New York City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito announced over the weekend that a program launched the previous year providing free legal services to illegal immigrants was a smashing success.
Smashing of course, is subjective.
Via the Observer:
Ms. Mark-Viverito proudly announced that the multi-million-dollar New York City Unaccompanied Minors Initiative, started last year to handle the cases of the thousands of underage children pouring in without their parents, has successfully gotten free lawyers for some 1,600 foreign national boys and girls and won asylum for 14 of them — meeting the speaker’s goal of providing legal representation to every unaccompanied child facing deportation. The Puerto Rican-American Ms. Mark-Viverito has made granting shelter to foreign nationals, especially youth, one of her flagship issues as speaker, with the Council allocating $2.5 million toward getting them attorneys in fiscal years 2015 and 2016.
The speaker called for other municipalities across the nation to emulate New York’s example.
One has to assume that the speaker’s definition of success is solely based on the fact that the city managed to get free lawyers for 1,600 illegal immigrants. However, fourteen of them having won their asylum is a rate of less than 1%.
The initiative is using monies exceeding $1 million from various charitable groups, along with the aforementioned $2.5 million from taxpayers. The Council actually earmarked twice that amount, and will likely use the full $4.9 million for the legal assistance program.
The illegals making use of those funds for free lawyers, have also been “accessing city services, including free public education,” according to the Observer.
Viverito was also part of the Democrat-led council that pushed to provide illegal immigrants with ID cards that would provide a pathway to vote in municipal elections, along with other free services.
Cross-posted at the Mental Recession
