THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc. DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501280232 SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE LENGTH: Short : 37 lines
It's a new take on the Uncle Sam Wants You campaign. The government will launch a public relations drive this summer to recruit more legal immigrants to become U.S. citizens.
``It's in the country's interest,'' U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Commissioner Doris Meissner said Friday. ``Participation is the essence of a democracy, and citizenship is the basis of participation.''
If efforts to promote and streamline the naturalization process work as planned, about 650,000 people will take the citizenship oath this year, a 20 percent increase, Meissner said.
She made the patriotic pitch during an immigration law symposium at the University of Virginia.
Meissner said the agency has been fairly criticized for ignoring naturalization functions because of more urgent immigration problems.
``We need to be far more active on the national level. We need to put the `N' back into the INS,'' she said.
The INS began last year to woo immigrants to citizenship, believing it will help them integrate better into U.S. society and reduce anti-immigrant sentiment harbored by some Americans.
Promoting naturalization also improves the image of the INS, which is extremely unpopular in immigrant communities, Meissner said.
Resident aliens holding ``green cards'' enjoy all rights of U.S. citizens except they can't vote or run for office. by CNB