Mixed messages for immigrants in the National Budget

President Obama’s FY2012 federal spending bill includes two conflicting proposals for immigrant integration. On one hand, the President’s proposed $19.75 million for the Office of Citizenship marks an increase of $1.76 million compared with FY11 (which the GOP-controlled House of Representatives wants to completely eliminate). This is a critical commitment to helping already-integral legal permanent residents to fully participate in our civic life and democratic process by becoming US Citizens.

On the other hand, the President proposed deep cuts to Community Service Block Grants (CSBG), which has been the federal government’s only comprehensive approach to address the needs of economically vulnerable residents – helping immigrants and citizens get the services they need to recover from the recession. A cut in CSBG spending will decimate successful and fiscally-efficient programs such as the Action for Boston Community Development (ABCD) and Tri-City Community Action Program (Tri-Cap) in Malden. These programs, along with the 1000+ agencies across 99 percent of U.S. counties, together retained over 18,000 jobs, and help provide critical support in employment, workforce training, housing, utilities, child care, disabilities services, etc.

MIRA and other immigrant advocates welcome the Office of Citizenship funding, with which it will continue the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program, fee reform, public awareness initiative. The funding can also expand the Citizenship Resource Center, establish regional Citizenship outreach officers, and advance civics and literacy education programs.

However, without economic security, which the defunding of Community Action agencies undermines, it will encumber the naturalization process for many working- and middle-class legal permanent residents. While acquiring citizenship is in many ways a milestone for immigrant integration, the federal government’s role in improving economic security, community development and workforce training needs to go hand in hand to comprehensively integrate New Americans into our social, economic and civic future.

Another Successful New Americans Agenda Meeting - March 18th in Fitchburg

The sixth and final New Americans Agenda (NAA) community forum took place on Wednesday, March 18th in Fitchburg, MA. Over 150 people attended the lively meeting, which saw testimony from immigrants, immigrant advocates, elected officials, and other testifiers, including the chief of police in Fitchburg, who spoke of the need to provide undocumented immigrants with driver's licenses to increase public safety.

The series of meetings has been well attended with people from all over the Commonwealth providing a broad range of recommendation to ease the integration of immigrants into all facets of life in Massachusetts. The result of the public and policy expert meetings will be a report delivered to Governor Patrick in July with actionable recommendations for departments and agencies across state government. The NAA is the result of an executive order signed by Patrick in July of last year.