Immigration agency taps community leaders to promote citizenship

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has tapped eight advocates and community leaders across the country to encourage millions of green card holders to apply for citizenship, as part of an initiative set to roll out Tuesday.

A USCIS official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details about the effort, said the eight citizenship ambassadors, most of whom are naturalized citizens themselves, will receive training from the agency on the citizenship process and will partner with local field offices to improve outreach to immigrant communities.

The ambassadors, who are unpaid volunteers, may participate in USCIS-sponsored events and publish opinion pieces in foreign language publications encouraging immigrants to apply for citizenship, among other outreach activities, the official said.

Field offices “do a lot of outreach in their own right,” the official said, but “they can only be in certain places throughout the year.”

“Having this extra volunteer corps that can really help us get the word out, from our perspective, is really going to help us build up our naturalization promotion outreach work even further,” the official continued.