CM Dinowitz on CUNY Citizenship Now and immigrant student safety

Just to segue a little bit into, you know, immigrants make New York City the beautiful city that it is.

Can you talk to us a little bit about...

I know you host CUNY Citizenship Now, which we are very big supporters of.

They do fantastic work.

Thank you for that.

Can you tell us a little bit more about how you are feeling about our current environment and plans on keeping New York City immigrants, college students safe?

Well, thanks for the question and thanks to the council for the great support of citizenship now throughout many, many, many years.

I was at John Jay about a month ago and, you know, 300 people, I think Councilwoman Brewer and some of you were there too, 300 people trying to get that last,

moving from, you know, permanent status to full citizenship.

So the demand is there.

We've also, in order to support our students, we raise independent funding

from the Petrie Foundation that help us provide triage legal services for students who might be

you know, intercepted by ICE, right?

We found out that in many cases,

either individuals go to places that basically take their money and don't provide any real legal services, right?

So we provide a service.

We cannot take them on as clients, but at least at that time when you're having the first triaging, we can point out and say, here's some legitimate lawyers, here's some legitimate nonprofits that work with you.

We can stabilize.

And that's been, I think, very well received by the community.

We have an office, the central office, dealing with how we can support our students, and campus do that in different ways.

But it's very, very much top of our mind, and thank you to the council for the support of citizenship now.

Thank you.

Just to make a last comment, Chair.

You know, New York City public school educators and parents have asked the public school system to provide revised protocol around how to keep their students safe, their staff safe,

because the protocol within the building is one thing, but right outside the building is a whole other thing.

I would also like to posit that challenge to CUNY around how it makes sure that

Everyone from the security guard to the groundskeeper to all the staff are very clear about their obligations under New York City Sanctuary City policy

and also their moral obligations to keep each other safe during such a dark time.

So thank you.

We'd love to talk to you more about that.

Thank you for that suggestion.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Maloney, followed by Majority Leader Abreu.