MIAMI – Florida New Americans clinics are back in 2014 with a series of monthly free citizenship clinics from March until June to assist hundreds of South Floridians in their pathway to citizenship. The first clinic will take place on Saturday, March 1 at Biscayne Landing Local Preference Office in North Miami, in partnership with the Haitian American Chamber of Commerce of Florida.
Every month, Florida New Americans partners with organizations in Miami-Dade and Broward to provide Legal Permanent Residents (LPRs) a chance to apply for citizenship with the support of volunteers, interpreters, BIA accredited paralegals, law students, and pro bono lawyers.
The clinics come right on time before this year’s midterm elections and the new changes in the application process. LPRs who apply in the beginning of the year, will have better chances to become citizens and register to vote in time for the elections in November.
Also, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) issued a revision of the existing N-400 application which will start to be mandatory in early May. The revised forms will now make the process incredibly tedious for millions of green card holders eligible for citizenship. At our citizenship clinics, we can help LPR’s submit their citizenship application by providing a step by step guidance for their path to citizenship.
“Less than 10% of eligible Floridians apply for citizenship, mainly due to of lack of resources to pay the high cost of the application, don’t receive proper guidance during the application process or where they can improve their language skills,” said Krystina Francois, Citizenship Coordinator for the Florida Immigrant Coalition.
Full schedule:
March 1, 2014 11am- 2pm
Biscayne Landing Local Preference Office
2200 NE 143 Street
North Miami, FL 33181
April 5, 2014 11am-2pm
St. Thomas University Law School
16401 NW 37 Ave
Miami Gardens, FL 33054
May 31, 2014 11am-2pm
Miami Dade College Wolfson
Building 3 Chapman Hall
300 NE 2nd Ave
Miami, FL 33132
June 16, 2014 11am-2pm
Broward College South Campus
7200 Pines Blvd
Pembroke Pines, FL 33024
