Just as it gains steam, N.J. immigrant relief program is about to end. Insiders doubt it will be revived. – NJ.com

It took less than 10 minutes, while balancing his toddler daughter on his lap, for Juan to complete an application for a pandemic relief program for undocumented immigrants.

The brisk, organized effort to enroll people in the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund at the headquarters for the immigration advocacy group, Make the Road New Jersey, helped keep the line of people moving as it wrapped around the building on Broad Street in Elizabeth on a cold night last week.

Nearly a month after the Murphy administration was criticized for an initially sluggish launch, the Excluded Fund, for people who do not qualify for unemployment or stimulus checks, is hitting its stride.

After simplifying the application process and extending the deadline to Feb. 28, the state had received 21,500 applicants and approved payment of $9.5 million in federal money to 4,100 households, Human Services spokeswoman Eva Loayza-McBride said Friday.

If the remaining 15,249 applications awaiting review are approved, the entire $40 million will be spent, the Department of Human Services announced last week. But the state will continue accepting applications until the end of the month, as promised. And if the state needs to add more money from the American Rescue Plan, it will do so, Gov. Phil Murphy’s spokeswoman said.

“Governor Murphy plans to ensure sufficient funding for eligible claimants who apply for the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund through the Feb. 28, 2022 deadline,” Alyana Alfaro, the spokeswoman said.

Senate Majority Leader Teresa Ruiz, D-Essex, a member of the Legislative Latino Caucus asks why the program — which offers grants of $2,000 for individuals and $4,000 for families that earn $55,000 or less — must end this month just as word is spreading about an opportunity so many need.

“Why, if there is a pathway and there is funding, and the Department has gone out of its way to fix the problems with the program, why would we stop it?” Ruiz said.

There are about 460,000 undocumented people in New Jersey, and many lost their jobs during the business shutdowns in the early days of the pandemic. Working in factories, restaurants and in people’s homes as aides and housekeepers, many developed COVID-19. They received no help and yet they helped keep the state’s economy running, Ruiz said.

But political insiders say the Excluded New Jerseyans Fund program is destined to die just as it is finding its intended beneficiaries.

Those close to the situation don’t want to publicly say why. Privately, they say the answer can be found in the results of the closer-than-expected re-election of Gov. Phil Murphy and the loss of seven Democrats in the state Legislature on Nov. 2. The progressive agenda that shaped Murphy’s first term is on hold — at least for now — and replaced by a reframed mantra of making New Jersey more affordable.

And even before the 2021 election, there was little appetite to go to bat for a population that cannot vote, insiders say.

One Democratic source who requested anonymity to discuss the party’s thinking said the Republican message — that Democrats “don’t care about you” and specifically your high property taxes — struck a nerve. Democrats cut taxes and held down property tax increases but they didn’t communicate that message very clearly, the source said.

With the average New Jersey resident getting walloped by the highest inflation rates in a generation, Democrats really can’t risk spending political capital on undocumented workers, the source said.

“The next two elections are really scary,” the source said, referring to the mid-term Congressional contests this year and the state legislative elections in 2023.

Even Latino voters are split on the issue of whether people who entered the country illegally should receive any government assistance, the source added. People who have come to this country legally don’t necessarily support this, the source said.

No one in the Legislature, which controls how the state budget is spent, has been willing to do what New York did last summer: pass legislation that created a $2.1 billion pandemic relief fund for undocumented residents. The remedy came after 22 days of hunger strikes, but New York created the biggest program of its kind in the nation.

Democratic leaders in the New Jersey Senate and Assembly are not willing to budge, said another source familiar with private discussions about the excluded fund, who requested anonymity to reveal confidential information.

“It’s kryptonite for them,” the source said.

Ruiz said she will raise the issue during budget negotiations. But she wants the governor to continue adding federal pandemic relief funds to the program each month as long as the demand persists.

Murphy is allowed to spend up to $10 million for emergency pandemic aid and economic stimulus without legislative approval, under an agreement he and legislative leaders reached when they passed a budget in June giving lawmakers more control over how the governor uses New Jersey’s $6.2 billion in federal pandemic aid.

“We hope that he continues to do this and that instead of adhering to this self-imposed deadline, he keeps open the program and deposits another $10 million to connect people who are in critical need,” Ruiz said.

When asked whether Murphy plans to take more action to support undocumented residents, Alfaro said: “The governor has indicated many times that he welcomes discussions with the Legislature about ways to continue assisting this population.”

Although New Jersey is typically a reliably blue state politically, legislature leaders have been cautiously moderate on many progressive issues, said Associate Rutgers University Professor Julia Sass Rubin, director of the Policy Program at the Edward J Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy.

“There are multiple reasons why New Jersey state policy is not as progressive as the state’s demographics would support,” said Sass Rubin, noting that this has stalled legislation “to increase police accountability, strengthen reproductive rights, and provide assistance for undocumented immigrants.”

She cited the power of county political chairs who “use New Jersey’s unique county line primary ballots to control who gets elected to the state legislature,” and the power of the Senate President and Assembly Speaker, “who can punish legislators who step out of line.”

“This keeps individual legislators from making waves on issues that the legislative leadership and their own county party leaders do not support,” Sass Rubin said. “Additionally, for the last ten-plus years, the state Senate has been controlled by south Jersey, which is the most conservative part of the state and doesn’t reflect the policy preferences of the state as a whole.”

Getting the initial $40 million fund last year wasn’t easy. Immigrants held Statehouse rallies, went on a hunger strike and staged a demonstration that shut down rush-hour traffic for 10 minutes on the NJ Turnpike to focus attention on the issue.

After 15 months of protests, Murphy announced in May he would create the Excluded Fund, but it did not go live until late October. The federal funding attached to the program expired Dec. 31 — a short window of time to promote the program.

The community groups, including some who held the contract to promote the program, said the application process was confusing and cumbersome, and relied on often uncooperative landlords and employers to produce documents to help verify a family’s eligibility. Only $6 million of the $40 million initial reached people in 2021.

In December, the state re-upped the program with another $10 million from a different pool of federal aid with a deadline of Jan. 31. But Immigrant advocates and civil rights group publicly denounced the Murphy administration when they learned the remaining $34 million had been reallocated.

State officials blamed the six nonprofit groups hired to promote the program and assist people in submitting applications for its slow uptake.

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After immigrant activists and the Legislative Latino Caucus continued a drumbeat of criticism, the Murphy administration announced it would extend the deadline through Feb. 28. It also announced a simpler application that no longer required people to document job losses or absences or other evidence of how the pandemic had hurt them financially.

The application changes “made a huge difference,” said Elizabeth Chabla, a senior coordinator at Make The Road New Jersey who ran the application clinic in Elizabeth last week.

“Many of our community members, even though they may have gotten COVID and they had lost their jobs, had trouble accessing documentation — not only because they were not able to get tested, but their employers didn’t want to give them the paperwork to prove they were laid off or their hours were cut,” Chabla said.

During the first iteration of the program, maybe 40 applications would trickle in each week, when people weren’t quite sure the program “was real,” Chabla said. Since it was revamped and the deadline extended, the clinics have been packed, she said. Last Wednesday, 80 people were waiting outside for assistance, she said.

Amy Torres of New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice called the surge in demand “a huge validation to our communities who were disheartened by past comments suggesting the low number of applications was due to their disinterest or lack of awareness.”

“The governor’s pledge to disburse funds beyond the initial cap for every qualified application submitted before February 28 is a commendable one, but it concedes that the deadlines and the investment caps themselves are political decisions that are entirely within the state’s control,” Torres said.

Reyna, a 38-year-old factory worker from Newark, was one of those applicants. If she qualifies, the money will help pay for her daughter’s college tuition, she said through an interpreter.

Reyna said when she and her three children all developed COVID, and she lost a month’s pay. She survived on her savings.

“It has not been easy for us,” she said.

“That factory never closed. People working were actually sick. I was afraid to go there but I had to go back. I had no choice,” Reyna said.

Like many immigrants who entered the country illegally, Reyna said she pays taxes through payroll deductions, she said. Undocumented workers in New Jersey contributed $1.36 billion in unemployment taxes in payroll deductions from 2010 to 2019, according to a 2020 Policy Perspective analysis.

Reyna said her application took all of five minutes to complete. As a member of Make the Road, she said she has been spreading the word about the program.

But with the Feb. 28 date looming, she and other advocates are hoping lawmakers and the governor can continue drawing on the pool of federal dollars that are permitted to help people who have not qualified for the thousands of dollars of aid since the pandemic began.

“We are committed to making sure we will be getting as many applications completed as possible,” said Sara Cullinane, director of Make the Road New Jersey. “We have no guarantee it will continue past February and hundreds and thousands of people will be left behind.”

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Susan K. Livio may be reached at slivio@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @SusanKLivio.