MOIA Commissioner Details Legal Support Centers and Hotline Expansion

Over the past year, Moya has strengthened its legal service infrastructure during a period of dramatically increased need.

Moya's immigration legal programs include legal support centers, the immigration legal support hotline, the legal technical mentorship program, and the Rapid Response Legal collaborative.

Together, these initiatives expand access to trusted immigration legal support at a time when the demand continues to grow.

Our immigration legal service network includes 29 providers serving communities across the five boroughs.

Last summer, Moya launched the immigration legal support centers, supported by more than $18 million in investments over three years to strengthen community-based organizations providing culturally and linguistically responsive immigration legal assistance.

Since the program's launch in July 2025, the LSEs have conducted more than 12,000 comprehensive legal screenings, helping immigrants arrange address a wide range of legal needs.

These investments are critical not only to expand services, but to strengthen the long-term capacity of the organizations immigrant New Yorkers rely on the most.

Another critical resource for immigrant New Yorkers is Moya's immigration legal support hotline that's operated by Catholic charities, which helps New Yorkers connect to comprehensive immigration legal screenings and support.

So far this year, the hotline has received more than 19,800 calls.

In FY26, Moya increased funding to expand the hotline's accessibility and responsiveness as callers face increasingly urgent and complex immigration challenges.

This April, we partnered with Catholic charities to host a family preparedness food bank, responding to concerns from parents and caregivers about family separation.

In collaboration with the New York State Office of New Americans, the Mexican Consulate, and the New York Legal Assistance Group, 56 volunteers fielded 225 calls.

As part of this expansion, the hotline increased staffing capacity, including an additional hiring additional counselors and a staff members specifically designated to respond to time-sensitive rapid response needs.

The hours of operation were also extended beyond the previously Monday through Friday 9 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

schedule so that callers have more opportunities to reach the support outside of a standard work hour day.

The hotline also launched WhatsApp communications, expanded multilingual reporting from four to ten languages, and added three new interactive voice response language prompts.