DHS Watch : Chief of Office of Citizenship Named
Posted Sep 26, 2003

Alfonso Aguilar was appointed Chief of the Office of Citizenship on September 15, 2003, by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director, Eduardo Aguirre. The Office of Citizenship was created by the Homeland Security Act. The purpose of the Office of Citizenship is to promote citizenship-related training to immigrants, emphasize a common civic identity for both immigrants and U.S. citizens, to raise awareness of naturalization, and enhance educational opportunities in English, Civics and History for immigrants.

More than six hundred thousand people naturalize to become U.S. citizens each year. As Director Aguirre stated, "It is our duty to ensure that the process of becoming an American is meaningful to each candidate and beneficial to our country." Mr. Aguilar comes to the position with a background as the Press Secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean at the U.S. Agency for International Development, as well as similar positions with the U.S. Department of Energy and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. He is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame and the University of Puerto Rico School of Law.

The new Office of Citizenship was introduced during Citizenship Day on September 17, 2003. More information regarding the Office is available on the USCIS WebSite's Citizenship page. For some, the concepts behind the Office of Citizenship seem reminiscent of the Americanization movement of the early twentieth century. This Americanization movement was spawned by the fear that the large immigrant population in the U.S. at that time would not assimilate to an American way of life. The result was programs to indoctrinate immigrants into American ways. See HistoryChannel.com for more details on this movement. We welcome efforts to ease the transition for immigrants to the U.S. and believe it could prove valuable to provide educational assistance helpful in their becoming U.S. citizens. We hope that the Office of Citizenship will not send an implicit message that assimilation is required or that foreign cultures and customs should be discarded. In this melting pot we call the United States of America, there is not one "American" culture or norm. Diversity is the norm in the U.S. and has been throughout our history. While we encourage assimilation to improve the opportunities for new immigrants, other customs and cultures should also be respected and celebrated.