Despite its vast immigrant communities, New York City has struggled to keep up with language access and interpretation services. Last week, the city council banded together with local organizations to launch its first ever Community Interpreter Bank with new funding initiatives.
“Language interpretation services are a vital pillar of a healthy, thriving, and diverse New York City, for both new and long-term immigrants navigating complex systems in an unfamiliar language. The NYC Community Interpreter Bank ensures these individuals can access critical services in their preferred language while also creating a direct pipeline to employment for New Yorkers trained in interpretation,” said New York Immigrant Coalition (NYIC) President and CEO Murad Awawdeh.
The interpreter bank will recruit, train, and dispatch interpreters for city-funded legal service providers, community navigation sites, and city council offices across the five boroughs. The intention is to hire interpreters from worker-owned language cooperatives based in the city and from the City University of New York (CUNY) Hostos interpreter courses. This comes after President Donald Trump fired off a spate of executive orders once he was officially sworn in, stirring anti-immigrant sentiments nationwide.
African Communities Together (ACT) Program Manager Maimouna Dieye and city council hold a community interpreter bank press conference on January 29, 2025. Credit: PHOTO CREDIT: Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit. 
A member of La Colmena, a nonprofit community-based organization on Staten Island, at the community interpreter bank press conference on January 29, 2025. Credit: PHOTO CREDIT: Gerardo Romo / NYC Council Media Unit.
Awawdeh, other advocates, and council members held a press conference at City Hall to celebrate the launch on Wednesday, Jan. 29.
“Over the last week we have seen the Trump Administration make direct attacks on immigrant New Yorkers, threatening them with mass deportation, ending asylum, revoking temporary protected status, and so much more,” said Awawdeh. “All of which the intent is to separate our families, destabilize our communities, and gut our local economies, but today the New York City Council is wholeheartedly stepping forward into the vacuum that the Mayor has left with his silence on these attacks. The city council is providing solutions to protect and defend immigrant communities and New York City’s workforce.”
The Language Justice Collaborative (LJC), which is made up of immigration groups like the NYIC, African Communities Together (ACT), the Mexican American Students’ Alliance (MASA), and the Asian American Federation (AAF) proposed a centralized interpreter bank for public use last year and just over $1 million of the city’s funding went to establishing it in the fiscal year 2025 budget.
The launch included more than $2 million in emergency funding from the city council to the Protect NYC Families Initiative, which will provide flexible funding for over 60 nonprofit organizations that serve immigrant New Yorkers. The funds will also support rapid response and know your rights training sessions, said City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams.
Speaker Adams called Trump’s executive orders “anti-democratic attacks” on the U.S. constitution and immigrant communities that helped build the city.
“The most backwards views of our past are returning again. It is therefore essential that our city government stand by our values and defend New York City families in conjunction with our partners,” said Adams. “We are a city of immigrants proudly, and our diversity only strengthens our great city. The city council is very clear about our commitment to prioritize New Yorkers and to defend our rich immigrant communities that make us stronger. Our African, Asian, Caribbean, European, Latino, and Middle Eastern immigrant communities all contribute to the city’s greatness.”
Most of the other speakers at the conference shared Speaker Adams’ criticism of Trump and Mayor Eric Adams.
Councilmember Alexa Aviles, chair of the Committee on Immigration, said, “Immigrant New Yorkers are responsible for countless economic and cultural developments throughout our city’s history. You can’t disentangle the history of New York City from the history of immigrant communities that have shaped our neighborhoods, our public spaces, our culture, our businesses, our art, yet the Mayor and the President see millions of people not only in this city but across the country as expendable.”
ACT Program Manager Maimouna Dieye said that the city prides itself on diversity but has been stifled by significant barriers to language access, especially in hard to reach African immigrant communities. She applauded the city council’s strong commitment to support the interpreter bank with funding initiatives, through which ACT was able to create a unique African language services worker cooperative called Afrilingual.
“I just wanted to mention here today that as we move forward in these times of uncertainty post-presidential election, our communities are facing heightened threats,” said Dieye, “but it is crucial to remember that our strength in this city lies in our ability to come together.”