Immigrant legal services office opens at Queens College
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CUNY Citizenship Now!, a program that provides free immigrant legal services, opened a full-time office at Queens College on Tuesday. Eagle photo by Ryan Schwach
By Ryan Schwach
Queens College on Tuesday became the fifth full-time location for CUNY Citizenship Now!, an effort which provides free legal assistance for immigrant students and their families.
School administrators, students and program leaders gathered at Queens College on Tuesday to open the new office, the second of its kind in Queens, as the city continues to manage a large influx of migrants in need of legal assistance.
“Over the last 27 years, this program has helped literally hundreds of thousands of students,” said Jay Hershenson, a communications administrator at Queens College and a founder of the program nearly three decades ago.
The office, which now has its permanent home in the student union building on Queens College’s campus, will be fully staffed by a supervising attorney, a paralegal and office employees who will provide completely free-of-cost legal assistance to students, as well as their families.
Monique Francis, the program’s interim executive director, said CUNY Citizenship Now! is “true to CUNY’s mission of educating students and the immigrant community.”
The program not only offers assistance in filling out and submitting immigration applications, but also assists students and their families with humanitarian benefits, like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and Temporary Protected Status.
One of the program’s main benefits is its lack of cost to the students or families who require assistance.
“The cost of hiring an immigration attorney can be quite alarming,” she added. “But in our office, 100 percent of our services are free of cost.”
Francis told the Eagle that the new Queens office – which joins York College as the other in the World’s Borough – will take students on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and will be open to the community the other three days of the week.
The staff at CUNY Citizenship Now! offices often see four to five clients per day on top of walk-ins, depending on the urgency of the case, according to Francis, who also said that before appointments, the office assists clients in being as prepared as possible.
“We prep them in terms of what they need to bring, what they're going to expect,” she said. “This way, we have a one-and-done appointment versus multiple trips trying to find the immigration documents.”
The administrators and program heads say that an office like the new one at Queens College comes at a critical time for the city and the World’s Borough, as New York continues to see a large influx of migrants from all over the globe.
“The reason why this is important is there are many immigrants that are coming to New York City right now and they have little to no place to go for services,” said Francis. “This opens up another opportunity for them to come in from the community, come into the college, not only for immigration services, they can come in for continued education programs, start college, anything.”
“This is one of the ways to help that rapid response that the city is trying to create for people who are seeking asylum,” she added.
Although the office does not directly provide asylum assistance, it can help with a consultation and can point asylum seekers into the right direction to get their applications filed.
The program has already helped students like Carla Cordova, a Peruvian migrant who had trouble filing papers.
“The expertise of the team at Citizenship Now! has been a huge relief for me,” she said. “[They were] very patient with me in explaining all the details that I need to continue with my process and offer me an opportunity, so I can continue with my goal on to citizenship.”
Queens College President Frank Wu, a son of Taiwanese immigrants, spoke of why Queens College and the World’s Borough is a key location for immigrant assistance efforts.
“It's different here, we welcome people, we celebrate every community, every ethnicity, everything, as equals with respect,” he said. “Our students use about 100 different languages. It is no wonder that this is called the World's Borough. There is no place anywhere on the face of the globe, or in human history, like Queens.”
Queens Borough President Donovan Richards’ office gave their support to the new office and the continued efforts of CUNY Citizenship Now! as well on Tuesday.
“We are very excited to see the immigrant support systems grow across our borough,” said the office’s director of education, Katherine Zapata. “As we know, with the influx of asylum seekers and newly arrived families, we want to make sure that they feel supported not only when they first arrive, but also in their educational longevity.”
“We know the need is dire, now more than ever, and not only supporting these communities and families and individuals that want to get acclimated, but also empowering them,” she added. “So we are so grateful and humbled to be here to support the ribbon cutting of the Citizenship Now! office here at Queens College.”
