citizen who has been detained because when they came like years ago, they overstayed their visa and now because they were in front of eyes, I said, oh yeah, you committed a crime years ago, like 20 years ago. So again, no one is... protected right now in our community. So we're talking about food, we're talking about mental health, we're talking about rent. I mean, so much that people need now and that, you know, the sky is the limit in terms of what financial contribution can do to support families.

And I would just, you know, Dr. Gabor doesn't mention this, but I think she is. I think if there are folks who want to support financially, Uh, right now the best way to give is to organizations that are doing everything that Dr. Gabor just described, from legal aid to all of the necessary needs, and I think that's what AFC does, and so those are the kind of organizations that people should be supporting in this moment.

Yeah, thank you. Were there... Um, so... With Haitian... The Haitian community in Boston, or greater Boston, and with the possibility of being deported, are we seeing a lot of Haitian workers now not going to work and afraid of going to work because of the role the federal government could play in picking up? Is that what we're seeing also? Oh, yeah.

This is our day-to-day experience right now. This week, you heard what happened in New Bedford. And because of that, it's almost like every single corner. If you were to drive to Mattapan, in general, Mattapan is such a booming community. People all across walking talking among in front of our office There is always line of people and somebody was just videotaping and in the videos They said wow look at what ice did to our community It's almost empty because again people are not getting out and and and one thing for us to understand is that because of this amount of money that has been pouring into ice and they became so sophisticated that I could be talking to you right now and then they are taking me, you don't even realize when they are taking me. So they are super sophisticated when they go, for example, to any parking lot and then put their antenna up so they are able to see who is coming and who is leaving and they know when to just come and get you. In the past, we used to have a lot of noise when ICE was in the community because we had time to see it. People were able to document with their, you know, camera and so on and so forth. Now, they do it in a way that it's so subtle that you don't even know when they are coming. It's after or something. Where is so and so? And then before you know it, so and so has been taken. So it's almost like it's a war zone right now that we are living in every single corner of our communities. Yeah.

Can I just add? Thank you. One second. Councillor Flynn, one last question or are you finished?

Yeah, I would just make a brief comment. So when a worker doesn't go to work because of that possible deportation, I know many Haitian people work in hospitals or service industries, or I know in nursing homes as well. Basically, you don't get paid also. So it is having a devastating, I would assume, impact on paying rent, on food, on electrical bills, and just everyday living. But just want to say thank you to the three people that are here for the important work and compassionate work that you are doing. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councilor Flynn. What we'll do is we'll give each panelist two minutes. And Councilor Webber, do you want two minutes to close? Sure. We'll give Councilor Luis-Juan two minutes. And I'm going to forego my questions because much of what I wanted to ask, you've already answered. I do have a few things I want to raise, but let me let you make your final statement. and we'll try and wrap up in the next few minutes. Thank you. Starting with me?

Yes. Well, I just want to thank you all for this opportunity and thank you for taking on this issue. Obviously, this really shows how thoughtful you're trying to be on this issue, so we really, really appreciate and admire. We want to be a thoughtful partners as we continue to work together And so the last thing I just want to briefly say, Councillor Lugini touched on this earlier, too, is TPS for El Salvadorian versus Haiti. One of the thing, and also to your question on what is the strategy continue to be from here, one of the things that we are hearing is that there are a lot of business owners who are friends with the presidents, but also depend on the labor of El Salvadorian, who are calling him. And also, let's not forget, the president of El Salvador is a good friend with our president. So there is that. So there is a lot of pressure from the business community to Congress and to the president. And I think that our business owners, business community, that also depends on the labor of our Haitian communities. need to step up as well, and that should be part of the strategy, because Congress and the President do listen to a lot of these businesses' orders. So we also want our business community, who depend on the labor of Asian communities, to step up in their advocacy effort. Again, thank you.

Dr. Goubeau? Dr. Goubeau? Yeah, he's going for me, and then I'll... Okay. So just a quick response to Councillor Flynn's question about employment. It's important to remember that for people who had their work authorization only because of TPS, they lost out on August 5th. So they don't have jobs to be worried about going to. Some of those people got alternate work authorization through asylum. And yes, they can go to their work worried about getting picked up, but the people at TPS, They don't have a job to go back to. And a lot of those people got their health insurance and paid for their health care through their job. And so those people are going to forego medical attention until they absolutely need to, and then they're going to go to emergency rooms. And so just in terms of summing up, I'd just like to thank everybody. There's a lot of work to do. It's a great crisis, but I'll invoke the Haitian proverb of many hands make the world light, and it's by everybody coming together and working on a million different things that we're going to carry this load. Great, thank you. Dr. Delbault.

Again, thank you so much for this opportunity to be here with you. Especially, again, thank you, Councillor Lejeune, for your leadership on this issue. Councillor Culpepper, for everything that you are doing to bring us together. Councillor Weber, thank you. for your thoughtful insight and thinking outside of the box. What I want us to leave this room here is that there is real pain, real pain happening in every single corner of our communities. Families are hurting, and they are hurting deeply. And that this human dimension of what's going on right now is something for us to carry with us as we go about our business, to remember as we are probably enjoying our time, you know, with our own families, there are families who cannot afford to be with their children, cannot afford to be with their parents. And because of that, we are called to do whatever it takes to fight, to protect, and to support. And at the end of the day, I always said, I am grateful for the work that I'm doing because I know when I go to sleep, I have this smile that I brought to someone's life. And that's really the essence of why I am here. We all are here because we have a call to serve, a call to do something. And whatever we can to do that thing every single day of our lives, let's do it. Because we can live a happier life by bringing hope, by bringing a smile to someone's life. So this is a big crisis, but this is also a big opportunity for all of us to step up and show that we are really humane and that we care about each other, so thank you for what you do, and let's continue to fight.

Thank you, Dr. Cabot. Councilor Weber?

Thank you. Yesterday, there's somebody, a construction worker died, you know, falling off a scaffolding in Jamaica Plain. And it made me think about, there was a book by Jimmy Breslin, I think it's called The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez, about a Mexican immigrant who comes to New York, and he died falling off a scaffold in a similar way. And in the book, Jimmy Breslin has a line, something along the lines of, I don't think somebody's rights should be dictated based on what side of a line they were born on. And I think what we're seeing here is just it's that and mixed up in a stew with just with racism, flat out racism, and watching people be hunted and forced to wear ankle monitors and being denied medical care and all this other stuff. It is something that I just want to thank the panelists and my colleagues for fighting against. And I think there's no higher calling for us is to try to do what we can and whether that's you know, something that the city does or we just do as individuals and we work with other people to find solutions for. I mean, I certainly have my support and, you know, I just thank you to my colleagues for bringing this discussion to the city hall today and thank you for speaking so eloquently about it. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Weber. Councillor Flynn.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As a nation and as a city, we have a moral obligation to help the people of Haiti that are living here in Boston and living here in the United States. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Councillor Flynn. Councillor Louis-Jean.

I've got a lot to say. This is not just a hearing for me. This is my mornings, this is my nights. This is the heartache that we carry and that we've carried for so long. With each of you, I do not know where I would be and how we would be able to do this work. Brian and IJDH, Moroni and the work that you're doing over at Mira, and my daily combatant in Dr. Gabo. The emails, the texts, the phone calls, I don't know where I would be in this work without you. This work would be so much harder to do and to bear and it is already incredibly difficult as an at-large counselor who is responsible for showing up in every neighborhood who does, you know, I was in the North End until late last night. that this is a particular load that very few people really understand how heavy it is and how we work and with all creativity as possible to really help people solve problems when it seems impossible. So I want to thank all of you for the work. I want to thank Council Culpepper for holding this hearing. Council Weber, you have stood with us, whether it be at ULA Cafe, in making phone calls, and just always texting me, or always calling me, asking me, what more can we do? What more can we do? That is really helpful in an environment that is racist, in an environment that is anti-black, in an environment that is anti-immigrant. My work here on behalf of the Haitian community has been blocked by colleagues. It is important that when we have the xenophobia and the racism of this president, that we don't fall into that trap of saying, we can't do enough. There is always more that we can do working in partnership with our business community, with our philanthropic community, with the state. And we are talking about Boston residents at the end of the day. So I want to say thank you to all of those who are showing up genuinely and authentically in this work. It is easy to just come up and show up and say things, but to do the work and be part of it is harder. And I want to say thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Councillor Lejeune. And I just wanted to read two statements into the record that I think really hit home. The first one is without immigration, Massachusetts likely would have experienced outright population decline over much of the past century. And the second one is the Commonwealth's economy depends heavily on immigrant workers for several industries, especially in healthcare, construction, higher education, and the broader knowledge economy. While immigrants make up about 20% of the Commonwealth's population, they account for 24% of the labor force. And when you think about the way Haitians are being pulled down in a mighty way without, and I think Dr. Gabo, you really hit it when you said the real work is going from door to door to make sure people understand the significance of not only the Haitians contribution to the economy, but to the devastation that's taking place in the Haitian community now. And you're right, you're right. Folks alienate themselves emotionally and mentally and ignore it as if it's not happening because it's not at their door. And I think we have to take it to every door so everybody understands the significance of what Haitians are experiencing now because you're right, I used to go to Mattapan with Reverend Kiki. We'd stop by. We'd look at the vibrancy of folks in and out. When you go through Mattapan now, it's a shame. It's like, what do they call those towns? No, in the south they call them sundown towns. And it reminded me when I rode through Mattapan of a sundown town. And that just can't happen. So I just hope and pray that everyone that's listening will go out and tell somebody, will come over and make some calls. I want to come over to Jamaica Plain and make some calls and really make an effort in the city of Boston to really make a difference. I want to thank you to all of our panelists, my council colleagues, and everyone who participated in today's hearing. The circumstances have changed dramatically since our April hearing. What we've heard today will help us better understand how the termination of the Haitian TPS is affecting Boston residents and where additional legal, especially legal, economic and community support is still needed. Look forward to continuing to work with the administration, our community partners, my colleagues, to make sure Affected Haitian residents and their families have access to the resources and the support that they need This hearing on docket number zero two nine nine is adjourned. Thank you very much