Availability of the new American Legion Citizenship Outreach Guide

Subject:         Availability of the new American Legion Citizenship Outreach Guide

Helping lawful immigrants prepare for citizenship and assimilation into American society has been a longstanding and proud tradition of The American Legion since our founding.  Legion posts are recognized for having a leadership role in community betterment, and as such, are well suited to provide a welcoming and trusted space for immigrant communities.  In Washington D.C. last fall, National Commander Helm met with the Chief of Staff for the Office of Citizenship at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the government agency that oversees lawful immigration into the United States.  Commander Helm returned from that meeting extremely enthused at the opportunities available to Legion posts in local communities throughout the nation for engaging in close collaboration with USCIS to promote and support the naturalization process for immigrants seeking the lawful path to citizenship.

To that end, the Americanism Commission is proud to announce availability of a newly developed Citizenship Outreach Guide that is conveniently accessible under the Americanism section of the Publications webpage on the Legion website at www.legion.org/publications .  The guide is chocked full of ideas, guidance and web links to online information and resources for collaborating with USCIS in the planning of naturalization activities.  National Commander Helm and the Americanism Commission urge you to share this with your district and post commanders, and further ask that you strongly encourage them to become actively involved.

You are also invited to encourage your posts or districts having an event in their community to share their story with national headquarters staff by emailing   immigration-citizenship@legion.org .  Thank you for your support of this important outreach initiative.  Assimilating immigrants seeking the lawful path to citizenship into American culture and life stream is in the best interest of our communities, states and nation.

RICHARD W. ANDERSON

Chairman, Americanism Commission