Integration Institute

Becoming New Americans

The New Americans Integration Institute (NAII) is a recently launched division of MIRA that focuses on helping newcomers claim their place in the economic, social and civic fabric of American life. Immigrant integration represents a two-way process, one that strengthens the systems and tools that allow immigrants in the U.S. to participate fully in their families, jobs and communities, and that benefits all Americans by providing immigrants with the opportunity to contribute to their fullest capacity to those communities and to the strength of the nation as a whole.

A focus on immigrant integration also means acknowledging and celebrating the contributions of immigrants and refugees to U.S. culture and society throughout the country's history, the many challenges they have overcome and in many cases still need to overcome, and the importance of foreign born residents and their families as sources of the energy, creativity and human capital needed for the country to remain competitive and move forward in an increasingly complex and globalized world.

The Institute will work through policy-oriented research efforts and direct, on-the-ground integration projects that help drive that research, as well as through media and communications efforts to enhance the image of immigrants in our society and public discourse. The current areas of the Institute's work include: citizenship, immigrant entrepreneurship; integration and re-certification of immigrant professionals; building immigrant-native alliances to advance the achievement of immigrant and dual language learner children, from pre-K to college; and messaging of immigrant contributions.

Partners and Allies

In pursuing these objectives the Institute will build on relationships with long-standing and new organizational partners of the MIRA coalition, including community-based organizations, nonprofit groups, academic institutions, and state and local government bodies. MIRA is also proud to have partnered with English for New Bostonians and the Massachusetts Office for Refugees and Immigrants to form the Massachusetts AmeriCorps New American Integration Program (NAIP), whose 29 members have worked at 27 different immigrant- and refugee-serving organizations in Lynn, Boston and New Bedford since 2011. NAIP AmeriCorps Members assist immigrants and refugees to gain economic stability and more fully participate in our society through improved English skills, becoming US citizens, and connecting with community resources.

These joint efforts are part of a nationwide move to reshape thinking and action in communities and the country as a whole to value the foreign-born as one of our greatest assets. MIRA joins in this effort with fellow members of the National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA), which since 2008 has sponsored the National Immigrant Integration Conference.  For the next two years, MIRA will act as the co-chair of the NPNA, along with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR). Under MIRA and ICIRR's leadership, the NPNA has become a national voice for advancing principles of immigrant integration as part of immigration reform legislation currently being developed in both Congress and the White House, including the creation of an executive level Office of New Americans. Read the NPNA Principles of Immigrant Integration here.

NAII Advisory Board

The Institute's work is supported by the experience, expertise and commitment of a distinguished Advisory Board that includes members from the nonprofit, government, academic, and private sectors.