Citizenship & Civic Participation Project
Refugees naturalize at a higher rate than other, non-refugee immigrants, yet they often face serious challenges in the naturalization process due to advanced age, disabilities, low income, limited English proficiency, and low levels of literacy. Refugees also face challenges to civic participation such as language and cultural barriers, unfamiliarity with U.S. civic institutions, and reluctance to get involved in community affairs due to negative experiences in their native countries.
From 2006-2009, CLINIC received funding from the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to provide technical assistance on refugee citizenship and civic participation to state-administered refugee service providers, Mutual Assistance Association grantees, voluntary agencies, and other refugee service providers. CLINIC partnered with Mosaica: The Center for Nonprofit Development and Pluralism for training and technical assistance on civic participation.
The goals of this project were to improve naturalization services to refugees, increase their civic participation, and further their integration into American society.
Accomplishments:
- Created and maintained a project webpage for one-stop, easy access to resources and information on citizenship and civic participation.
- Created a project list serve with over 1,500 contacts and sent regular updates on new resources, policy changes, and other information.
- Provided 19 on-site trainings for approximately 450 individuals.
- Provided four agency site visits consultations.
- Provided 15 free webinars for more than 1,200 participants.
- Conducted workshops and made presentations at 10 conferences for approximately 400 individuals.
- Provided approximately 300 individual case consultations by telephone and e-mail.
- Assisted 12 refugee-serving organizations in obtaining Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) recognition and accreditation.
- Created five toolkits on citizenship and civic participation topics.
- Compiled a reference handbook, Strategies for Naturalizing the Most Vulnerable Applicants.
- Released a new edition of the handbook, Citizenship for Us, with updates to reflect the new citizenship test.
- Created a fee waiver application form for local agency use.
- Attended numerous meetings with USCIS to discus issues of concern to refugees such as the new citizenship test, disability waivers, and fee waivers.
RESOURCES
For more information on the Citizenship & Civic Participation Project, please contact Laura Burdick at lburdick@cliniclegal.org or 202-635-5820.