The first-ever Community Interpreters’ Bank and the Protect NY City Families Initiatives launched last Sunday on the steps of City Hall to continue the fight for immigrants’ rights.
A group of vibrant New York City Council members, including Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, the New York Immigration Coalitions (NYIC), and community partners established the effort with the expectation to centralize and make interpretation services available to immigrants across the five boroughs. It will recruit, train, and dispatch interpreters to City-funded legal service providers, community navigation sites, and City Council officers.
Interpreters fluent in the most requested languages will help ensure that every immigrant in the city can access services and information in their preferred language, community navigation sites, and City Council offices.
In the Fiscal Year 2025, the Council allocated $1.4 million to initiate the Community Interpreter Bank.
Through the Protect New York City Families Initiative, the Council has allocated over $2 million in funding to more than 60 nonprofit organizations to provide more support for increased legal services, rapid response efforts, helplines, and critical community training. This new funding will assist providers in expanding their capacity and responding to evolving challenges facing New York City’s immigrant communities. This funding comes as nonprofit providers face overwhelming demand for services given escalating federal immigration enforcement and abrupt policy shifts.
Speaker of the Council, Adrienne Adams, said the City Council must support those families that are attacked, and the council is proud that it could allocate more than $2 million to assist. “We are also proud to celebrate the Council’s investments to create the city’s first Community Interpreter Bank, which will help ensure that services are available in the languages that the residents speak,” Adams expressed.
The NY City Community Interpreter Bank will create sustainable pathways for community members to gain certification and employment as interpreters to provide essential services to Limited English Proficient (LEP) New Yorkers.
Interpreters will be employed from across New York City. Interpreters who have completed CUNY Hostos interpreter certification courses are eligible. They can either be contracted with one of the co-ops and certified by their cooperative or have completed Hostos Community College’s first-ever Community Interpreter Certification course. These interpreters will work as independent contractors, delivering vital language services across the city.
“New York City is the most linguistically diverse city in the world, but for too long, we have relied on outsourcing translation and interpretation services, a model that has failed to meet the needs of our immigrant communities. Every New Yorker, regardless of their language, deserves to be heard, understood, and included,” stated City Council Member Shahana Hanif.
City Council Member Crystal Hudson said, “While legislation and advocacy are vital in improving the lives of millions of New Yorkers, these budget initiatives will deliver tangible changes and work to protect some of our most vulnerable populations. Information is currency, and we must do everything to ensure every New Yorker has full access to available resources and services.”
“The NYC Community Interpreter Bank is a huge leap forward in our collective work to build a more inclusive, equitable, and resilient community in New York City; African Communities Together looks forward to continuing to work closely with the partners to push forward more equitable solutions to language in accessibility,” said Maimouna Dieye, program manager, African Communities Together.
Maimouna Dieye continued,” Thank you to the City Council leadership for this important investment. It is a critical step in the right direction, and we urge City Council leadership to significantly expand funding to properly strengthen immigrant-serving organizations to build up their rapid response services so we can provide greater protections for all vulnerable immigrant New Yorkers.”
“Immigrants have shaped New York City into a global beacon of hope and opportunity over the last 400 years, and the City Council is committed to honoring that legacy,” declared City Council Member Carlina Rivera.
It is expected that the translation services, now in a functioning mode of operation, to meet people on-site, will open new job opportunities to multilingual New Yorkers.
