City Council - Regular Meeting

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 a

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

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

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.

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 talk

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

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

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 exa

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?

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

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?

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,

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?

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 wi

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?

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

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?

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.

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...

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

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

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

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.

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?

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

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?

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?

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

So what are you specifically asking the state?

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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 bu

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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 us

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.

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

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.

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?

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

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

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

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. 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

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.

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

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

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 ma

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

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?

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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

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, 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.

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.

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. W

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 Presiden

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?

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 tre

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

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?

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.

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?

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 w

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

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 thin