Citizenship Rutgers (CR) is a university-wide legal assistance project housed at the Eagleton Program on Immigration and Democracy. CR brings free citizenship application assistance to qualified green card holders. Modeled on Citizenship NOW!, the immigration law project now in its 14th year at the City University of New York, Citizenship Rutgers is geared to the civic and political engagement of New Jersey's 500,000 green card holders. After hosting successful events on the New Brunswick, Newark, and Camden Campuses in Spring and Fall 2011, Citizenship Rutgers is coordinating a new round of application assistance drives across New Jersey in Spring 2012! The backbone of this initiative, critical to its success, is a core of experienced immigration lawyers as well as students, faculty and staff from across the Rutgers system and the state, volunteering their time to help their Legal Permanent Resident (LPR) neighbors become US citizens. With training and expertise from some of the nation’s foremost immigration experts, volunteer lawyers and law students from the Rutgers Schools of Law in Newark and Camden work alongside undergraduates, faculty and staff from all three campuses. A wide spectrum of Rutgers Schools and departments have also lent crucial assistance including the School of Management & Labor Relations, the School of Social Work, and the Center for Migration the Global City. Volunteers start their day with breakfast and a training session focused on the application itself. They are then assigned to various stations, depending on their skills and orientation. Participants benefit from the excellent networking opportunity for immigration law professionals and some of the best and brightest law students and alumni, as well as their like-minded colleagues. Still, they say, nothing beats the feeling of helping LPRs take a big step to citizenship. Thanks to Citizenship Rutgers, more than 250 individuals have already received citizenship application assistance where they benefit from top-caliber legal expertise and receive photos and copies required for their naturalization application. Citizenship Rutgers is an exciting new project that is helping qualified members of New Jersey's thriving immigrant communities become participate in our democratic government as full citizens under the law! Sign up to join our Volunteer Corps today! We look forward to meeting you!
