Acting Commissioner Bitta Mostofi of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs announced the expansion of ActionNYC to provide additional immigration legal services to high-need populations in their community and in their language. ActionNYC, the City’s premier program providing free and safe immigration legal services, has awarded six community-based organizations and legal service providers with nearly $700,000 in funding to provide additional services across the city. These organizations are uniquely positioned to meet community-specific needs due to their strong local ties and well-established cultural and linguistic competence. This expansion of services will address immigrant legal services, particularly for hard-to-reach immigrant communities. Through these efforts, ActionNYC will be expanding and deepening service provision to Chinese, Korean, and South Asian New Yorker serving organizations/communities. Services are expected to launch late spring/early summer of 2018.
“We have made the largest local investment in immigrant legal services in the nation because we know that our neighbors are under threat from the Trump Administration,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio. “By working with community organizations, we can connect with immigrant residents at local sites they already frequent and reach more New Yorkers in need.”
“The City is committed to reaching more New Yorkers through free and trusted immigration legal services, including communities who’ve traditionally had fewer interactions with city government. By building on our partnerships with community organizations, this expansion of ActionNYC will fill gaps in the field and strengthen services for immigrant New Yorkers in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, through sites they already know and trust,” said Bitta Mostofi, Acting Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs. “This funding will enable more immigrant New Yorkers to gain full understandings of their legal options, including opportunities for immigration relief.”
“In a city where close to 40 percent of our residents are foreign-born, ActionNYC is a critical tool to connect immigrant New Yorkers to services and assistance for a wide range of legal needs,” said Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks. “This expansion will allow the City to go even further in providing help in communities with a high need for these ActionNYC services. We are proud of our collaboration with MOIA for this important work.”
“As a proud partner with MOIA on a number of initiatives, we are excited about the expansion of ActionNYC and the important support it offers to immigrant New Yorkers at this critical time,” said Matthew Klein, Executive Director of the Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity. “Our office’s multiple collaborations with MOIA, including the ActionNYC Capacity-Building Fellowship, provide funding, data analysis, and program assessments and reflect our commitment to the immigrant community and belief in the central role it plays in making our city great.”
New York City is home to 3.1 million immigrant residents, and threats to programs such as DACA and TPS, as well as increased immigration enforcement, have dramatically increased the need for free and trusted immigration legal services. ActionNYC’s Capacity-Building Fellowship, beginning last June, provided funding, training, and technical assistance to immigrant-serving community organizations across the five boroughs. In order to continue building the capacity of local organizations to provide support to their communities and address gaps in services, ActionNYC undertook an extensive consultation process to receive input from community-based organizations, legal service providers, and residents. Based on this assessment, ActionNYC is expanding and deepening service provision in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens for immigrant communities that are particularly hard to reach, including recently arrived populations from Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.
ActionNYC awarded nearly $700,000 to six community-based organizations and legal services providers to support connecting hard-to-reach immigrant communities with free, safe, and high-quality immigration legal services at trusted community sites and in their language. This funding will go towards ensuring that linguistically competent staff conduct targeted outreach so that community members from hard-to-reach immigrant populations are connected to legal services. Individuals will also be connected with other ancillary benefits, including social services, Medicaid, and IDNYC. Organizations will receive legal technical assistance, including legal trainings and assistance in gaining or maintaining recognition and accreditation from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Access Programs (OLAP). With this support, more New Yorkers will receive comprehensive immigration legal screenings and, where needed, legal representation over the course of the next year.
The organizations receiving funding are:
· Council of Peoples Organization (COPO)
· Chhaya Community Development Corporation (Chhaya CDC)
· Korean Community Services (KCS)
· Lutheran Social Services of Metropolitan New York (LSSNY)
· Chinese-American Planning Council (CPC)
· New York Legal Assistance Group (NYLAG)
Through these new partners, ActionNYC services will be provided in the Kensington and Midwood neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Chinatown in Manhattan, and in Bayside, Flushing, and Jackson Heights in Queens. In addition, two of the organizations receiving funding are part of ActionNYC’s Capacity-Building Fellowship: CPC and COPO.
