U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) offers grants related to immigration every year through the Citizenship and Integration Grant Program. The agency has now announced a new grant opportunity and has started accepting applications for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 grant program.
USCIS will provide up to $10 million in funding to pubic or non-profit organizations that will offer citizenship instruction and naturalization application services to legal permanent residents (green card holders). Organizations that promote immigrant civic integration and help green card holders to prepare for U.S. citizenship can take part in this program by filing their applications by May 16, 2014.
USCIS is likely to announce up to 40 grant recipients by September 2014. This program helps USCIS provide high-quality citizenship preparation services to immigrants by providing grants to organizations that help immigrants with their naturalization applications and offer citizenship instruction.
This program was established in the year 2009 and since then USCIS has offered more than $33 million in grants to organizations that have helped immigrants prepare for the English and civics components of the naturalization test and supported them in the naturalization process. 182 grants have so far been offered and this program has benefited more than 78,000 green card holders in 33 American states. Green card holders received the support they needed, to learn English and civics and to understand the U.S. citizenship rights and responsibilities, from those organizations.
Organizations serving immigrants and looking to receive grants need to file their applications as soon as possible. They can obtain information on this program by visiting the USCIS grants page. Groups and communities across the U.S. that are committed to helping eligible green card holders to apply for U.S. citizenship by providing citizenship classes and other services can compete for the grant funding.