Citizenship Assistance Event to be held in Cornelius this Saturday

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 14, 2012

CONTACT:
Francisco Lopez, Executive Director, (503) 269-5694
Erik Sorensen, Communications Director, (503) 488-0263

Citizenship Assistance Event to be held in Cornelius this Saturday

Salem, Ore.-- This Saturday, Causa Oregon will hold it's first in a series of Citizenship Assistance Events with the experience and support of local partners and the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA). The event is part of a national Citizenship Campaign.

Similar efforts are taking place in California, Washington, Colorado, Tennessee, Wisconsin, Florida, New York, Illinois, Maryland, and Massachusetts. NPNA represents the eleven largest immigrant rights coalitions and organizations working on immigrant integration in the US.

Causa is taking action to help Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) in Oregon because as a Naturalized Citizen, individuals will be able to vote in elections, serve on juries, be elected to public office, have the ability to be involved in government decisions, and have ability to sponsor family members to immigrate to the United States, just to name a few.

With the new Citizenship Program, Causa aims to assist 125 eligible Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) with legal review of their N-400 application and provide general citizenship outreach to 4,000 eligible LPR's across the State of Oregon.
To maximize our outreach efforts, Causa is partnering with community organizations and local ethnic media. Local legal service providers will also provide technical assistance and legal overview for group processing events.

There are three (3) upcoming events in Oregon that Causa is coordinating with SOAR Immigration Legal Services-- a branch of Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon (EMO), Immigration Counseling Services (ICS) and the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA). They are as follows:

Cornelius
March 17th, 10 AM
United Methodist Church
1095 South Beech St.
Cornelius, Oregon

NE Portland
April 28th, 10 AM
St. Matthews Episcopal Church
11229 NE Prescott St.
Portland, Oregon

Salem
June 2nd, 10 AM
First Congregational
United Church of Christ
700 Marion St. NE
Salem, Oregon

For more questions about Causa's Citizenship Program, please contact program coordinator Luis Guerra at luis(at)causaoregon.org or at Causa's hotline at: 855-884-2287

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Causa, Oregon's Immigrant Rights Organization, is the largest Latino and Latina civil and human rights and advocacy organization in the Pacific Northwest. We work to defend and advance immigrant rights through coordination with local, state, and national coalitions and allies. For more information, visit http://www.causaoregon.org/

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New Report Challenges DHS on Use of Resources and Targeting of Harmless Individuals

The American Immigration Lawyers Association has just released a new report challenging the claim made by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that it is focusing its finite resources on the "highest enforcement priorities" - namely those who present threats to public safety and national security.

AILA's report, Immigration Enforcement Off Target: Minor Offenses With Major Consequences, shows 127 cases where people all over America being picked up by police for minor offences like loitering or failing to signal before changing lanes. Others have even been picked up for no offences at all.

According to AILA, the stops were so trivial as to betray the real motive for the stop—namely to question someone about their immigration status. None of the people were stopped or charged for anything that could be considered a “serious crime.” In a few cases, police said they made the stop because the person “looked illegal.”

For more on the report and AILA’s recommendations for DHS, please link here: http://immigrationimpact.com/2011/08/17/new-report-shows-dhs-way-off-target-going-after-harmless-individuals/

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, and advance the quality of immigration law practice.

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Bill to Reunite Families Reintroduced in Congress

On Wednesday, US senators reintroduced bill that would bring together immigrant families who are torn apart for years due to a severe backlog.

As the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) had to say in their press release, the Reuniting Families Act would place a priority in helping legal immigrants reunite with their families and end decade-long waiting times for legal immigrant visas.

AILA stated that the legislation would reinforce the commitment to families and reduce current wait times in the family immigration system by:

- Helping an estimated 322,000 spouses and children under the age of 21 of lawful permanent residents who are waiting in line to reunite with their families by reclassifying them as immediate relatives

- Addressing the decades-long backlogs for certain countries by raising the per-country immigration limits from 7 percent to 10 percent of total admissions

- Protecting widows, widowers and orphans by allowing them to continue to wait in line for a visa after the death of the sponsoring relative.

- Recapturing an estimated 400,000 family-sponsored and employment-based visas that went unused between 1992 and 2007.

- Respecting the contribution of Filipino World War II veterans by reducing their children's waiting times for an immigrant visa.

- Promoting family unity by allowing more people who are already eligible for an immigrant visa to efficiently use our legal family immigration system.

- Providing equal treatment for stepchildren and biological children by allowing stepchildren under the age of 21 to immigrate upon their parents' marriage (current age limit is 18).

In a statement to the Associated Press, Senator Menendez, a co-sponsor of the bill, said that “the United States had "clear societal and economic reasons" to put a priority on reuniting families”.

Menendez finished by saying that, "Strong, unified immigrant families help maintain stable communities and tend to work hard, pay taxes and start businesses that create jobs.”

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