In 2006, more than 4 million immigrants and their allies marched and spoke out for the rights and dignity of their communities. In the aftermath of these unprecedented mobilizations, a diverse alliance of immigrant rights organizations in the Chicago Metropolitan Area joined together to create the New Americans Democracy Project of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, and nationally fourteen respected organizations (including ICIRR) created the We Are America Alliance.
Using demographic and electoral data, the Democracy Project and Alliance have developed a shared list of priority program areas and goals for citizenship, voter registration, voter education and voter turnout that extends through 2008 and beyond. They have developed a map of the immigrant civic participation work that needs to be done locally and nationally, and have collaborated on a plan for action that involves coordinating and reducing overlap. Representatives of Alliance members will be sharing the results of this process to date at the discussion.
In the past several years the New Americans Democracy Project has directly assisted more than 53,000 immigrants to register to vote and more than 30,000 legal immigrants to apply for U.S. citizenship. In 2008, the Democracy Project will employ 20 youth to register 20,000 new voters and assist 5,000 immigrants apply for citizenship.
PRESENTERS
Introductions: Larry Ottinger, Ottinger Foundation
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