New Citizen Outreach 

 

We are very excited to have received a $750.00 grant from the LWV Education Fund to support outreach to new American citizens in 2025! We are seeking volunteers to help with this program!

Traditionally, one of the more inspirational programs of the League was addressing new citizens following their Naturalization Ceremonies at the Fayette County Courthouse. Our organization was given a few moments to speak about the rights and responsibilities of American citizens and to wish them well. After the ceremony, we helped these new Americans register to vote.  Unfortunately, these ceremonies were discontinued during the Covid19 epidemic and have not resumed in Lexington. While we hope that local naturalization ceremonies will begin again, we are finding other ways to reach out to new Americans.

LWV of Lexington continues to collaborate with Global Lex in the Mayor’s Office, New Americans Initiative, and Neighbors Immigration Clinic on registering “new Americans” (naturalized citizens) to vote.

We are making plans to conduct voter registration and outreach at several community events in 2025, including:

LWV of Lexington has volunteered to attend Know Your Rights presentations to be organized by our partner organizations. These presentations are intended to address fears among immigrant communities in Lexington, including among speakers of Swahili, Kinyrwandan, French, and Arabic. Our role would be to help register eligible voters. Volunteers with foreign language skills would be very helpful!

 We are also thinking about topics of particular interest to new Americans that LWV of Lexington may cover in candidate forums for elections in 2026, including:

  • Special Immigrant Juvenile Status (“SIJ Status”), which is relevant for both immigration law and state law, including elected judges

  • language access when seeking protection

  • election officers’ attitudes and behaviors towards new Americans who seek to cast a ballot

 
00100lrPORTRAIT_00100_BURST20191115111716805_COVER.jpg

Fill out our volunteer form (linked above) or email the committee chair: catherine.harbour@lwvlexington.com.