Executive Committee
Mayor Adams of New York City, Mayor Johnson of Chicago, Mayor Bass of Los Angeles and Mayor Harrell of Seattle and the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) form the Executive Committee of Cities & Counties for Citizenship (CC4C). The CC4C Executive Committee work together to facilitate greater capacity for naturalization rates among their residents and encourage financial empowerment initiatives among Lawful Permanent Residents (LPR) to foster greater economic growth and vitality in their cities. The Executive Committee is the leadership of CC4C and works closely with municipalities and community organizations to create effective partnerships and meaningful collaborations to support naturalization in their cities, counties and across the United States for over 9 million LPRs that are eligible to naturalize TODAY.
Chicago
Chicago pledges to help about one-third of its 560,000 immigrants become U.S. citizens through the Chicago New Americans initiative, in partnership with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The city’s Office of New Americans and Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights host informational workshops on naturalization at the City Colleges of Chicago. The Office of New Americans also implemented Citizenship Corners in Chicago’s public libraries, where information on the naturalization process is available in the most common languages spoken in Chicago, in addition to free citizenship workshops, English Second Language classes, and multi-lingual financial education classes. Other objectives of the Office under this initiative include launching a targeted campaign to naturalize City employees and integrating informational materials on naturalization into the Welcoming Portal and Welcome Station – an online portal designed to connect immigrants with resources available to them and immigrant resource center – respectively. Furthermore, the city’s Small Business Center provides services to immigrant business-owners and targets large immigrant employers for citizenship and financial coaching support. Staff from community organizations regularly visit schools with large concentrations of immigrant students and parents to create a one-stop shop offering information about the naturalization process, free immigration legal assistance, and financial coaching.
Los Angeles
The City of Los Angeles continues to promote naturalization and offer assistance to the immigrants who want to become U.S. citizens among its 350,000 legal permanent residents and has successfully helped 2,654 residents since joining Cities & Counties for Citizenship. Mayor Eric Garcetti re-established a partnership with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) in 2013 to develop civic education workshops to promote citizenship in Los Angeles. The City also partnered with several community-based organizations – Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Asian Americans Advancing Justice (AAAJ), International Rescue Committee (IRC), National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO), and Youth Policy Institute (YPI) – to offer educational materials on immigration integration and financial education in the Citizenship Corners located in all 73 public library branches throughout the city: CHIRLA, AAAJ, and IRC offer citizenship workshops and classes like basic ESL classes and Civics class to educate applicants on the civics exam; NALEO provides citizenship information sessions, free application assistance, and financial literacy workshops; and YPI collaborates with the NALEO to provide financial education to clients receiving Citizenship Application assistance. The Mayor’s Office is also working with these organizations to increase access to micro-loans and savings for the city’s immigrant community.
New York City
More than a century ago, the Statue of Liberty was erected and became a symbol to welcome immigrants to New York City from all over the world, and, since that time, New York’s immigrant community has moved our city and our country along. New York expresses its deep commitment to making our city the most immigrant friendly city in the world by helping thousands of its residents learn about and apply for citizenship. This work is carried out through innovative programs such as NYCitizenship, CUNY Citizenship Now!, and other City-funded immigration legal service initiatives that engage in targeted outreach, education, large-scale application assistance clinics, and comprehensive support in complex cases. Individuals, institutions, and organizations across civil society are involved in the effort, including the City University of New York, the NYC Library systems, community-based organizations, and other groups that are part of, and serve, New York’s thriving immigrant community. Naturalization benefits immigrants and their families, as well as our city and country as a whole.
Seattle
As a Welcoming City with a vibrant economy that is due in large part to the many immigrants who have settled in the region, Seattle remains strongly committed to promoting citizenship and offering assistance to the over 100,000 legal permanent residents in the Seattle area. The City of Seattle launched its New Citizen Program (NCP) in 1997 and has been providing naturalization services utilizing a consortium model that encourages collaboration and partnership. These organizations offer classes and one-on-one naturalization assistance to income-eligible immigrants and refugees living in Seattle/King County, often immigrants who are elderly, disabled, or are unable to proficiently read or write in English. Then in 2016, the Seattle Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs launched the New Citizen Campaign (NCC), which utilizes multiple strategies to provide naturalization assistance, which includes facilitating group processing workshops, promoting outreach on the benefits of naturalization, and engaging with local and national partners. NCC often focuses on green card holders who do not need as much assistance as the clients who utilize NCP programs. Altogether, the City of Seattle and partner organizations have assisted over 32,600 applicants, with over 16,600 applications submitted.
National Partnership for New Americans
The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) is a national multiethnic, multiracial organization that represents 60 of the largest regional immigrant and refugee rights organizations in 40 states. NPNA works together with its members to advance immigrant equity and inclusion policies; build and expand capacities around immigration legal services and integration programming; and, drive campaigns that strengthen democracy through increased civic participation. Formed during a time when immigration reform was seemingly imminent, NPNA became the field’s implementation vehicle. Our network has supported the naturalization of over 250,000 U.S. Citizens and has been a key driver on advocacy to make naturalization more affordable and accessible. NPNA has become an important national convener and a leader on immigrant integration policy with our flagship New Deal for New Americans Act, the first immigrant integration package introduced in Congress; and, hosting the country’s largest annual gathering around immigrant and refugee rights, the National Immigrant Inclusion Conference (NIIC).
