NYC NOW - Midday News: Lawmakers in NJ Town Delay Homeless Ban Vote, Bronx Catholic School Saved from Closure, and Funding Cuts Leave Migrant Children Without Representation in Court

Episode Date: April 23, 2025

Amid a public outcry, lawmakers in Summit, New Jersey, have delayed a vote on a planned local law that would ban homeless encampments in public spaces. Meanwhile, a Bronx Catholic school has been saved from permanent closure. Plus, local immigration advocates say more migrant children are going to court without lawyers, after the Trump administration cut funding for their representation. WNYC's Arya Sundaram has been tracking the impact on the ground in immigration court.

Welcome to NYC Now. Your source for local news in and around New York City from WNYC. It's Wednesday, April 23rd. Here's the midday news from Michael Hill. Lawmakers in Summon, New Jersey, have delayed their vote on a planned local law that would ban homeless encampments in public spaces. Council members faced hours of public testimony and outcry against the measure at a meeting last night. Violators would face a $2,000 fine in a $2,000. up to 90 days in jail.

Summets Council President says lawmakers will seek advice about the ordinance's legality. A Bronx Catholic school has been saved from permanent closure by the philanthropic arm of a gambling giant. Ballet Foundation has bought the All-Girls Preston High School for $8.5 million, with plans to lease the building back to the school for $1 year for the next 25 years. Valley Zones a nearby golf course and wants to build a casino and resort on an adjacent property. The annual Central Park Summer Stage concert series is out with this new lineup for the 2025 season for all five boroughs. Headlines include Femmy Couti, Jessica Pratt, and The Roots, and more. More than 70 shows, and nearly all of them are free.

Heather Lubov is with the City Parks Foundation. She says this year a number of artists are curating their own festivals like Black Tronica, a showcase for electronic artists of color. There's a lot of work to really identify artists. in their own communities and have them curate shows in their communities. We have a full list of summer stage lineup on our new site. That's Gothamist. 66 and sunshine right now. Sunny in 76 for a high on this Wednesday. Mid-50s tonight, then tomorrow, sunny and 72, Friday, partly sunny and 74. But we'll have to look out for some showers

overnight Friday and Saturday we'll have showers as well, high temperature in a low 70s. Stay tuned for more after the break. Local immigration advocates say more migrant children are going to court without lawyers. That's after the Trump administration cut funding for the representation. WNYC's Ariasundrum has been tracking the impact on the ground in immigration court. So, Ari, you spent the last few days in immigration court? Tell us about what you've been reporting on. Yeah.

So last month, on March 21st, the Trump administration ended part of a $200 million contract that pays for lawyers. for unaccompanied children. And those are kids that came to the U.S. without a parent or legal guardian, usually with an aunt or uncle or older sibling instead. And I really wanted to see the downstream effects of this contract ending. You know, how was it playing out in immigration court? So I went. And I saw really young kids without lawyers representing themselves. You know, most of the kids were teenagers, you know, some as old as 17. But for some of the younger kids, they just weren't registering what was being said or happening. You know, there was this four-year-old who just kept on squeezing this pink plushy toy in her hand.

And there was a seven-year-old kid that just couldn't sit still. He kept on spinning this toy windmill. And this is even as the judge was explaining really serious things to them, like that the U.S. was trying to deport them. Wow. What is this program the Trump administration terminated? It's called the unaccompanied children program. And it pays for attorneys to represent 26,000 children across the country.

And New York, what that translates to is $18 million for nine legal groups to represent about 1,800 children. And notably this is an immigration court, not criminal court, you know, where people aren't guaranteed attorneys if they're low income. And that's for adults and also for children. And the contract also pays for something called a friend of the court program. And those are attorneys who help pro se respondents navigate the court process. So before the contract was terminated, the legal hearing that I saw an immigration court, it would have played out way differently. You know, many of the kids I saw in court would have had an attorney acting as a friend of the court for them.

And this attorney would have usually asked the judge for more time for the children to find their own attorneys. They may have done legal screenings for the kids to find out if they were eligible for certain forms of immigration relief. And in the courtroom that I went to specifically, one attorney told me that only a handful of children ever actually appeared at these hearings before the contract was terminated. That's because the attorneys appeared on the child's behalf while they were in school. How are the legal providers hired to represent these kids responding to all this? Well, here's how Sierra Craft put it. and she's the executive director of the I-Care Coalition, which is an organization based in New York

that advocates for expanding access to legal representation for unaccompanied children. We're just scrambling to try to replace the funding, at least partially replace the funding, if possible. And that's what I heard from truly every single legal group that I talk to, that they are scrambling. They're rushing to plug massive funding gaps. A federal judge actually recently ordered the Trump administration

to temporarily restore the contract, but funding just still isn't flowing to these legal providers, so they're trying to figure out what to do. Some groups have laid off staff. Others are considering layoffs in the future. Several groups are, you know, making impassioned pleas to their donors and funders and private foundations. But, you know, these foundations are meanwhile being inundated with pleas

from a bunch of other people as well. And all the groups I spoke to said they've stopped taking clients as they're still just trying to figure out how they're going to represent the clients that they already do have. Are you, what about the state or the city for that matter? Like, I imagine they can't plug the gap that all of this program was intended to do. But are they able to supplement it in the meantime? Well, that's exactly what I care and a bunch of other organizations are hoping will happen.

All these legal providers that I spoke to. They sent a letter to Governor Hockel asking her to replace the lost funding, all $18 million of it, actually, with money from the state budget. But her office just still hasn't responded. What's the impact of more children not having lawyers to represent them? Well, lawyers tell me that this will mean more children will get deported. That's, for example, what Mina Shah at an organization called The Door told me. That could all happen without that child ever speaking with an attorney and giving the opportunity to obtain representation. So the cruelty is really apparent to all of us out here in the field.

And representation is really a key make or break factor in someone being able to stay in the country, or having to leave. So in New York State immigration courts, for example, nearly all of the people without attorneys, 96% of those people are eventually ordered deported. Meanwhile, fewer than a quarter of those with lawyers are deported. That's WNYC's Ari's Sondor. I'm Arias always. Thanks so much. Thanks, Sean. Thanks for listening. This is NYC now from WNYC. Be sure to catch us every weekday, three times a day for your top news headlines and occasional deep hours. Also subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.