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“For those of us working alongside LGBTQ+ immigrants, the horrors of this administration are not just headlines,” the author writes. “They are the constant, infuriating reality that we simply do not have enough attorneys or resources to protect the people who need us.”
In a windowless courtroom sits a young transgender woman who speaks Spanish. She is scared and confused. She doesn’t speak enough English to understand the judge, much less navigate an immigration system that seems designed to work against her. Unsure of what will happen next, she turns to the attorney sitting beside her and pleads, “Please don’t leave me alone.”
A young gay man from West Africa never receives a notice from immigration court because of a postal error. He is ordered deported. A woman living with HIV is detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and placed on a plane, only to be pulled off moments before departure because an attorney filed an emergency habeas petition.
These are not isolated incidents. They are just a few examples of what immigration advocates in New York City have been confronting every day.
The Trump administration’s war on immigrants has inflicted incalculable damage on families and communities across the country. For LGBTQ+ immigrants, the consequences are particularly devastating. Many fled their home countries to escape persecution, violence, and even death because of who they are. Now, the country they turned to for safety is threatening to send them back.
For those of us working alongside LGBTQ+ immigrants, the horrors of this administration are not just headlines or another disturbing video on social media. They are the young people sitting across from us, terrified of being detained or deported. They are the frantic calls when someone disappears into ICE custody. They are the constant, infuriating reality that we simply do not have enough attorneys or resources to protect the people who need us.
In recent years, New York City has seen an unprecedented demand for immigration legal services among newly arrived LGBTQ+ youth. Many face deportation to countries where their sexual orientation or gender identity puts their lives at risk. For some, deportation is effectively a death sentence.
One young gay man, realizing he had no means to fight his deportation, looked at an immigration judge with tears in his eyes and said, “Then I’ll go back to Jamaica and I’ll die.”
His fear is shared by countless others.
Many of the people we serve have already survived extraordinary trauma. They arrive in New York hoping to find safety, only to encounter another set of barriers: homelessness, poverty, language access, discrimination, and an overwhelmed legal system that they are expected to navigate largely on their own.
According to the Vera Institute of Justice, nearly 30 percent of people facing deportation in New York lack legal representation, as do 40 percent of those in immigration detention. New York has the third-highest number of pending immigration proceedings in the country. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 LGBTQ+ immigrants live in New York City, many of whom face additional barriers to accessing healthcare, mental health services, HIV medication, and gender-affirming care.
For LGBTQ+ immigrants experiencing homelessness, these challenges are even more severe. Many are forced into criminalized forms of survival simply to meet their basic needs, leaving them vulnerable to policing, detention, and deportation. Even when someone has a viable path to asylum or another form of immigration relief, the lack of an attorney, a case manager, or culturally competent support can mean the difference between securing protection and being sent back into danger.
And the administration has made an already broken system exponentially worse. Over the past 18 months, immigration attorneys have been forced to contend with an astonishing pace of policy changes and procedural obstacles. Overcrowded court calendars, proceedings where advocates are shut out and unrepresented immigrants are left to defend themselves, accelerated deportations, terminated asylum cases, the firing of immigration judges, and exorbitant filing fees. The list goes on.
Even experienced attorneys are struggling to keep up. Imagine what that means for a 19-year-old who doesn’t speak English, has nowhere to sleep, and is expected to understand the intricacies of federal immigration law while fighting for their life.
This is why New York City must act.
With the support of advocates, the City Council has an unprecedented opportunity to support some of the most vulnerable members of the immigrant community. The LGBTQ+ Immigrant Legal Services would create an initial investment of $15 million in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget and partner directly with impacted communities and community-based organizations in its design and implementation.
Members of the City Council can vote for this funding now, as part of a transparency resolution, to ensure it becomes part of the current fiscal year budget. This fund represents a critical opportunity to build a more equitable, inclusive, and responsive city—one in which LGBTQ+ immigrants are not left behind in New York’s broader commitments to justice, safety, and belonging.
Developed in partnership with impacted communities and the organizations that serve them, this fund would expand access to immigration attorneys and the critical support services LGBTQ+ immigrants need to successfully navigate their cases. Because legal representation alone is not enough.
A young person cannot be expected to prepare for an asylum hearing when they have nowhere safe to sleep. They cannot gather evidence, meet court deadlines, or work with their attorney when they are struggling to access food, medication, or mental health care. They need dedicated case managers, mental health professionals, and advocates who understand the unique challenges LGBTQ+ immigrants face.
These services are not extras. They are what make successful legal representation possible.
As an attorney working with LGBTQ+ young people facing impossible choices, it is maddening to know how many lives could be protected if we simply had the resources. It is maddening to watch a young person with a legitimate claim for asylum face deportation because they cannot find an attorney. And it is maddening to feel, case after case, like we are bringing a knife to a gunfight.
We should not have to scramble to find a lawyer every time a young person is detained. We should not have to rely on last-minute emergency petitions to keep someone from being put on a plane. And we should never have to tell a young person who fled persecution that we cannot help them because there simply isn’t enough funding.
New York City has long claimed to be a sanctuary for immigrants and a leader in LGBTQ+ rights. Those commitments mean very little if we cannot protect the people whose lives depend on them.
The question is not whether New York City can afford to invest $15 million to protect LGBTQ+ immigrants. It’s how many more people we are willing to send back into danger before we do.
Amy Leipziger is the project director at the Urban Justice Center’s Free to Be Youth Project.