With the help of 400 volunteers – mostly attorneys – immigration, one of the hot-button issues on everyone’s mind lately hopefully got a little less complicated.
During the eighth annual Citizenship NOW phone-a-thon, a collaborative effort between the New York Daily News and the City University of New York (CUNY) held during the week of April 26, over 14,000 people called in with questions related to immigration – on most people’s mind was how to become a United States citizen.
“When things like the law that passed in Arizona happen, immigrants all over the country get scared, even the ones that are legal,” said immigration expert Allan Wernick, an attorney and director of the CUNY Citizenship and Immigration Project. “Services like the Citizenship Now calling help.”
According to Wernick, the volunteers reported to him that this year it appeared more people called with questions about regularizing their status from those who are legal but want to take the next step and become citizens.
“I think that the reason for that is that most people are worried about the direction of the country’s immigration policy,” said Wernick. “The most security comes from having citizenship.”
Since the inception of the Citizenship NOW, the annual phone-a-thon has fielded close to 84,000 calls. For the 2010 event, advice was given to callers in about 48 languages and as far away as Ireland.
