News & Events
Students Lend a Hand to CUNY/Daily News ‘Citizenship Now’ Call-in
City Tech students from the Department of Law and Paralegal Studies’ immigration law classes played an integral role in April in the hugely successful bilingual “Citizenship Now” call-in project conducted by the Daily News in collaboration with The City University of New York (CUNY).
At City Hall, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s commissioner of immigration affairs, Sayu Bhojwani, vowed to address the many common complaints raised by the more than 5,000 callers who contacted the phone bank in the first days of the week-long project. These included frustration with U.S. immigration systems, long delays on pending applications, lost documents and denial over minor infractions. A total of more than 6,000 individual calls were handled and thousands of additional calls were logged for later response.
The students participating in the project were Catherine Alexander, Alexandra Ceballos, Cinnie Francis, Sharon Joseph, Cordell Kidd, Man Kei Lam, Julie Louis, Mario Ocasio, Sophie Shaw and Stacie Zarzuela. Other City Tech participants included International Student Advisor Alexis Chaconis, Legal Assistant Studies Professor Concetta Mennella, and Angela Hines and Elizabeth Sanjurjo of the College’s Immigration Clinic. Mennella oversee clinic activities.
“The response from the call-in proves once and for all that immigrant New Yorkers want desperately to become U.S. citizens,” said Allan Wernick, head of CUNY’s Citizenship and Immigration Project. “Complicated rules, the ineffciency of the government’s immigration offices and lack of information keep many from getting naturalized. The call-in helped many, but more resources -- both public and private – are needed to help thousands who are eligible to apply for citizenship. CUNY and the Daily News will continue to do our part in helping immigrants get through the maze.”
Our students and others did their part, too, and the entire College community is exceedingly proud of them. Four CUNY colleges, including City Tech, have legal aid centers to serve foreign students and New York’s enormous and growing immigrant population, with a fifth center scheduled to open this summer. More than half of all 450,000-plus CUNY students are foreign-born.
Photo courtesy of the Daily News
