A prospective citizenship class participant takes the placement exam. Photo: CWS
Test your knowledge of U.S. history and government! Click here to take the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Naturalization Self Test! Then read about how Church World Service is helping refugees and other eligible immigrants prepare for the test.
Church World Service, with 36 refugee resettlement offices and affiliates in 21 states, perceived a need for more comprehensive classes to help naturalization candidates pass their citizenship test, and immigration legal services to help with the application.
To help meet the need, CWS applied for and won capacity building funding from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to pilot such classes and services at its Greensboro, N.C., office and Los Angeles, Calif., affiliate (Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Service).
Under this program, CWS’s New York-based education and legal specialists were able to work with staff on the ground locally to develop an intensive program that would meet both needs. Both sites now offer similar legal and educational services that have been well-received in each community.
Take CWS-Greensboro as a case in point. Now in its third year of welcoming refugees in the Triad region of Greensboro, High Point and Winston-Salem, N.C., the office launched its Citizenship Education and Naturalization Services Program in September.
The classes are open to refugees and other immigrants – many of them new to CWS – who are in the early or late stages of preparing for naturalization. The 14-week classes (85 hours of instruction per semester offered at three levels) combine basic English language literacy with intensive civics preparation. The program utilizes more than 30 volunteers who assist in the classroom and provide one-on-one and small group tutoring for students on non-class days.
In its first semester, the program saw more than 50 students. All of them improved from pre-testing to post-testing, especially on the 100 citizenship exam questions. Students who have gone on to take the exam said they knew what to expect and were prepared.
Five class members have passed the test and been sworn in as U.S. citizens, and many more will take the exam soon. Another 50 persons are “in the pipeline” to take the class. Intensive community outreach and educational sessions have helped make more immigrants aware of the benefits of citizenship and the options they may have to naturalize. Some of the clients in this program have been eligible for decades, but never had access to the information and services they needed to take the next step.
CWS found that, though its refugee new arrivals had access to legal assistance through a partnership with a local university’s humanitarian law clinic, immigrants who came through other channels and now wished to naturalize had very few credible places to turn, and even fewer they could afford.
Now those seeking immigration legal assistance are able to access it at less than 10 percent of the cost of a private attorney.