Purpose
With a strong belief that we cannot build an inclusive economy without an inclusive democracy, the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center is committed to a robust and collaborative community integration campaign targeting all immigrant communities in Maine. The Community Integration Initiative intends to proactively support Maine’s immigrants in engaging in the civic processes that carry such high stakes for their lives. The Community Integration Initiative has three main components:
Citizenship Assistance Fund
There are 11,000+ immigrants eligible for citizenship in Maine. Through canvassing and community partnerships, we will find and reach this population to connect them to financial, translation, legal, and administrative support to help them with the citizenship application process.
Your Vote Matters Campaign
While we view civic engagement broadly, we will begin with a strong emphasis on the right to vote. There are currently 36,000 immigrants in Maine eligible or close to eligible to vote -- 25,000 who are already citizens and the 11,000 mentioned above. We will canvas and leverage community partnerships to register voters and get them to the polls. For Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV), we will focus on collective opportunities for early in-person absentee voting through mosques, churches, community associations, and other trusted community hubs. Non-voters will participate in all programming as we build an increasingly prepared and aware pipeline of future voters and civic participants.
Capacity Building
All campaign work will be performed with the intent to build long-term capacity and infrastructure for ever-growing expansion of this work.