Chief Fiscal Officers of Major U.S. Cities Urge DHS Flexibility in Federal Funding for Asylum Seekers
In a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the New York City Comptroller and Chicago Budget Director, the chief fiscal leaders of two major U.S. cities, jointly appeal to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for flexibility in documentation requirements under DHS’ Shelter and Services Program (SSP). Their request aims to unlock crucial federal funds allocated for Fiscal Year 2023, assisting cities across the country in sustaining support for asylum seekers amidst evolving challenges.
“Over the past 20 months, New York City has provided shelter and services to more than 100,000 asylum seekers— something I believe is at the heart of who we are as a city. But let’s be clear: the right to seek asylum is a federal obligation, and the federal government should be paying a far, far greater share. So it’s immensely frustrating that we haven’t even been able to draw down the very modest funds Washington has allocated to us. We are asking the federal government to waive bureaucratic documentation requirements, recognize reasonable costs that everyone can see we’ve spent, and send out these long overdue—if still far too small—checks,” said New York City Comptroller Brad Lander.
Due to the arrival of tens of thousands of asylum seekers, cities have expended substantial local resources to offer immediate shelter and care and demonstrated an unwavering commitment to provide compassionate assistance since Spring 2022. Yet bureaucratic hurdles impede the full receipt of designated federal reimbursement funds. Stringent documentation requirements, particularly the necessity for A-numbers (sensitive immigration information not initially collected by the cities under local confidentiality laws), is a significant barrier to accessing federal funds.
“While cities like Chicago and New York grapple with the best way to welcome migrants from the border into our cities with human dignity, we need to ensure we have access to every financial tool available in the toolbox including federal aid,” City of Chicago Budget Director Annette Guzman said. “It is imperative that we work together to remove any obstacles to receiving critical federal funding to assist with this federal issue.”
In addition, cities rely upon hotels and motels to accommodate asylum seekers due to the lack of readily available shelter capacity, yet the federal government put stipulations that restricts hotel and motel costs to five percent of reimbursement requests, capping shelter per diem rates at $12.50. The realities faced by these densely populated urban areas do not align with federal reimbursement stipulations and despite the uncertainty of receiving proportional federal dollars, city governments unequivocally provide services to asylum seekers.
The collective appeal from these municipal financial leaders urges DHS to exhibit flexibility in the inaugural SSP grant round, recognizing the essential role these federal reimbursements play in mitigating local expenses associated with sheltering asylum seekers.
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Annette Guzman is the City of Chicago’s Budget Director and leads the Office of Budget and Management. In this role, she oversees fiscal policies, orchestrates the development of the City’s operational and capital budgets, and manages the budgets for over 30 City departments. She played a pivotal role in closing the City’s $538 million budget gap without raising property taxes, leading the delivery of the City’s $16.6B balanced budget for 2024. Formerly the Budget Director for Cook County, she demonstrated exceptional leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic, overseeing the distribution of significant financial aid, including $428M in CARES funding, over $200M in FEMA aid, and $1B in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds. Guzman’s public service career includes roles as Deputy Assessor in the Office of the Cook County Assessor, and Deputy Chief Administrator and Chief of Staff for the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Prior to her public sector transition, she served as legal counsel to banking institutions and corporations at Sidley Austin LLP, holding a Juris Doctor (JD) from the University of Chicago Law School and a bachelor’s degree in English and Economics from Emory University.
Comptroller Brad Lander serves as New York City’s chief financial officer, leading an office of roughly 800 public servants in their work to promote the financial health, integrity, and effectiveness of city government and secure a more thriving and sustainable future for all New Yorkers. As the City’s chief accountability officer, his audits revealed nearly a quarter of a billion dollars underreported in NYC Ferry expenditures, inadequate cost controls in Covid-19 emergency procurement, and the ineffectiveness of the City’s homeless sweeps. Comptroller Lander’s team also published the first detailed report on emergency shelter costs for asylum seekers and identified more effective strategies for addressing the humanitarian crisis. As investment advisor and custodian for the City’s public pension funds, Comptroller Lander stewards the retirement security of over 750,000 current and retired public sector workers. As of July 2023, Comptroller Lander managed the issuance of a total of $7.8 billion in municipal bonds to invest in schools, parks, transportation, water and sewer, and climate resiliency projects. Prior to being elected Comptroller in 2021, Lander spent 12 years in the New York City Council and won transformative changes to expand workers’ rights, secure tenant protections, create affordable housing, integrate and strengthen the district’s public schools, and make streets safer. He served previously as the director of the Fifth Avenue Committee and the Pratt Center for Community Development.
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