Faith Leaders, Secular Organizations, Volunteers Announce New Covenant – Work Together With Gov’t To Address Migrant Crisis

Faith Leaders, Secular Organizations and Volunteers Release New “Covenant,” Propose Partnership with Government to Face Asylum Seeker Crisis

The Interfaith Center of New York and New York State Council of Churches along with collaborators, to call on elected and appointed officials to work in collaboration to address migrant crisis across New York City

NEW YORK – A broad-based group of faith leaders and NGO leaders, including Ruth Messinger, will gather outside New York City Hall on the 12th of September to present “A Covenant for the Newest New Yorkers,” a list of expectations of government in addressing the migrant crisis moving forward. Leaders will officially propose a partnership that aims to welcome migrants and asylum seekers, create accountability systems, and encourage open communication across government, legislative, not-for-profit and faith sectors. 

The Covenant’s involved groups have been working for more than a year house, feed and clothe migrants who have been arriving to New York City by the hundreds each day, most bussed from Southern states. The covenant supporters pledge to continue their efforts to work with new arrivals, and propose that their groups be recognized and accepted to work in concert with government leaders on the range of service and policy issues raised in the last year.

Event details:  Press conference announcing the newly drafted “covenant” encouraging government to work in tandem with faith leaders addressing asylum seeker crisis across New York City.

Banner Image: Newly Arrived Bus Passengers Disembark, New York City, August 2023. Image Credit – Interfaith Center Of NY

Interfaith Center of New York & New York State Council of Churches

The Interfaith Center of New York (ICNY) is a secular non-profit organization with a mission to “overcome prejudice, violence, and misunderstanding by activating the power of the city’s grassroots religious and civic leaders and their communities.” Over the course of 25 years, ICNY has built the most religiously-diverse and civically-engaged network of grassroots and immigrant religious leaders across the five boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island and The Bronx. These include Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Afro Caribbean, and Native American New Yorkers who have either attended one or more of our social justice retreats, participated in our religious diversity education programs for social workers, teachers, lawyers, and NYPD officers, or joined multi-faith advocacy work on immigration and religious freedom. ICNY’s decades of organizing and educating in New York City’s grassroots religious communities have gained us trust, the basis for all our successes, which recently includes increasing turn-out for the 2020 US Census and galvanizing faith-community humanitarian response to the COVID-19. New York State Council of Churches is comprised of eight partner Denominations which are detailed on our Member Denominations page. Each denomination sends representation to our Executive Committee and provides financial support. Other denominations which are members of the National Council of Churches may also have representation to the Council