CBS New York gets an exclusive look at how City Hall is trying to help thousands of asylum seekers find jobs
NEW YORK -- New York City officials say allowing asylum seekers to legally work would make it easier to resettle people in other localities upstate.
Getting that work authorization is a months-long process with a lot of legal barriers.
CBS New York's Ali Bauman got an exclusive look at how City Hall is trying to help thousands of migrants find jobs.
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About six avenues west of the city's intake center for asylum seekers sits a makeshift law office where new arrivals can officially apply for asylum.
"You have to fill out this form, otherwise you won't be considered," said Masha Gindler, executive director of the asylum application help center.
City Hall opened the help center in July.
Since then, the staff of bilingual attorneys, assistants and law students have helped over 2,600 migrants navigate the complicated and critical paperwork necessary to get asylum.
"They're trying to follow the law, they're trying to do the right thing, but they on their own probably wouldn't be able to fill out this form," Gindler said.
Migrants have one chance to detail in English how they came here and why they cannot return.
"We get to really talk about the trauma they face back home and why they deserve asylum," supervising attorney Marlene Sanchez said.
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More than 100,000 asylum seekers have come through the city since last year.
"How do you figure out who needs the help first?" Bauman asked.
"One of the things they said is we think it's better if people have work authorization, it'll be easier to resettle them across the state. So we immediately started knocking on doors of the asylum seekers and seeing who wanted to possibly move," said Anne Williams-Isom, deputy mayor for health and human services.
After the application is sent, asylum seekers are mailed a receipt from the federal government, and 150 days after that, they can apply for work authorization.
"We're not just sitting back and having a short-term approach to this crisis," Williams-Isom said.
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With City Hall hoping to move more asylum seekers upstate and already shuffling many of them around different shelters within the boroughs, Williams-Isom says they're doing their best to keep track of clients.
"So if someone moves from a hotel to Creedmoor, vice versa, their mail then gets transferred?" Bauman asked.
"I think, Ali ... you're asking the right questions because with 100,000 people and 60,000 people in 206 different sites across the city, it's a coordination issue, and we have to make sure we're trying to get it right every single time for every single person because this is so important to them," Williams-Isom said.
Success, she says, will be measured by how many asylum seekers can get a legal job and move out of the shelter system once their 150 days are up.