Citizenship Day

Citizenship Day 2008

Firm Partner Cynthia Irvine, in her capacity as the Pro Bono Committee Co-Chairperson of the Washington State Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, is one of leaders in charge of organizing Citizenship Day 2008. “Citizenship Day” is an event that consists of free legal workshops taking place in 8 locations throughout the state of Washington on April 19, 2008. These workshops provide low-cost legal assistance to state residents who are eligible for U.S. citizenship.

Citizenship Day 2008 will be staffed by over 60 volunteer immigration attorneys and over 85 other community volunteers who will prepare citizenship applications for the low fee of only $20 to cover costs.

Recent developments and initiatives regarding immigration issues are encouraging permanent residents to seek citizenship as soon as they can. Each year, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, from all corners of the globe, embrace the ideals of freedom and democracy and become United States citizens.

Immigration Law is an extremely complex area of law and has been compared in complexity to the extremely complicated area of U.S. tax law. Yet thousands of immigrants each year put themselves at risk every year receiving poor advice from non-
lawyer “immigrant consultants” or “notarios”. The legal consequences of such poor advice can be deportation, permanent expulsion from the United States and permanent separation from close family members.

Unfortunately, access to low-cost legal services is extremely limited in Washington State. Therefore, the goal of this Citizenship workshop is to provide access to competent legal advice for those who could usually not afford it and to attempt to meet the tremendous need to provide such services to the immigrant community.

Cynthia looks forward to the culmination of her efforts and those of her other committee chairpersons and all of the attorney and community volunteers on April 19th and assisting literally hundreds of people realize their American Dream of applying for U.S. citizenship. Our attorneys at Hanis Irvine Prothero are committed to serving the needs of all members of our community and are actively involved in providing legal pro bono and volunteer services to those in need.