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The Citizenship and Integration Scholarship Program now has more funding

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) increased funding for organizations that help immigrants obtain citizenship.

These grant opportunities are open to organizations that prepare immigrants for naturalization and promote civic integration through increased English proficiency, U.S. history, and civic education. In addition to traditional programs that fund citizenship and English language classes, the 2022 grant opportunities have been expanded to include creative and innovative approaches.

This represents an increase of $10 million dollars; with this increase, $20 million dollars will be allocated this year to the Citizenship and Integration Scholarship Program.

Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas stated that: “Through our Citizenship and Integration Scholarship Program, we are helping to provide integration services to non-citizens on their path to becoming U.S. citizens.”.

The program supports various organizations with projects that help immigrants, and the resources are divided into four opportunities:
*Citizenship instruction and naturalization application services: This opportunity will fund public or non-profit organizations that provide citizenship instruction and naturalization application services to immigrants.

*Community and Regional Integration Network Scholarship: will provide extended integration services with a focus on individualized programming for certain immigrants who have entered the United States under different programs.

*Regional Center Program: is designed to fund regional or state citizen support networks that develop capacity among their affiliates or members to provide direct preparedness services.

*Citizenship Education Innovations Program: USCIS will award this type of grant to organizations that promote creative approaches to preparing immigrants for naturalization and encourage the civic, linguistic, and cultural integration of immigrants into their communities.

Please note that all applications must be submitted by August 5. Finally, the USCIS Citizenship and Integration Grant Program, in operation since 2009, has awarded 1,412 million pesos through 513 grants to organizations serving immigrants, providing citizenship preparation services to more than 300,000 immigrants in 39 states and the District of Columbia.

News report based on information from: USCIS

Do you want to migrate or legalize your status in the United States? Schedule a consultation at the following link. https://www.asisvisa.com/consulta-legal

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Delays in the delivery of citizenship

A massive backlog in the immigration service that, 18 months after President Joe Biden's arrival at the White House, has still not been resolved.

The coronavirus pandemic has also contributed to this delay due to the closure of offices for months. In addition, the implementation of the 'zero tolerance' immigration policy under the Trump administration has caused disruptions to the normal processing of these immigration procedures.

Despite the government's efforts to reduce the waiting time to become a U.S. citizen, an online tool from the immigration service (time processing) shows that in some offices the wait can still be up to 24 months, as in the office located in Christiansted, Virginia.

According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) website, processing time means: “The processing time shown on the USCIS website is the amount of time it took us to complete the 80% process for cases adjudicated in the last six months. Processing time is defined as the number of days (or months) that have elapsed between the date USCIS received an application or petition and the date USCIS completed the adjudication of the application or petition (i.e., approved or denied it).”

On the other hand, according to this tool, some of the cities where the process takes the longest are: Christiansted (24-month wait), Seattle (19 months), and New Orleans (18.5 months). Conversely, in these other cities, the wait times are somewhat shorter: Helena (10 months), Manchester (10.5 months), Portland (11 months), among others.

The delay is considerable, if one takes into account the time of governments like that of Barack Obama, where the estimated duration was 6 months.

It should be acknowledged that several factors influence the timeframes, including the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the perceived lack of personnel to meet demand, and the crisis at the border with Mexico.

In addition, in recent years there has been a notable increase in asylum cases of foreigners fleeing their countries mainly due to crime, violence, poverty, drug trafficking and the effects of climate change, all of which has been aggravated by the pandemic.

Finally, the solutions proposed so far have not had any effect; on the contrary, several sources say that there have been more delays and setbacks, for example, in the interviews.

News report based on information from: Univision and USCIS.