Thousands of people will be able to receive free, confidential citizenship and immigration information this week thanks to the New York Daily News and City University of New York’s 12th Annual Citizenship NOW! hotline.
Running from Monday,April 28, through Friday, May 2, between 9 a.m. and 7 p.m., the hotline has more than 400 trained volunteers who can answer questions in English and Spanish as well as many other languages, such as Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, Russian, Bengali, Haitian Creole, French, Italian, Polish, Yiddish and Arabic.
In partnership with Univision and WABC-TV, the weeklong event includes on-air promotional announcements, live coverage and special news segments.
The largest program of its kind in the country, Citizenship NOW! was launched in April 2004 to address the lack of access to information about immigration.
Since its inception, nearly 124,000 callers have sought information from the call-in.
The Citizenship NOW! hotline is led by attorney Allan Wernick, who is also a professor of Law at Baruch College and writes the twice-weekly “Immigration” column for the Daily News. Additionally, Wernick writes the nationally syndicated column, “Immigration and Citizenship” and is the director of the CUNY Citizenship Now! project.
“With immigration reform stalled in Congress, the Daily News/CUNY Citizenship NOW! call-in is of special importance this year,” Wernick said. “Volunteers will provide callers with information on how immigrants can qualify for legal status and U.S. citizenship under existing laws. Immigrants can’t wait for Congress, they need help now.”
To reach the hotline, call 646- 746-9636 for English,646-746-9634 for Spanish and 212-221-2419 for the TTY number.
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