The City Council dropped a plan to automatically enroll New Yorkers in city benefits Thursday — instead passing a drastically pared-down bill over concerns it would be an invasion of immigrants’ privacy.
The revised legislation, which unanimously passed the council, instead directs the Department of Social Services to study whether automatic-enrollment across city administered benefit programs is even feasible because of the overall privacy concerns.
Several members of the Democratic-dominated legislature worried information from the auto-enroll benefits could be used by the federal government and sink immigrants’ green card applications.
The original version of Intro. 248 would have required the city to use tax records, social services rolls and other government data to identify New Yorkers eligible in all city administered benefits programs and enroll them without having to apply — potentially increasing costs by billions while sweeping up illegal immigrants in the auto-enrollment process.
“There are often so many logistical challenges to getting some of these bills passed,” Speaker Julie Menin said of the changed bill. “We want to make sure that we did everything to protect people’s private information.”
Menin said concerns over new Trump administration policies helped drive the changes.
The federal immigration “public charge” review can weigh immigrants’ use of public benefits when officials decide green card and certain visa applications.
The Trump administration, starting Sept. 18., expanded its public charge policy.
The new policy lets immigration officials consider whether some immigrants have used government benefits when deciding immigrant applications.
The review does not automatically bar an applicant based on benefit usage, but it has heightened concerns about privacy and immigrant participation in public programs, council members said.
“One thing we’re particularly concerned about was public charge, and that was a concern shared with the (Mamdani) administration,” Menin said.
The Mamdani administration and state Attorney General Letitia James are suing the Trump administration over its expanded public charge policy, claiming it could scare immigrants away from health care, food aid and other benefits they are legally entitled to.
The new version of Intro. 248 specifically directs DSS to study cost, data and privacy hurdles tied to an automatic enrollment program and publish its findings within 18 months after the law takes effect.
It also focuses on one council-favorite benefits program — Fair Fares, the city’s half-price transit program for low income New Yorkers — by directing DSS to create a streamlinedsign-up process through ACCESS HRA, job centers and the SNAP program.
That plan allows the agency to use information already submitted for food stamps or cash assistance to determine Fair Fares eligibility, and notify eligible SNAP and cash assistance recipients every six months if they have not enrolled in Fair Fares.
Bill sponsor Councilmember Crystal Hudson initially pitched the legislation as a way to boost participation in Fair Fares, which has struggled to reach many New Yorkers who qualify.
Only about 40% of the around 960,000 New Yorkers eligible for the program are enrolled, according to the New York City Independant Budget Office.
The scaled-back version of the bill now heads to Mayor Zohran Mamdani for his signature.
Mamdani campaigned on a promise to make city buses free — a plan that would go beyond the council’s push to make public transit more accessible for low-income New Yorkers.
The MTA has been against Mamdani’s plan saying its more than $1 billion price tag is not realistic.
Additionally, the council won a Fair Fares expansion in the fiscal 2027 budget deal.
The agreement added $54 million on top of $120.6 million already allocated for the program to raise the income cap from 150% to 200% of the federal poverty level, extending eligibility for the program’s 50% fare discount to an estimated 340,000 additional New Yorkers.
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