TESTIMONY
Monique Francis, Interim Executive Director, CUNY Citizenship Now on Impact of City Council Funding on Immigrant Legal Services
3:23:56
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161 sec
Monique Francis highlights the transformative effect of City Council funding on CUNY Citizenship Now's services for immigrants.
- Funding has enabled the legal status legalization and promotion of citizenship for immigrant New Yorkers.
- CUNY Citizenship Now employs a prosay legal services model to empower immigrants to self-advocate in their immigration cases.
- Francis seeks an increased budget for fiscal year 2025 to address growing service demand and the migrant crisis.
- Over 68,000 New Yorkers have been assisted since the city council program's inception in 2010, including nearly 5,100 in the last fiscal year alone.
- A new program for asylum seekers is proposed to manage the surge in citizenship application demands.
Monique Francis
3:23:56
Good afternoon.
Alexa Avilés
3:24:00
Good afternoon.
Monique Francis
3:24:01
Thank you.
3:24:04
Thank you to your persons, Avelis, and members of the Immigration Committee for inviting us to submit our testimony today.
3:24:11
On behalf of CUNY citizenship now.
3:24:14
My name is Monique Francis, and I'm currently serving as the interim executive director of CUNY citizenship now.
3:24:21
With me today is our managing attorney for community events, Me too Dar, and she also manages our city council program.
3:24:29
We are here today to speak on how the funding from the city council for our program has continued to transform the lives of your constituents.
3:24:36
Assurance.
3:24:37
Our priority and commitment to you remains in assists in every New Yorker on the path towards legalizing their status, with the ability to have work authorization and eventually becoming US citizens.
3:24:51
Our program was created with the vision of returning power to immigrant New Yorkers, utilizing a model of prosay legal services, we empower immigrants with the knowledge which allows them to advocate on their own immigration case.
3:25:05
27 years later, our process service is a widely recognized model for legal service providers around the nation and has now been adopted as the model and solution to respond to the migrant crisis the city is facing.
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Given our expertise in processing large numbers of applications, in a group processing event, our goal is to create a similar program for asylum seekers with your support.
3:25:32
Many of you have hosted and sponsored our large scale citizenship application assistance events, where we serve on average 100 green cardholders on a single Saturday.
3:25:44
These monthly events, which are held in the city council districts, broaden our outreach to the city's diverse immigrant communities.
3:25:52
At these events, our attorneys, paralegals, and trained volunteers offer 1 on 1 consultation to assess participants' eligibility for immigration benefits and assist them in applying for these benefits when qualified.
3:26:06
Since the inception of our city council program in 2010, More than 68,000 New Yorkers have been assisted with funding received from the city council.
3:26:15
Last fiscal year alone, we assisted under 5 1000 of your constituents.
3:26:20
We are before you to the the committee today seeking a restoration of our $3,100,000 allocation and asking for an increase of $1,500,000 for the fiscal year 2025 to address the growing surge and demand for services from the communities we serve.