Queens Library affirms support to immigrant community

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Queens Library President and CEO Dennis Walcott has affirmed the library’s support for the immigrant community and its commitment to work towards making them succeed. Walcott was speaking at an event held Feb. 3 at the Central Library in downtown Jamaica. “We hope to show the public that the conversation about immigration policy is a conversation about people’s lives, not politics,” Daily News Analysis quoted Walcott as saying.

The event, which gathered local residents, elected officials and organizations working with immigrants, also featured a number of workshops for immigrants, offered by the city’s Commission on Human Rights, the Queens Legal Services and the Anti-Violence Project.

Each year, thousands of immigrants participate in the library’s programs, including English classes, citizenship services, know-your-rights workshops, coping skills, literacy classes, computer lessons and job search assistance, the library said.

The library serves a population of 2.3 million people, at least 48 percent of whom were born abroad, the DNA report said.

Walcott also said that the main role of the library is to “provide the information.”

“We are here to work with them, to provide that sanctuary, that safe haven, that information source,” he said.

According to the 2015 census data, Asians constitute nearly 26.3 percent of Queens’ population, the second-most populous borough in New York City.