ACRS joins national ‘Naturalize 2 Million by 2022’ citizenship campaign

Asian Counseling and Referral Service (ACRS) has joined OneAmerica, the City of Seattle and King County, in collaboration with the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) and Cities for Citizenship (C4C), to launch the “Naturalize 2 Million by 2022,” a national campaign to encourage two million eligible permanent residents to obtain their citizenship by the end of 2022.  

The collaboration was announced in a joint news conference at Seattle City Hall on Wednesday.

Over nine million permanent residents are potentially eligible for citizenship nationwide. The state of Washington has over 190,000 permanent residents potentially eligible to naturalize, and more than 113,000 of them live in the Seattle metropolitan area. Their naturalization would provide access to better-paying jobs, academic scholarships, and a myriad of benefits, but the process is difficult.

“There’s a lot of work that goes into helping people naturalize. The N-400 (the application for naturalization) is complicated and 20 pages long,” ACRS Citizenship and Employment Director Alexandra Olins shared in the news conference. “Many people cannot do this work on their own. The process is complicated, it’s intimidating and they need someone they can trust to help them along the way.”

ACRS’ Citizenship and Immigration Services Program offers a myriad of services to support eligible immigrants through the naturalization process and provide educational materials and resources to complete the U.S. citizenship test successfully.  This includes virtual citizenship clinics offered monthly that goes through the application process, fee waiver assistance  monthly virtual classes,  bilingual and English classes, English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, and mock interview practice. 

As part of the “Naturalize 2 Million by 2022” campaign, NPNA has partnered with dozens of cities, counties, and over 50 immigrant and refugee advocacy organizations throughout the nation to educate and empower eligible permanent residents to become citizens. The campaign’s naturalization effort will build momentum for “New American Voters 2022,” a digital campaign that encourages millions of newly naturalized citizens to vote in the upcoming elections.

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