CCNY assists with $6 million dollar taxpayer-funded project to help illegal immigrants

The City College of New York is assisting with a $6 million dollar project for the City University of New York designed to promote education within the immigrant community of New York State.

According to an announcement from CCNY, this $6 million project is state-funded and is being led by a team of people who were described as, “educators and activists from across NYS.” More specifically, the professors at CCNY will be working with the CUNY-IIE department at CUNY which stands for the City University of New York-Initiative on Immigration and Education.

The CUNY-IIE department at CUNY was created in order to provide, “opportunities for educational stakeholders to learn from immigrant students, families, and educators directly impacted by restrictive immigration policies and educational inequality,” according to its website.

The CUNY-IIE department created a video series consisting of four different videos each relating to education within the immigrant community, as well a resource guide that goes more in-depth about education in New York State’s immigrant community.

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According to the announcement from CCNY, the video series and the resource guide “each feature a set of activities to help educators understand the immigration realities of their students, families, and communities; take actions both in and outside their classrooms; and advocate for equitable policies, especially amidst the current anti-immigrant political climate.”

The project is being used to help both legal and illegal immigrants in the state.

The announcement states that this project is “a collaboration of CUNY educators; researchers, families and community leaders, the project aims to improve the lot of all, regardless of immigration status, using education as a tool.”

CCNY also notes how New York educators will be offered “professional development workshops,” that will be made available to help professors and teachers across the state to, “develop immigration and education-focused action projects.” 

The announcement concludes by stating the upcoming goals that CCNY and CUNY have to support the immigrant community in New York State, one of which is to introduce their teachings to K-12 students.

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The goals for the remainder of 2020 and for the upcoming 2021 year are “developing a framework for immigrant liaison positions in K-12 schools to create a pipeline between secondary and tertiary education; creating short films and a report about current and future New York educators who are presently undocumented or recipients of DACA; and hosting a virtual CUNY-IIE speakers series starting this fall.”

Campus Reform spoke with CCNY student Casey Fowler about the fund.

“Honestly, I’m surprised they got so much money for that,” Fowler stated. “If the money can actually help the families of the immigrant community in New York then I suppose it’s not too bad of an idea. That being said though, I don’t necessarily think that just giving money to people will lead to a better outcome in life for them. So I really hope that this project will actually uplift that community and educate them on a certain skill or trade in order for them to have a better future for themselves and to support their families as well.”

Campus Reform reached out to CCNY and CUNY but did not receive comments in time for publication.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @matthewkeyess