Washington Leaders Celebrate Citizenship and Immigrant Integration

Members of Congress, immigrant legal service providers, new citizens and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Alejandro Mayorkas celebrated Citizenship and Constitution Day on Capitol Hill on September 21. Earlier in the day, USCIS announced the award of $9 million in grants to expand citizenship and integration programs. The grants will be awarded to 42 organizations ranging from public or nonprofit organizations that provide citizenship preparation services to eligible immigrants. According to government data, 7.9 million immigrants are currently eligible for citizenship. The top 20 states with large immigrant populations eligible for citizenship are California, New York, Texas, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arizona, Washington, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Michigan, Georgia, Colorado, Connecticut, Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio. In Florida for example, 680,000 legal permanent residents are eligible for naturalization which represents 5.3% of the voting eligible population. In Illinois, 340,000 immigrants are eligible to naturalize or 3.8% of the voting eligible population. For NALEO’s complete state breakdown of legal permanent residents eligible to naturalize please visit here.

KJ