IMG_1436 (2)

January: ActionNYC

by Economic Well-being ProgramsNews and Events

Center for Family Life is honored to be one of the ActionNYC providers within the five boroughs, providing free and trusted immigration legal support to immigrant New Yorkers. ActionNYC is administered by the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA), the Department of Social Services/Human Resources Administration (DSS-HRA) and the Research Foundation of the City University of New York. Through ActionNYC, trained legal navigators conduct legal screenings and licensed attorneys provide high-quality legal supports to clients. In addition, navigators make referrals to essential social services that clients may need. Services are provided to New Yorkers regardless of legal status and are offered in any language.

Since the start of the program, we have helped thousands of individuals in Sunset Park and throughout New York City, providing life changing services to individuals and families.

With the influx of new arrivals in New York City beginning in September 2022, the need for free immigration legal services has only increased. To support these new arrivals, our staff provided information sessions at NYC’s Central Navigation Center during the first half of 2023, providing over 100 workshops and serving over 1,000 people. Today, our ActionNYC team continues to screen new arrivals, make referrals and directly assist with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and Employment Authorization applications.

Many of the clients we serve through the ActionNYC program have experienced significant trauma and violence and are seeking protection in the U.S. for themselves and their families. We are proud to serve these individuals and families through ActionNYC and a number of other CFL services including a food pantry, public benefits access, employment services, English as a second language classes, immigrant trauma treatment and family counseling. We are thankful that the ActionNYC program exists to protect the rights of immigrants and help them to navigate through complicated and consequential legal processes.

We are delighted to share a recent success story which highlights the importance of ActionNYC and its impact on immigrant families’ lives.

In the late 1990s, Sarai arrived from Guatemala to the U.S. after being a victim of intimate personal violence in her marriage in Guatemala. Since her children’s father worked for the Guatemalan police department, Sarai had no choice but to leave her children behind as she sought safety in the U.S. Once in the U.S., Sarai again fell victim to intimate personal violence from her sibling, who abused her for years as she struggled to gain stability in her life in the U.S. After finding the courage to report her abuse to local authorities, she received help to find shelter and protection. In 2017, Sarai came to CFL for immigration legal help, where we assisted her with filing a petition for a U visa, which provides a pathway to citizenship for victims of violence, as well as two Humanitarian visas for her children who desperately wanted to be reunited with their mother. Sarai’s U visa was finally approved in November 2023 and her children’s Humanitarian visas were approved at the end of last year. Sarai’s family was overjoyed at news of the approvals and cannot wait to be reunited. Our entire ActionNYC team was also overjoyed and one of our Legal Navigator’s, Lois Torres, said Sarai invited the team to go with her to the airport to celebrate the family’s reunion as she is so grateful for all of their help over the years.

*Name changed to protect our client’s confidentiality.

ActionNYC is a critically important program that helps ensure the stability and well-being of immigrant communities in New York and helps provide equal access to legal services. We are proud to be an ActionNYC provider and to support our diverse immigrant community as they face unprecedented challenges.

Study Circle participants at the library preparing proposals to share with official electors

September: Thriving Families Safer Children

by News and Events

Thriving Families Safer Children is a project designed to promote solidarity between community members and to build their capacity to use available community level data to support advocacy and to demand the dismantling of unjust social policies.

This project engages Community Study Circles comprised of diverse groups of Sunset Park residents. These groups, which meet weekly, engage a popular education methodology and are facilitated by community member Zenayda Bonilla, who serves as the Peer Advocate. Participants in Study Circles begin with an exploration of their own migration and settlement stories. In this way, Study Circles become a safe and welcoming place for community members where they can be introduced to and become conversant in publicly available data. The group uses the data to identify the ways that immigrant and BIPOC residents are disparately impacted by economic and social challenges. Specific attention is given to data on economic and social factors which result in disproportionate involvement in the child welfare system. Attention is paid to interpreting data on child welfare investigations and child removals with a goal of uncovering “the story” that data can tell us about human experience.

Participants consider how racial disparities contribute to the involvement of the child welfare system and how to promote a more equitable future
Participants consider how racial disparities contribute to the involvement of the child welfare system and how to promote a more equitable future

Participants in these groups look at data on socioeconomic status of members within their neighborhood alongside comparative data showing the socioeconomic status of people in adjacent communities. They also review data on the number of people living in poverty, relying on public assistance, receiving Medicaid, as well as the level of education reached by members of their communities. This data is personal to those reviewing it as it represents their own and their neighbors’ situations and experiences.

 

 

Participants consider data on poverty, unemployment, and those experiencing rent burden to understand how these challenges connect to broader issues
Participants consider data on poverty, unemployment, and those experiencing rent burden to understand how these challenges connect to broader issues

Participants share what they learn with others in their neighborhood and present their observations and proposals for positive change to elected officials and advocacy groups in New York City. Further, Study Circles give those impacted the most by the child welfare system the resources and understanding necessary to challenge the system’s policies. Zenayda Bonilla and Julia Jean-Francois have discussed the problems associated with the current child welfare system in their recently published article “Reflections on our Work in Community- Troubling the Frame,” which is part of the Summer 2022 edition of the journal Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly. Julia Jean-Francois has also written about this issue in her chapter, “Community Based Organizations and Public Child Welfare Authorities: The Challenge of Partnerships,” in the recently published book Leadership Reflections: How to Create and Sustain Reforms in Children and Family Services.

Zenayda Bonilla
Zenayda Bonilla

In their article in the Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly Bonilla and Jean-Francois write about reform efforts in the child welfare system in New York City and how these have impacted Black and Brown communities. They bring attention to the long history of community surveillance and family separation and investigate the current and historical conditions which perpetuate disproportionate participation in the child welfare system. They suggest that the solution to this is to support community driven advocacy that focuses on the wellbeing of communities as a whole. To read more about this, click the link here.

Cover of Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly Summer 2022 Edition
Cover of Family Integrity & Justice Quarterly Summer 2022 Edition

Thriving Families Safer Children supports community members to dismantle barriers that perpetuate inequity in their neighborhoods through data driven advocacy that is framed and carried out by the community itself and that can promote a just and inclusive New York City. 

Â