Advocates, faith leaders rally to support bill bringing pandemic relief to excluded immigrant workers

For the past year Sara has struggled to make ends meet, with her hours cleaning homes cut dramatically because of the pandemic.
Sara and her husband, who came into the country illegally from Ecuador and now live in Bellport, have gone into debt to pay their rent and rely on food pantries to feed their three daughters.
"It has been a real struggle," said Sara, who spoke through a translator Thursday at a rally in Hauppauge and declined to give her last name because of her status. At the rally, advocates for immigrants and faith leaders called on state lawmakers to create a fund for workers excluded from federal and state pandemic relief because they are in the country illegally.
The advocates, speaking in English and Spanish, carried signs reading "essential and excluded" and "we also pay taxes" while faith leaders played folk music and marched around the government office building.
"There are people who are really suffering economically from COVID who lost their livelihoods," said one speaker, Rabbi Lina Zebarini of Kehillath Shalom Synagogue in Cold Spring Harbor. "While many of us were supported by our government, there are neighbors and friends haven't been because they don't have papers. … It doesn't help us if their families go hungry and get evicted."
The Democratic-led State Senate and Assembly have lined up behind creating a fund to provide unemployment benefits to workers who lost their jobs during the pandemic but were ineligible for unemployment insurance — primarily undocumented immigrants and former prison inmates.
Each house earmarked $2.1 billion for the fund, though they have to negotiate it with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who didn’t include money for the fund when he unveiled his budget proposal in January.
The two sides are supposed to agree on a budget by April 1.
Advocates for the fund have cheered the legislative proposals, but contend it would cover only the federal unemployment benefits workers would have received. They say $3.5 billion is actually needed to cover all federal and state unemployment benefits.
"The pandemic has really revealed how important workers are. But it's also a challenge in getting people to recognize that there is an entire demographic of people who have been systematically excluded from any financial relief," said Ani Halasz, of Ronkonkoma, with Long Island Jobs for Justice.
The advocates Thursday delivered a letter, signed by 114 Long Island faith leaders, calling on state officials to create the fund.
Glenn Cantave with Black Lives Matter of Greater New York has been on a hunger strike for seven days in solidarity with excluded workers. He says his hunger pains are minimal compared with the struggle with those who have been restricted from obtaining benefits.
"We are dealing with human lives," said Cantave of New Hyde Park. "Undocumented folks. People who have been recently incarcerated. We are talking about taxpayers who have literally put work into the system. So why should they be excluded from anything?"
With Yancey Roy
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