Citizenship Services staff and volunteers provide consultations and confidential assistance with applications for U.S. Citizenship. We provide help and support throughout the naturalization process: from an assessment of eligibility to assistance with the application form and documentation as well as interview preparation and beyond. We will also assist with passport applications and voter registration.

Citizenship Services also offers workshops in collaboration with other non-profits and community groups.

There are many benefits to becoming a U.S. Citizen. Among them:

• The right to vote in elections
• Protection from deportation
• Shorter wait times for beneficiaries of family petitions
• The ability to petition for additional family members - not only spouses and unmarried children, but married children, parents, and siblings
• Qualification for certain government benefits
• The ability to remain outside the U.S. for any length of time without risk of abandoning your right
  to residence
• Qualification for certain public offices, public jobs, and public contracts
• Derivative citizenship for your lawful permanent resident children who reside in the U.S. and are under 18 years of age

If you have any questions about applying for U.S. Citizenship or would like to begin the process, please contact Citizenship Specialist John Rattigan at (617) 542-7654 ext. 15, email jrattigan@iicenter.org, or attend one of our free legal clinics.

 

IIC clients are among the crowd of New Americans on Citizenship Day at Fenway Park.

"I wish I'd done it twenty years ago.  Now I'm phoning everyone telling them they should become a citizen.  I had my class with people from Ireland, Nigeria, Haiti, and Jamaica.  I liked that."

        ---Delia, IIC Irish Client and new American

Read about the bumpy road toward citizenship:

  Long wait expected to become U.S. citizen-- IIC in The Boston Globe