More than $2 million in Council funding to go towards over 60 organizations to support immigrant communities.
New York: The City Council, along with the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC) and various community organizations, announced the launch of the NYC Community Interpreter Bank and the Protect NYC Families initiative in a bid to improve language accessibility and immigrant support in the City.
The NYC Community Interpreter Bank centralizes interpretation services available to immigrants across the five boroughs and will recruit, train and dispatch interpreters to City-funded legal service providers, community navigation sites and City Council offices.
Interpreters fluent in the most commonly requested languages will help ensure that every immigrant in the city can access services and information in their preferred language. In Fiscal Year 2025, the Council allocated $1.4 million to initiate the Community Interpreter Bank.
Through the Protect NYC Families initiative, the Council allocated over $2 million in funding to over 60 nonprofit organizations to provide more support for increased legal services, rapid response efforts, helplines, and critical community trainings.
This new funding will allow providers to expand their capacity and respond to evolving challenges facing New York City’s immigrant communities. This initiative comes as nonprofit providers continue to face overwhelming demand for services given escalating federal immigration enforcement and abrupt policy shifts.
“New York City is a proud city of immigrants, and we must support our city’s families from attacks by the Trump administration,” said Council Speaker Adrienne Adams. “The Council is proud to allocate more than $2 million in emergency funding for our Protect NYC Families Initiative, which will provide flexible funding for dozens of non-profit organizations that serve immigrant New Yorkers.
“Language interpretation services are a vital pillar of a healthy, thriving, and diverse New York City, for both new and long-term immigrants navigating complex systems in an unfamiliar language. The NYC Community Interpreter Bank ensures these individuals can access critical services in their preferred language while also creating a direct pipeline to employment for New Yorkers trained in interpretation,” said Murad Awawdeh, President and CEO, New York Immigration Coalition.
The second of its kind in the country, and the first in the state, the NYC Community Interpreter Bank will recruit interpreters from all over the city including from other worker-owned language cooperatives and interpreters who have completed CUNY Hostos interpreter certification courses.
