Knight Foundation puts $1.5 million toward citizenship efforts

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The Knight Foundation is contributing $1.5 million to help immigrants who are permanent residents complete the process to become U.S. citizens. The funds will boost the New Americans Campaign, a national network of legal service providers, in seven cities across the country where the Knight brothers once held newspapers, including Minnesota’s capital city.

The funds will allow the New Americans Campaign to submit at least 8,500 new naturalization applications per year in Akron, Ohio;  Charlotte, N.C.; Detroit; Miami; Philadelphia; San Jose, Calif.; and St. Paul. In St. Paul, the campaign works with the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota and the International Institute of Minnesota. The funds will help screen residents to ensure eligibility, and some money can be used toward citizenship application fees, which are $725.

“A lot of these legal permanent residents are individuals who have been in the country for many, many years but just haven’t taken that last step,” said Lilian Coral, Knight’s director for national strategy and technology innovation. “They’re Americans in many ways already. A lot of folks, they’re more American than apple pie.”

The grant also can be used to fund, test or replicate programs that help improve the application process. There are nearly nine million permanent residents living in the U.S., including more than 12,000 in St. Paul who would quality for citizenship, and 57,000 in the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington region, according to the New Americans Campaign.

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation was founded in 1940 as an educational fund for college students in the Akron area, and eventually expanded to other cities that were home to Knight Newspapers.

In 1974, Knight Newspapers merged with Ridder Publications to form the San Jose-based Knight-Ridder company, the second-largest newspaper publishing company in the country and the longtime publisher of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Knight-Ridder was bought in 2006 by McClatchy, which later that year sold the Pioneer Press to the MediaNews Group.

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