New York Expands Divisive Food Debit Card Program for Migrants

Good morning. It’s Wednesday. Today we’ll look at the expansion of a city pilot program to give food debit cards to migrants. The program will cost the city $2.6 million, which officials said was cheaper than providing boxed meals.

Over 7,300 migrants in New York City are expected to receive debit cards to pay for food and baby items over the next six months, city officials said, as part of an expansion of a pilot program that has been met with fierce pushback.

The debit card program began earlier this year and started with around 900 families, or around 3,000 migrants. During the program’s first 13 weeks, the cards were used to feed more than 1,300 children and 42 pregnant women, our colleagues Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Luis Ferré-Sadurní reported.

“When we empower people, we help them achieve self-sufficiency and access the American dream,” said Anne Williams-Isom, the city’s deputy mayor for health and human services.

Now, the program is expanding from three hotels where migrants are housed to 17. City officials estimate that the debit cards could serve about 2 percent of the total migrant population; more than 60,000 migrants are in the city’s care. The city is legally mandated to provide food to migrants under a right-to-shelter requirement.

Critics of the program have argued that the cards could be misused and that the city was prioritizing migrants over other people in need. Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, for example, called the program “insanity.”

But New York City officials said participants would have to sign an affidavit promising to use the cards only for food or baby supplies. If they are caught using them for other items, they could be removed from the program. The cards also have digital coding that will prevent them from being used at certain stores.

“We need to dispel the rumor that we gave American Express cards to everyone,” the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, said at a news conference in February. “That is just not true.”

The cards will cost the city around $2.6 million, which officials said was less than a previous program that delivered meals. Many of the boxed meals that were delivered to migrants during the previous program were never eaten and were thrown away.

One Venezuelan family of three recently made their first purchases with their debit cards at a corner deli. The father, Cesar Gil, 22, said he had been given a card with less than $100 for the week, while the mother, Naudelys Aguiar, 24, had been given a card with $170 for herself and her 4-year-old son, Jeremias.

“We weren’t even expecting it,” Mr. Gil said in Spanish, expressing gratitude. “They told us it’s only for food, no fast food, only at certain places, and no cash transfers and card sharing allowed.”

They bought two sandwiches, a container with four hard-boiled eggs, three soft drinks and two big bags of chips. Their total: $44.61.

Brenda Sierra, 29, a Colombian mother who arrived in New York with her 9-year-old son, Emerson, said she received $170 per week on her debit card. She recently used her card at a Chinese fruit market to buy peanuts, kiwis and dragon fruit.

She said she was unemployed and hoped to get a job soon in order to rent an apartment and pay for food.

“That’s the idea, not to always be living off the government,” she said in Spanish.

Weather

Expect sunshine with the temperatures in the low 80s. For tonight, it will be partly cloudy with temperatures in the low 70s.

ALTERNATE-SIDE PARKING

In effect today. Suspended tomorrow (Independence Day).

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