PCC gets federal grant for citizenship classes

By Brady McCombs Arizona Daily Star |
September 21, 2010 11:34 am
Jill Torrance/Arizona Daily Star

Pima Community College will receive $100,000 from a federal grant program to expand its citizenship classes for legal permanent residents.

The College will use the funds to enroll 200 legal permanent residents in eight new citizenship education classes, according to a news release from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The college has been offering citizenship classes for 15 years, but this is the first time it has received funding from the two-year old grant, said Paul Schwalbach, marketing and public relations coordinator at Pima Community College. Currently, the college has 12 citizenship classes at its three centers, three libraries and one Tucson Unified School District school, he said.

Under the grant, Citizenship and Immigration Services is giving out $7.8 million to 75 organizations across the country for citizenship education classes for fiscal year 2010, which starts on Oct. 1, according to an agency press release. Last year, the agency awarded $1.2 million in grants to 13 organizations across the country.

The goal is to help legal permanent residents who are in line to become citizens improve their English and learn about the history of the U.S. and its government to better prepare them for citizenship.

Pima Community College is one of two programs in Arizona to receive funds this year: the International Rescue Committee in Phoenix will get $100,000 to expand citizenship classes for legal permanent residents from Somalia, Burundi, Cuba, Iraq and Mexico, the Citizenship Services press release says.

To become a U.S. citizen, a person must be a legal permanent resident and have lived in the U.S. continously for five years. If the person became a legal permanent resident because they married a U.S. citizen, they can usually become a citizen after only three years if they choose.

In fiscal year 2009, more than 743,700 people became naturalized U.S. citizens, including 12,377 in Arizona. Those numbers were down from the record-breaking fiscal 2008, when more than 1 million people became citizens nationwide, including 24,055 in Arizona. Through June of fiscal 2010, 442,453 people had become citizens nationwide, including 9,299 in Arizona.

Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com.
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There was just a citizenship ceremony in Tucson last week that I wrote about: Saguaro Nat'l Park West hosts special ceremony.

You can find lot of good information about how many people become citizens each year, their countries of origin and where they live in the United States at the Department of Homeland Security's Yearbook of Immigration Statistics.

http://azstarnet.com/news/blogs/border- ... 002e0.html