COMMUNICATIONS

Committee Coverage.

An undocumented person arriving in the United States from Senegal, a friend referred Yacine Fall to African Services Committee (ASC) for free and confidential legal services. Fall is proud to be Senegalese, often adding an emoji of the country’s flag in her communications, but she sought solutions for U.S. citizenship as a newcomer in New York City. With ASC’s address and telephone number in hand, she contacted the agency and followed steps for intake with ASC’s legal team.

Funded by New York City and in partnership with the New York City Mayor’s Office for Immigrant Affairs, ActionNYC is the main way ASC assists clients with most affirmative immigration applications, including naturalization, green card applications or renewals, family petitions, work authorization, travel documents, DACA, and TPS. This program is open to all New York City residents. William Pugliese, Supervising Attorney at ASC, helped Fall to complete the application process for naturalization online because of support from ActionNYC.

“Since the inception of the ActionNYC program in January 2021, we have accepted cases from 79 clients eligible for naturalization,” Pugliese said. “We have filed applications in the majority of those cases and already received many approvals.”

In March 2022, Fall received her certificate of naturalization after Pugliese assisted her to ensure she fulfilled the requirements for naturalization.

“In order to naturalize as a United States citizen, a client must have been a lawful permanent resident (LPR) for a defined number of years, not be inadmissible to the United States, and have maintained the "good moral character" required of U.S. citizens for the prescribed statutory period,” Pugliese said. “Depending on how individuals receive their green card, they are most typically eligible for naturalization after three years or five years. They may apply three months before those periods. Unless an exception applies, they must pass an English exam and a civics exam as part of the naturalization process.”

”Thank you for being kind and patient with me and helping me navigate such a difficult and stressful process.”

Pugliese explains that the naturalization process has changed between the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.

“The adjudication of naturalization applications before the New York Field Office has accelerated considerably under the Biden Administration,” Pugliese said. “Naturalization applications are now routinely being decided in six to nine months, the approximate time frame in which they were considered in the last years of the Obama Administration. Under the Trump Administration, application adjudication in New York routinely took between one and two years.”

Despite politics, Fall realizes ASC’s impact on her community. She underscores the benefits to her community from the agency providing health, housing, legal, social welfare, education, nutrition, and advocacy services to immigrants, refugees, and asylees from across the African Diaspora.

“I advise my fellow African immigrants, refugees, and asylees who need help at no cost and no discrimination to go visit ASC,” Fall said. “I will be glad to recommend ASC to my friends and my community to go get help in any kind of situation they are in.”

And for Pugliese, a letter from Fall:

“I would like to thank you for your time and efforts in helping me to secure U.S. citizenship,” Fall wrote. “Thank you for being kind and patient with me and helping me navigate such a difficult and stressful process. I am extremely grateful for your help!”

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