NPNA’s Legal Services Collective (LSC), a network of NPNA members leading immigration legal services, is the largest immigrant rights legal services network in the United States consisting of 150 attorneys, DOJ-accredited staff, and nearly 12,000 trained community navigators who reach and assist over 320,000 immigrants each year. The LSC provides legal services and information ranging from citizenship applications, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) renewals, screening for immigration relief, deportation defense, and community education. These services ensure immigrants are equipped with accurate information and reliable legal support provided by trusted organizations in their community. The LSC bridges services and organizing to build power, develop leaders, drive campaigns, and strengthen immigration legal services across the country.
Programs
Cities & Counties for Citizenship
Cities & Counties for Citizenship is a major national initiative of 117 cities and counties aimed at increasing citizenship among eligible U.S. permanent residents and encouraging cities and counties across the country to invest in citizenship programs. CC4C is chaired by the Mayors of New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Seattle with the support of the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA).
Programs
English as a Gateway
English as a Gateway is a national model and strategy to expand English language acquisition in the United States with NPNA members who are leading immigrant rights coalitions across the country through policy and programmatic efforts.
Programs Component
After a successful pilot of English Innovations in 2011-2013 led by OneAmerica, this close partnership with NPNA has allowed for the expansion of the English language acquisition program nationwide. The English as a Gateway Initiative aims to build English infrastructure through policy and resource development; a tested and scalable English language instruction component – “English Innovations”; and, creative integration of digital and technology-based learning through Community Navigators.
1800+
students assisted through direct english language instruction since March 2020
150
students plugged into community engagement, all through a remote learning environment
23
NPNA members engaged in English as a Gateway through English Instruction,Community Navigators, or advocacy efforts
Policy Component
Alongside the programmatic arm, NPNA prioritizes the language justice advocacy taking place at the local, state, and federal levels. The NPNA Language Access Working Group was launched in Spring 2022, bringing together language access advocates within organizations, municipalities, and agencies to strategize current and anticipated language access campaigns and advocacy and build community and relationships across partners to support and win local, state and national efforts around language access. Over 120 advocates have participated in the quarterly meetings, including the culminating National Language Access Convening, which took place at the NPNA’s National Immigrant Inclusion Conference.
For more information contact Melissa Holguin Pineda at melissa@partnershipfornewamericans.org
Programs
Climate Justice Collaborative
Immigrant communities are on the frontlines of nearly every aspect of the climate crisis as it reshapes our economy, politics, and lives. In the United States, immigrant communities are among those hit first and worst by climate impacts and extreme weather. Too often our communities are left behind or left out of disaster recovery, adaptation efforts, and excluded from the emerging green economy. Globally, climate change is already one of the largest root causes of migration, with three times more people displaced by weather-related disasters than conflict in 2020.
As climate change accelerates, so too does the global trend towards authoritarianism. When immigrants are discussed in the context of climate change, it is most often as the threat of billions of climate migrants arriving in the Global North. When climate-displaced people are painted as a bigger threat than climate change, nativist political movements can propel and popularize authoritarian solutions to the climate crisis, like increased border militarization or dismantling the right to seek asylum.
Immigrant rights organizations must join the movement to win major action to slow climate change and mitigate its impacts. Our response to the climate crisis can instead strengthen multiracial democracy and increase prosperity for all. We can organize in response to the increasing impacts of climate change with a vision for climate action rooted in abundance, compassion, and pluralism.
That’s why in 2022 we launched the Climate Justice Collaborative – to build the capacity of the immigrant justice movement to join the fight for climate justice and to defend the rights of people displaced by the climate crisis. We can fight to ensure that climate policy is inclusive of immigrants, that immigrant and other frontline communities are protected from the worst impacts of climate change, and that the U.S. is a global leader on preparing for and welcoming migrants displaced by climate change.
