Through OoC, USCIS manages the programs and activities within DHS that are most directly associated with the civic integration of immigrants. Created by the Homeland Security Act of 2002, OoC’s mandate is to promote instruction and training on citizenship responsibilities for immigrants interested in becoming naturalized citizens of the United States. To accomplish this, OoC competitively awards grants to help immigrant-serving organizations implement citizenship preparation programs aimed at promoting civic integration through naturalization; conducts outreach and public education activities to promote and raise awareness of citizenship and immigrant integration; and develops educational resources on the naturalization process for lawful permanent residents and organizations that help prepare immigrants for citizenship. Outreach activities may include providing technical assistance to providers of citizenship education services; conducting training workshops for adult educators and volunteers on how to prepare immigrants for citizenship; making presentations to educate and inform immigrants about the process of becoming a U.S. citizen; and attending conferences, organizing special naturalization ceremonies, and participating in public events to help promote an awareness of citizenship and immigrant integration. Table 1 summarizes USCIS’s programs and activities that aim to support the citizenship aspect of immigrant integration and the goals for those programs and activities. To implement its immigrant integration programs and activities, OoC uses funds from two sources—funds that are provided through the appropriations process and funds that are allocated from USCIS’s Immigration Examinations Fee Account. This account consists of fees that USCIS collects from persons filing for immigration benefits (for example, the fees charged to persons who file for naturalization) and deposits into the fee account. As shown in table 2, OoC uses (1) appropriated funds to support its grant program, including the grant awards, grant program staff salaries and other grant administration expenses, as well as citizenship public education and awareness activities and (2) fee account funds for non-grant program staff salaries and expenses, and activities including citizenship educational materials development and dissemination, teacher training, naturalization test implementation, and other operational expenses. Importantly, nearly half of OoC’s budget over the past 3 years—$19.8 million of $42.6 million (46 percent)—was allocated to its grant program, which includes the funds awarded and program administration and operational expenses for the grant program. In addition to OoC’s immigrant integration activities, USCIS’s Office of Public Engagement and community relations officers within USCIS’s district and field offices devote a portion of their time to conducting citizenship-related outreach activities. Specifically, the Office of Public Engagement assists OoC with carrying out its citizenship outreach initiatives on a national level and, at the local level, USCIS districts are required each quarter to conduct at least one citizenship-related outreach activity in the form of a naturalization information session. Providing immigrant integration support to immigrants is a multifaceted effort that is dispersed across governmental and nongovernmental sectors. At the federal level, a wide array of federal programs provide assistance to immigrants and support various aspects of immigrant integration, but those programs are not specifically categorized as directly supporting integration. Based on data that the Office of Management and Budget collected in September 2010, 13 federal agencies across the federal government reported offering a total of 79 programs that either directly or indirectly supported immigrant integration. These federal agencies self-identified programs they perceived as supporting immigrant integration because, according to OoC, there is no standard programmatic definition for immigrant integration. As part of OoC’s review of these data, it placed these 79 programs into four categories it identified as broad areas of immigrant integration, as shown in table 3. The federal programs reported providing immigrant integration support by, among other things, making grants, establishing partnerships, and providing direct services. Civic integration included OoC’s citizenship programs; economic integration included refugee resettlement assistance provided by the Department of Health and Human Services; and linguistic integration included English language acquisition grants provided to states by the Department of Education. The data do not represent all federal programs that support immigrant integration and do not provide a complete estimate of federal funding because a number of programs did not report a funding amount. Additionally, agency officials self-identified the programs they perceived as supporting integration.information collected by the Office of Management and Budget included some programs that served the general population but included immigrant populations as a subset. For example, the Department of Agriculture’s National School Lunch Program offers low-cost or free lunches to children from low-income families, which includes immigrants and nonimmigrants. Further, the Additional examples of federal, state, and local immigrant integration programs and efforts are described in appendix II. From 2008 to 2011, OoC reported conducting more than 300 significant outreach events to promote citizenship awareness and civic integration and establish partnerships with governmental and nongovernmental organizations to help encourage immigrants’ civic integration. Significant outreach efforts could include conferences, special naturalization ceremonies organized by OoC, meetings and training events, and presentations to encourage immigrants to become more integrated into American civic culture. Based on OoC’s fiscal year 2011 quarterly reports, examples of its significant outreach activities included meetings with representatives from the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition to discuss state and local immigrant integration initiatives and discussions with the Colorado African Organization on OoC’s tools and how they could be used to promote citizenship and immigrant integration. OoC also met with the National League of Cities’ to discuss how OoC can provide support in their efforts to promote citizenship and immigrant integration. OoC reported that since fiscal year 2008, it has held 86 citizenship education training workshops for nearly 6,000 adult educators and volunteers working with immigrants across the country. OoC training workshops are designed to enhance the skills needed to teach U.S. history, civics, and the naturalization process to immigrant students. For the 36 requests for training workshops that OoC reported receiving in fiscal year 2011, it conducted 32 training workshops across 22 states.fiscal year 2011, as part of its Citizenship Public Education and Awareness Initiative, OoC launched public service announcements to raise awareness about the rights, responsibilities, and importance of U.S. citizenship and the free educational tools and resources available to help eligible permanent residents prepare for citizenship. In addition to OoC, the community relations officers in USCIS district and field offices conduct citizenship outreach. USCIS field offices reported that during fiscal year 2011, they held 444 naturalization information sessions for more than 22,600 attendees. All representatives we interviewed from 18 governmental and nongovernmental organizations, including grantees and subgrantees, told us that USCIS’s naturalization information sessions have helped reach lawful permanent residents eligible to naturalize and influenced their preparation for and decision to become citizens. USCIS has also sponsored special naturalization ceremonies across the country, and since 2006, it has partnered with the National Park Service to hold ceremonies at 22 national park sites. OoC offers a variety of free publications and web-based resources to educate immigrants on the citizenship and naturalization process; help adult educators and organizations prepare immigrants for acquiring citizenship; and help facilitate a smoother transition for immigrants into their communities. Some examples of the publications and web-based resources offered by OoC and agencies with which OoC has formed partnerships to develop and enhance these resources are provided in table 4. As of August 2011, OoC reported distributing over 29,000 copies of its Civics and Citizenship Toolkit. In March 2010, OoC distributed the Toolkit to all public libraries in the City of Los Angeles to help librarians assist eligible immigrants who are seeking naturalization. This effort was part of the partnership between OoC and the City of Los Angeles to promote citizenship and civic integration. All representatives we interviewed from 18 governmental and nongovernmental organizations, including grantees and subgrantees serving immigrants, told us that they have used OoC’s publications to provide immigrants with information on becoming U.S. citizens and getting settled in the United States. Some also told us that they rely on OoC’s educational resources to provide consistent information to immigrants on the naturalization process, and some grant recipients include them in their English and citizenship classes. Some also stated that USCIS’s redesign of the naturalization test and OoC’s naturalization test study materials have helped immigrants prepare for naturalization and relate to basic concepts about the structure of government and American history. Additionally, several of the local government officials we spoke to indicated that because their offices often serve as clearinghouses for immigrant communities and refer individuals to local services or community-based organizations to assist them with various aspects of immigrant integration, including citizenship, they often access USCIS’s Citizenship Resource Center website for information when responding to immigrant requests for assistance on the naturalization process. Through OoC’s Citizenship and Integration Grant Program, which provides support for citizenship education and naturalization preparation, USCIS aims to help immigrants become civically integrated members of their communities. USCIS officials told us that the agency’s role in immigrant integration is limited to involvement in civic integration, with programs and initiatives designed to support immigrants on the path to citizenship, because USCIS has no legislative directive mandating it to support other aspects of integration. Further, OoC officials told us that the agency faces uncertainty from year to year as to whether the program will continue to exist, as the grant program has no authorizing statute and operates under annual DHS appropriations. With funding in fiscal years 2009 through 2011, OoC provided grants to a myriad of governmental and nongovernmental organizations, including public school systems, community colleges, community and faith-based organizations, adult education organizations, public libraries, and literacy organizations, under the following grant categories: Direct Services Grant – Citizenship Instruction Only. This grant provides funding to help grantees prepare lawful permanent residents for the civics and English (reading, writing, and speaking) components of the naturalization test.