Testimony: FY 26 Preliminary Budget for Hospitals

NYLAG’s Interim Director of our LegalHealth Unit, Julie Brandfield, submitted testimony about FY 26’s preliminary budget to the New York City Council’s Committee on Hospitals, specifically making the case for continued support for legal services in hospitals through the Immigrant Health Initiative (IHI):

LegalHealth’s medical legal partnership model allows patients to receive direct referrals and appointments through their healthcare providers for immigration and Medicaid assistance. Patients choose between attending an on-site hospital legal clinic, or being scheduled for a tele-legal appointment to speak with an attorney. Like telehealth, our tele-legal model is patient/client centered allowing for the delivery of legal service for those immigrant patients too sick or too afraid to leave their homes. With each patient received (whether we meet in-person at the hospital
clinic, bed-side in the hospital, or by telephone), we explore the immigrant’s legal relief, answer their legal questions and debunk misinformation so that they may become more comfortable continuing their healthcare or recieving benefits. In FY24, IHI funding allowed NYLAG to support 540 clients across 622 cases. These services ranged from family petitions, applications for adjustment of status, Special Immigrant Juvenile Status, U/T visas for crime victims, and immigration benefits for victims of domestic violence under the Violence Against Women Act to green card replacements, visa extensions and naturalizations for immigrants with medical
conditions preventing them from taking the civics exam.

The threat of increased enforcement activity against immigrants is chilling their willingness to seek healthcare: Immigrants are delaying preventive care for themselves and their children, they are delaying diagnostics and treatment for chronic care, and they are weighing the risks when attending medical appointments for serious illness, such as cancer. For example, a client we are
assisting with a U Visa that would place her and her children on the path to permanent status in the U.S, revealed during our “Know Your Rights” counseling that she had been experiencing extreme pain in her abdomen for two months and expressed fear of her family history of colon cancer. When her attorney encouraged her to see her doctor at H+H, she refused because she has fears over the ICE raids being reported in the media. It’s now been three months and she continues to refuse a visit to the ER despite the extreme pain that some days keeps her from working.

Now is the time for the City to continue and increase its investment in immigrant health and restore appointments lost for immigration legal services in the hospital setting.