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BY CARLA K. JOHNSON
Associated Press Writer | Tuesday, February 22, 2005 | (No comments posted.)
CHICAGO | Illinois has launched a $3 million initiative to help more legal immigrants become U.S. citizens.
Forty-eight private agencies, mostly in Cook County and Chicago's suburbs, will get state money from the New Americans Initiative to reach out to immigrants and help them apply for citizenship.
At a news conference Monday in Chicago, organizers screened a Spanish-language TV ad promoting the program. Ads in Polish, Chinese and Korean also will air.
The agencies will get $2.35 million this fiscal year to provide English classes, citizenship classes and legal counseling to would-be citizens, said initiative co-director Diego Bonesatti.
The rest of the $3 million will go toward the TV ads, a Web site and developing a database of immigrants in the program that could be used to track income levels and demographics, Bonesatti said.
Of the 1.5 million immigrants in Illinois, only 600,000 -- or 40 percent -- are U.S. citizens, organizers said.
Not all are eligible for citizenship. But about 340,000 legal immigrants in Illinois were eligible for citizenship in 2002 and had not attained it.
Initiative organizers hope to bring citizenship to 20,000 immigrants a year for three years.
The initiative will hold its first workshops Saturday in Arlington Heights, Aurora, Chicago, Joliet, Waukegan and West Chicago. Later workshops will be held in Bloomington, Champaign-Urbana and Streator.
The stress of taking a test and limited English skills are two key barriers that prevent older immigrants from pursuing citizenship, said Jan Wiktor Soroco, who teaches English to immigrants at the Polish American Association in Chicago.
"If you have to take the exam in your second language at the age of 60, it can be really tough," Soroco said.
There is a $390 filing fee for citizenship, a barrier that will not be addressed by the new program.
The state has contracted with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights to oversee the program.
Anyone seeking information on the workshops can call (877) 792-1500.
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