Transcript:

And the other bill that we're here to speak on behalf of and Representative Cabral spoke very eloquently about it, and I'm the Senate sponsor, the feeding our neighbor's bill, which is Senate 76. And, you know, this is another bill that is really a common good.

It is really our responsibility to step up and help those that need help the most in our communities. And this legislation would expand the rights given to legal immigrants for a benefit program such as the cash assistance programs I just spoke about and SNAP benefits that are critically important for themselves and their families over time. And this has disproportionately affected the Latinx and Black communities, and particularly the low income communities that are represented across the entire state as well. And during COVID we understand the impacts and what has happened. And we have folks in La Colaborativa here from Chelsea and on both sides, in the orange shirts, that if you didn't know, and I'm sure people didn't realize this at the time, but during the pandemic New York City got a lot of attention because they said that they were the epicenter of the COVID epidemic.

Per capita, in the entire nation, Chelsea had the highest infection rate in the entire country, per capita. So, we know why and we know what the past has done to the communities like Chelsea, where the environmental impacts, and the housing crisis, and the poverty level, social economic levels of these communities were a perfect storm for COVID to come into the communities and take over, and that's exactly what happened. And we also know that If we have a program in place that allows them to get more assistance and more benefits, we can minimize those impacts, and we can also show them that there are people in this building that actually stand up and care. The people that I'm talking about today don't have time, for the most part, to come here to talk for themselves and to advocate for themselves because they're working 2 or 3 jobs to survive.

They don't know what's happening in this building, they don't understand, or sometimes fear what's happening in this building because of countries they've come from in the past, government doesn't work for them. At the end of the day, they're not gonna know our names or our faces, but they're actually gonna know somebody actually cared if we can pass these bills to have an impact on their lives. And that's why it's so important, that's why I'm so passionate about these issues because I know that if we don't do this then these families just get pushed to the wayside. And they are not gonna be able to support themselves in a fairly meaningful way. And the crisis and the challenges that they face are just gonna be doubled and tripled over time. So we have to make sure that we have put programs in place that will minimize that and help our families. And it's a pretty simple process, we can pass the bill to do it. So we're hoping for a favorable report from this committee so we can get these things done. Thank you very much everyone.