United States

This action was submitted through the GFMD Mayors Mechanism Call to Local Action for Migrants and Refugees.

IDNYC is a free identification card for all New York City residents, which gives all of us the opportunity to show who we are—New Yorkers. As a government-issued photo identification card, IDNYC secures the peace of mind and access to City services that come from having recognized identification. IDNYC benefits every city resident, including the most vulnerable communities—the homeless, youth, the elderly, undocumented immigrants, the formerly incarcerated and others who may have difficulty obtaining other government-issued ID.

The City of Chicago (USA) has developed public-private partnerships to create a local protection fund whereby civil society organisations can work with immigration lawyers so that all migrants know exactly which services they can and cannot access depending on their status.

Governments at the local level, while often lacking a voice in setting immigration policy, are responsible for many concrete aspects of migration, from the organization and use of public spaces to the development of affordable housing, and plans to meet the social, cultural, religious, and other needs of diverse communities. An example of this is the “DiverseCity” campaign in New York, which presents immigration as part of the city’s identity and richness. 

Numerous programs encourage links between schools and communities to foster social inclusion of children and their families. For instance, in the Netherlands for second-generation Turks and Moroccans; in Pakistan for Hazara girls; in Canada among African and Caribbean-born immigrants; and in the US for Latin America and Vietnamese communities.

The city of Atlanta in the USA has undertaken to provide free transportation to refugees for their legal and medical appointments.

In Atlanta, as well as some other cities in the USA, private company Lyft has also offered transportation grants to a number of immigrant and refugee organisations as part of its Lyft Relief Rides Program. 

Several civil society organisations in Atlanta also provide similar services to certain immigrants (e.g. refugee children). 

Established in 2016, the Pop Culture Collaborative is a philanthropic resource and funder learning community that uses grantmaking, convening, narrative strategy, and research to transform the narrative landscape around people of color, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, and Native people in popular culture. It is an initative of several foundations, led by the foundation 'Unbound Philanthropy'. 

San Francisco has set up a varied legal framework in order to be a city of inclusion for migrants. Primarily, based on the principle that migrants have a right to justice regardless of their migratory stats, and that migrants should have access to basic services, in 1989 San Francisco passed the "City and Country of Refuge" Ordinance (also known as the Sanctuary Ordinance).

The Money Remittances Improvement Act of 2014 allows the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) to rely on state examinations of MTOs, reducing duplicative oversight and increasing the effectiveness of overall supervision. In March 2016, FinCEN released guidance to make regulatory expectations related to MTO principal supervision of agents clearer and to eliminate misunderstandings about what is expected from principals.

The US offers contingency planning for its citizens overseas.

The concept of consular assistance has been extended beyond the core disasters and provides assistance in case of hospitalization, death of a family member, victimization of a crime. In every country, the US has contingencies for possible crisis (hurricanes, nuclear disaster, flooding, rioting, civil unrest) and undertake exercises every year or two to update them, involving the US military and the US country.