As of January 2021, Riis Settlement is a proud community partner of ActionNYC, a program offered through the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) that grants funding to community-based organizations and legal services providers, allowing them to provide free legal assistance to immigrant New Yorkers regardless of immigration status.
Riis’s Immigrant Services program has offered legal services since 2009, and our legal team has provided free consultations to over 1,400 community members and filed applications for immigration benefits for the majority of clients screened. However, being an ActionNYC partner greatly increases our capacity to provide immigrant families with high-quality legal services, as the model pairs immigration attorneys with community navigators. Riis now employs a full-time attorney and a full-time community navigator, and we partner with Sunnyside Community Services to see clients at both sites. Together, we will be able to provide legal support to 600 immigrants in our community every year!
Sabrina, our community navigator, expresses the benefits of the ActionNYC program on her work so far: “Since starting the ActionNYC grant, we’ve been able to see more clients and open more applications on a weekly basis. I’ve been doing more independent casework on different cases, such as naturalization and DACA renewals. I am looking forward to being able to file more applications for our students and participants across different programming, and to becoming DOJ accredited so we can reach even more folks.”
Paula, our attorney, explains further: “We are looking forward to receiving certification from the Department of Justice as an immigration services provider, which is a special designation available only to non-profits. We hope for exciting changes in the immigration landscape under the Biden Administration, and this funding will allow us to continue working with the larger immigrant community in NYC.”
Immigrants play a vital role in our community and throughout New York City, and Riis Settlement is grateful for the opportunity to expand upon our work in supporting them.
