The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced the commencement of the application period for the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program.
The program, established 16 years ago, focuses on providing citizenship preparation resources, support, and information to immigrants and immigrant-serving organizations.
The program aims to assist legal immigrants in their journey toward naturalization and promote civic integration by enhancing their English proficiency, understanding of U.S. history, and knowledge of civics.
This year, USCIS aims to offer up to $10 million in grants to support citizenship preparation programs in communities nationwide. It anticipates granting awards to approximately 40 organizations, providing up to $300,000 each for a duration of two years, to enhance the accessibility of top-tier citizenship and integration services.
According to the official statement, the grant opportunity is open to public or nonprofit entities that offer both citizenship instruction and naturalization application services to lawful permanent residents. Interested organizations must submit their applications by Jun.21.
Since its inception in 2009, the USCIS Citizenship and Integration Grant Program has allocated $155 million across 644 grants to organizations serving immigrants. These grant recipients have delivered citizenship preparation services to over 300,000 immigrants in 41 states and the District of Columbia.
In fiscal year 2024, Congress provided funding through appropriations to enable USCIS to offer this funding opportunity to communities. USCIS anticipates announcing the recipients of these awards in September 2024.
“The announcement of the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program application period is always an exciting time for USCIS,” said USCIS Director Ur M. Jaddou. “Through this program, we empower organizations to help legal immigrants pursue citizenship. Our outreach efforts this year seek to ensure eligible organizations that focus on remote, underserved, or isolated communities are aware of USCIS funding opportunities and that grant funds are assisting more historically underserved communities.”
The primary objective of the grant program has typically been to offer citizenship instruction and application support to lawful permanent residents (LPRs). According to USCIS, recipients of the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program have encompassed a variety of organizations, including community and faith-based groups, public libraries, and adult education and literacy organizations.
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