Immigration and Citizenship

A diverse cultural population is one of the qualities that makes the Coastside so unique.  Many of our neighbors are here from Mexico, Portugal, and the Philippines, and they work hard to provide for themselves and their children.

Coastside Hope provides support to clients and their families who live and work on the Coastside and are seeking permanent residency. These clients are here legally, either working on obtaining green cards or having been granted permanent legal resident status. Many of them want to become Americans, but navigating the system can can be overwhelming.

Lorena Galindo-Perez, our immigration paralegal, and Susie Maya, our office manager, help make the process manageable and rewarding. We assist them with the various stages of their residency, work and immigration applications, their need for translation, forms completion, notary services and the filing of taxes.

With the help of Anthony Moss, Salvador Navarro, and a grant from the Zellerbach Foundation, we host weekly citizenship classes and are proud to say that 30 of our students became U.S. citizens since we started our classes. In total Coastside Hope helped 81 individuals become new citizens in the past two years.