A new initiative has been announced by the USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas and the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa. According to the new initiative, information and resources related to US citizenship, will be made available for the local immigrant population in Los Angeles. Local public libraries will be provided with citizenship resources and the library staff will be trained by the USCIS. This process will strengthen the efforts of the USCIS towards integrating the local immigrant population.
According to the USCIS Director, this step will allow the immigrants of Los Angeles to get access to various citizenship resources and information about the naturalization process. They need not go to a USCIS office to gather such information as this new initiative will allow the immigrants to get the information in the local libraries in Los Angeles. Director Mayorkas also said that, USCIS is proud to join Mayor Villaraigosa to implement this initiative that will support immigrants who wish to become US citizens.
Through the new initiative, the library staff will be trained on the USCIS resources that are available and on the naturalization process. Citizenship corners containing citizenship resources, will be set up in the libraries and some space will be allotted in the libraries for that purpose. There are certain non-profit systems that provide naturalization assistance in the local community. People who require assistance can obtain a list of such systems from the libraries.
This initiative will also help the immigrants to prepare for the English component of the naturalization interview. Community rooms in the public libraries will be designated especially for English classes. Los Angeles is the second largest American city and immigrants from more than 140 countries are found to live in this city. Moreover, there are around 3.4 million Green Card holders in California and around 2.5 million of them are eligible for US Citizenship through naturalization.
Mayor Villaraigosa said that this initiative will educate the immigrants in the community and through this the libraries will also become US citizenship information centers. This is an excellent opportunity that will help the immigrants and their families to become citizens of the United States.