Resources on Immigrant Integration

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This guide offers strategies for community members interested in creating an inclusive community that values and embraces newcomers. Immigrant integration/inclusion, which is most successful at the local level, creates a community where everyone feels welcomed, supported, and empowered regardless of immigration legal status.

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This one-page document gives ten indicators of a state or community that is welcoming to immigrants, including providing ample community resources for newly arrived immigrants, educational services, language access, and more.

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Translations of the U.S. History/Government Test Questions

The translations listed here were completed by USCIS and community organizations throughout the country. For translations completed by community organizations, the organization's contact information is included on the translation.

***Please note that some information, such as the name of the President and Speaker of the House, changes regularly and may not be up to date. Other information, such as the name of the applicant’s Senator and Governor, will vary depending on where the applicant lives.

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Translations of the U.S. History/Government Test Questions

The translations listed here were completed by USCIS and community organizations throughout the country. For translations completed by community organizations, the organization's contact information is included on the translation.

***Please note that some information, such as the name of the President and Speaker of the House, changes regularly and may not be up to date. Other information, such as the name of the applicant’s Senator and Governor, will vary depending on where the applicant lives.

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Most successful at the local level, immigrant integration brings togethers newcomers and receiving community members to cultivate and foster a community that is diverse and inclusive of everyone. Partner with your neighbors, local organizations, and local officials to promote immigrant integration for the new year and beyond.

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The Maryland Governor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs launched in October 2021 and has made great impacts statewide to promote immigrant integration.

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This toolkit is meant to accompany CLINIC’s whitepaper ‘Immigrant and Community Integration Step by Step Guide to Local Integration Programming.’ These materials in this toolkit offer informational content and accompanying worksheets to help you think through all a project’s core elements. Programs with established integration programming will also find the materials helpful for evaluating and improving existing programs.

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Immigrant integration is an equal partnership between newcomers and the receiving community who work together to make their community more inclusive. As trusted members in the community, immigration legal service providers play a key role in promoting integration. Nonprofits that engage in integration efforts in addition to legal services increase capacity, expand their services, work with all members in the community, and thus have an increase in opportunities to additional/alternate funding streams.

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The Office of Global Michigan promotes integration initiatives statewide with the help of local partners.

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This toolkit contains helpful information on how best to use volunteers in your program, how to recruit and retain volunteers, and how to incorporate them into your program’s plan for the passage of Comprehensive Immigration Reform.

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Immigrant integration is most successful at the local level. Here are several ways to promote immigrant integration in your community for the New Year and beyond!

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Celebrate Advent with CLINIC’s Center for Immigrant Integration! The Center for Immigrant Integration’s Advent calendar is a unique take on the Advent tradition to share stories of hope, integration in the community, and success from CLINIC and its affiliates. Each day will feature a story, an advocacy endeavor, resource, and tips that educate the participant and encourages action in support of immigrant integration and CLINIC’s mission.

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CLINIC promotes immigrant integration and encourages the furthering of integration efforts among its network of more than 400 affiliates. Review our immigrant integration overview that highlights the benefits of integration in the community, as well as key considerations for successful integration efforts.

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Trust between newcomers and the receiving community is instrumental to integration work. Nonprofit immigration legal service providers are key partners in effective integration and inclusion work.

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Immigrant integration results, in large part, from local partnerships between newcomers and the receiving community. Faith-based organizations are key partners in integration work.

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Día de los niños (Day of the Children) is an annual celebration in Mexico and other Latin Countries that dates back to 1925. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Día in the United States, CLINIC’s Center for Immigrant Integration offers a children’s book list, including staff favorites.

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Post this image on Citizenship Day (Sept. 17). Announce any activities you are hosting that day. Follow up with pictures.

To save the images for posting on social media, right click and select "Save Image As..."

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Post this image throughout the week. Ask your followers to share it and tag their friends that are newly naturalized citizens, welcoming them to their new home.

To save the images for posting on social media, right click and select "Save Image As..."

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This white paper will guide your organization through this process to help you design, implement, evaluate and reassess your integration initiatives while demonstrating how to actively promote integration in your community.

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Seeking ways to incorporate integration into church-based celebrations? Find inspiration here through real-life examples of parish-based work in local communities. We invite you to print our English and Spanish Holiday Prayers for Immigrant Integration booklet, which includes prayers for Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas.

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CLINIC's civic participation curriculum has four modules that can be used all together or separately. For each module, there is a teacher handbook and a student workbook with readings, discussion questions and activities. We have also provided a student learning evaluation.

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Here are six ways immigration practitioners and community leaders can encourage census participation in their cities.

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This toolkit is designed to help faith leaders like you ensure that everyone in your community is counted so that your local schools, roads and hospitals get their fair share of funding and your community receives fair political representation at all levels of government.

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Created by Mosaica: The Center for Nonprofit Development & Pluralism in partnership with Catholic Legal Immigration Network, Inc. under a project funded by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, “Technical Assistance to Promote Refugee Citizenship & Civic Participation.” This guide was developed through a collaboration between Mosaica and the Temple University Center for Intergenerational Learning’s “Civic Engagement for All” initiative. It is a companion piece to a webinar conducted on March 9, 2009.

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CLINIC’s Center for Immigrant Integration offers strategies to promote integration for the New Year! Be sure to share with us which initiative you will explore with your community. The Migration Policy Institute has published a report on the importance of volunteers for successful refugee integration. Justice for Immigrants hosts a webinar on the importance of Parish IDs. Arkansas United promotes immigrant integration during their annual convention.

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The holidays bring families and communities together around the world to celebrate the season with traditions passed down from generation to generation. These books explore several different cultures integrating American Christmas traditions with their own while illustrating how different countries celebrate and welcome the holidays.

 

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Nearly three quarters of all farmworkers and almost one third of all meat and poultry workers are foreign-born.

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City governments have a variety of resources at their disposal that can be helpful in promoting or expanding immigrant integration initiatives. Here are some of the most common functions or attributes that agencies gain or can seek when they make appropriate requests for support.

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Use CLINIC’s curated booklist to engage immigrants in your community.

Centering on family, culture and the courage it takes to start a new life, these stories highlight unique immigrant experiences readers of all ages will enjoy and learn from. 

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Celebrations like Independence Day are a great opportunity to welcome our newest neighbors with open arms. Use these tips from CLINIC’s Center for Immigrant Integration to do just that.

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CLINIC’s Center for Immigrant Integration would like to ask everyone to include migrants in their Holy Week reflections with this prayer.

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Just because Mother's Day is over, it doesn't mean we should stop praying for immigrant moms who sacrifice everything to give their families a better life. Our integration team has composed this prayer for them.

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Although we can trace the roots of many Easter traditions back thousands of years, we can thank immigrants for introducing them to the American public. The integration of immigrant traditions into U.S. society played a major role in shaping our modern Easter celebrations. 

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CLINIC’s White Paper provides a better understanding of immigrant integration as a concept and contextualizes it in the work that CLINIC does because of its roots in Catholic social teaching.

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It’s that time again! CLINIC affiliate, FaithAction International House, held their largest annual celebration and bridge-building event, their Multicultural Thanksgiving.

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As we sit down today to enjoy our meals and give thanks, don't forget to include a small prayer for newcomers enjoying their first Thanksgiving. May we welcome them as they have embraced us.

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From small children to seasoned adults, the story of the Holy Family’s journey to Bethlehem and the birth of baby Jesus is a familiar one. It is retold every Christmas season in a tradition that spans all continents, languages and cultures. The Christmas season would be incomplete without the retelling of this story, making it the perfect way to convene a church community to promote immigrant integration as a parish priority.

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The Feast of the Assumption, which celebrates the Virgin Mary ascending into heaven upon her death, fell on Aug. 15 this year. As one of the most important holidays in the Catholic tradition, parishes should consider celebrations as a way to connect to their community and their personal ethnic heritage, as well as a celebration of their faith.

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While most holidays have roots around the world, Independence Day is arguably the United States’ signature holiday. Thus, it is a prime opportunity for parishes and communities to celebrate the nation’s founding with newcomers.

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FaithAction International House, a CLINIC affiliate led by the Rev. David Fraccaro, a minister in the United Church of Christ, is continuing to make great strides in promoting and encouraging immigrant integration in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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A toolkit with ideas for working with your local officials on immigrant integration.

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Father’s Day, like Mother’s Day, is a prominent way families are celebrated in the United States.

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Mother’s Day is a central fixture in how American culture celebrates families. Far from being a tradition born in the United States, the practice of highlighting the importance of mothers has been a global custom for centuries. Thus, each holiday congregations celebrate together emphasizes the vital role churches play in encouraging and facilitating immigrant integration in their communities.

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CLINIC affiliate Building One Community’s Skills Development Program has over the past two years helped bridged the gap between immigrants and local businesses in Stamford, Connecticut.

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Not long ago, children were waiting for the Easter Bunny to deliver treat-filled eggs to decorated baskets from Nebraska to Maine. This secular tradition, tightly intertwined with Lenten and Easter religious traditions, feels like “ours”—uniquely and originally American. However, both concepts—the Easter Bunny and Easter eggs—were brought to the United States by European immigrants as far back as the early 1900s.

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Integration Newsletter April 2017

This month, CLINIC’s Center for Immigrant Integration celebrates integration efforts both in the community and in the church. From a career development program run by a CLINIC affiliate to a lively discussion on the immigrant roots American traditions for religious holidays, this issue celebrates these efforts for creating cohesive communities.

Affiliate Highlight Blog

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Have you ever stopped to think how welcoming your community is?

 

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In this toolkit you will find templates you can use and adapt, as appropriate, to send a letter to the editor of your local newspaper; submit a brief opinion article for possible publication and to circulate a press release to newspapers, radio and TV stations, including those in Spanish or other languages, in your area. The guide also includes prepared tweets and recommendations for social media.

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Share this image throughout the week with the tag #SwearItShareIt. Ask your followers to share their naturalization story and tag it #SwearItShareIt. Retweet what they share with you.

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Swear It and Share ItCLINIC wants to help you celebrate! Participate in our "Swear It and Share It!" campaign by encouraging people to tell their story and use use the hashtag #swearitshareit.

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Are you interested in creating or strengthening an English as a Second Language or citizenship test preparation program? Are you wanting to use volunteer teachers yet are unsure of how to train and retain quality instructors? Join us for this webinar as we learn the nuts and bolts of staffing your program along with tricks and tips to effectively train and keep high-quality teachers.

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The Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama (HICA!), the brain-child of Executive Director, Isabel Rubio, opened its doors in 1999. Ms. Rubio, a long time Birmingham resident, recognized the need for an immigrant-integration focused organization in the state of Alabama, and she has worked hard to ensure that immigrant integration is the cornerstone of their mission and the primary goal of all of their services.

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Employed immigrants, regardless of status or documents used to acquire employment, are required to file taxes. Service providers working with the foreign-born can offer tax assistance preparation and support as their clients work to fulfill this federal requirement. Those without a Social Security Number can apply for an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN) to use when filing taxes. Please see the federal government’s resources on applying for and using the ITIN below.

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Partnerships are a valuable tool for any organization looking to expand or strengthen services in the community. In a well-functioning partnership, all members contribute ideas to the group, coordinate dates and events so that all can participate, and mutually benefit from the partnership. There are several ways to establish a partnership and many tools to use that can help organize and manage the operations. This toolkit includes sample materials for managing a partnership, guidelines for working within a partnership, and tips on what to look for in a potential partner.

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The toolkit includes program planning documents, examples of currently operating workplace ELL programs, sample marketing materials, and other resources to assist in implementing a workplace ELL program

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The document discusses five state-level legislative initiatives that promote the integration of immigrants into our states and communities.

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Citizenship for Elders is a unique handbook for teachers and administrators on creating and managing a citizenship program for the older learner. This handbook brings together the observations and insights of teachers from across the country on older learners from a wide range of cultures. It is based on a nationwide survey of 200 programs. It identifies the issues in teaching elders and makes recommendations for instruction and program design. The recommendations are practice-based, with a focus on innovative and promising practices.

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The toolkit will be helpful to anyone seeking ways to better serve the foreign born as they prepare to naturalize.

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This presentation, which was first given in July 2008, gives an overview of Catholic social teaching on migration. Topics include:

  • Who is my neighbor? How can I be a neighbor?;
  • Principles of Catholic social teaching;
  • The dignity of the person and respect for life;
  • Community and the common good;
  • God-given rights and responsibilities;
  • Preferential option (decision) for the poor;
  • Dignity of work;
  • Solidarity and the human family;
  • Care for God's creation;
  • And much more.

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What is an ITIN?

ITIN stands for Individual Tax Identification Number. It is a nine-digit number issued by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to individuals who do not qualify for a Social Security Number (SSN). The ITIN always begins with the number 9 and has a 7 or 8 in the fourth digit. For example: 9XX-7X-XXXX.

An ITIN permits individuals without a valid Social Security Number (SSN) to:

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This web-based CLINIC training for refugee service providers offers organizations tools for developing their own efforts to increase refugee parent involvement in the school system.  The training explores the benefits and challenges of engaging refugee parents in the school system, ways organizations can promote refugee parent involvement in the schools, different models and approaches to parent involvem

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The purpose of this guide is to assist organizations that represent, serve, and advocate for refugees1 to think through various approaches to increasing civic participation in refugee communities, and to choose approaches and strategies that will work best for them. It provides
an overview of civic participation definitions, offers example of successful approaches, and identifies barriers to civic participation for refugees. Lastly, it offers suggestions for where to start, including questions to ask in planning a civic participation effort.

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The United States is experiencing historically unprecedented levels of immigration. As of March 2005, there were 37 million foreign-born persons in the United States, making up 12 percent of the population. Approximately 14 million immigrants arrived during the 1990s.2 From the early 1990s to 2000, the number of immigrants increased by 61 percent. Today, immigrants are changing the face of the cities in which they settle.