Staten Island Legal Services Co-Sponsors Citizenship Day

An April 18th article in the Staten Island Advance highlighted the the Citizenship Day program co-sponsored locally by Staten Island Legal Services (a program of Legal Services NYC) and Project Hospitality. During the event, teams of volunteer immigration attorneys, paralegals, interpreters and other
community members helped in preparing naturalization
applications and applicants were able to consult with lawyers and supervised
volunteers to ensure that their documentation was complete.

From the SI Advance article:

The event, held in Project Hospitality's Help Center at 514 Bay St.
in Stapleton, was one of six held across the five boroughs and Long
Island, as part of nationwide Citizenship Day. The program was
sponsored by the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and
coincides with the city's Immigration Heritage Week.

To be eligible for citizenship, residents must have had a green card
for at least five years. But many have been here longer, said Johane
Severin, a staff attorney from Staten Island Legal Services.

For people earning minimum wage and trying to cobble together the
$675 to file the papers, much less legal fees for help with the
application, the free legal help offered yesterday is "a lifesaver,"
said Olu Ajayi, of Westerleigh, a native of Nigeria who became a
citizen in 1986. He is now an immigration law student at the CUNY
School of Law.