New Initiative Launched to Support Immigrants in NYC
NEW YORK, New York – New York City has launched the first-ever Community Interpreter Bank and the Protect NYC Families initiative to support immigrants amid implementation of President Donald Trump’s deportation agenda.
City Council Speaker Adrienne AdamsThe New York Council, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and community partners have launched the initiative, with the NYIC indicating that they will recruit, train and dispatch interpreters to City-funded legal service providers, community navigation sites and City Council offices.
NYIC said interpreters fluent in the most commonly requested languages will help ensure that every immigrant in the city can access services and information in their preferred language.
The City Council has allocated US$1.4 million to initiate the Community Interpreter Bank.
Through the Protect NYC Families initiative, the Council allocated over two million dollars in funding more than 60 non-profit organizations to provide more support for increased legal services, rapid response efforts, helplines, and critical community trainings.
NYIC said this new funding will allow providers to expand their capacity and respond to evolving challenges facing New York City’s immigrant communities.
This initiative comes as nonprofit providers continue to face overwhelming demand for services, given Trump’s escalating immigration enforcement and abrupt policy shift.
“New York City is a proud city of immigrants, and we must support our city’s families from attacks by the Trump administration,” said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
“The Council is proud to allocate more than US$2 million in emergency funding for our Protect NYC Families Initiative, which will provide flexible funding for dozens of non-profit organizations that serve immigrant New Yorkers.
“We are also proud to celebrate the Council’s investments to create the city’s first Community Interpreter Bank, which will help ensure that services are available in the languages that residents speak,” she said, thanking Council colleagues, the New York Immigration Coalition, and the many partner organizations whose work is critical to protecting and strengthening the city.”
NYIC’s president and chief executive officer, Murad Awawdeh, said language interpretation services are “a vital pillar of a healthy, thriving and diverse New York City, for both new and long-term immigrants navigating complex systems in an unfamiliar language.
“The NYC Community Interpreter Bank ensures these individuals can access critical services in their preferred language while also creating a direct pipeline to employment for New Yorkers trained in interpretation,” he said.
A pivotal component of the Language Justice Collaborative’s (LJC) “Language Access Workforce Initiative,” the NYC Community Interpreter Bank will create sustainable pathways for community members to gain certification and employment as interpreters to provide essential language services to limited English proficient (LEP) New Yorkers, Awawdeh said.
Before Trump’s heightened clamp down on immigrants, immigration advocates said many of the immigrants arriving in major US cities, such as New York, were nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Venezuela and Nicaragua.
“The New York City Community Interpreter Bank will greatly expand language access to our vibrant immigrant communities, enabling people to more easily receive legal services from city-funded partners, receive translation services at community navigation sites, and get support from local City Council offices,” said Council Member Alexa Aviles, chair of the City Council’s Committee on Immigration.
“Not only will translation services now be dispatched to meet people on site, this program will open up new job opportunities to multilingual New Yorkers,” Aviles said.
Council Member Crystal Hudson, said “as a body, the City Council has stood firm in its support of our immigrant communities across the five boroughs.
“While legislation and advocacy are vital in improving the lives of millions of New Yorkers, these budget initiatives will deliver tangible change and work to protect some of our most vulnerable populations,” said the representative for the 35th Council District in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Elsie Saint Louis, chief executive officer of Haitian Americans United for Progress (HAUP), an immigration advocacy group, said her organization is “proud to be a part of the transformative Language Justice Collaborative.
“Creating a Haitian language services worker cooperative empowers our community by combining economic opportunity with cultural preservation,” she said.