National Park Passes for Newly Naturalized Citizens

Advocates encourage access to National Parks during National Immigrant Heritage Month

WASHINGTON — On Friday, President Biden signed a proclamation establishing June 2024 as National Immigrant Heritage Month. National parks and federal recreational lands provide essential public health benefits, ecosystem services, and conserve and interpret the tapestry of histories and cultures that define the country. Public lands are part of immigrant heritage, from the César E. Chávez National Monument to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and beyond. For these reasons, it is imperative to ensure national parks and other federal recreational lands are accessible to all Americans during this National Immigrant Heritage Month.

In response to President Biden’s proclamation of Immigrant Heritage Month during June 2024, GreenLatinos Public Land Program Director, Olivia Juarez, released the following statement:

“A pathway to citizenship should include a pathway to public lands and waters for the hundreds of thousands of immigrants who take the Oath of Allegiance annually. It is our duty to celebrate public lands and our newly naturalized citizens. For those reasons, we call on the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Forest Service, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to increase access to national parks and federal recreational lands for immigrants and unbanked individuals. 68 organizations from across the country support this measure which would amplify access for millions of people in the country. This access provides essential public health benefits and helps conserve the tapestry of histories and cultures that define our country.”

BACKGROUND:

Unfortunately, underrepresented communities of color, including immigrant communities, encounter numerous barriers when attempting to access the best America has to offer: our National Parks and federal recreational lands. Some of these barriers include distance, cost, lack of familiarity with conservation and recreation lands systems, technology, and cashless payment of entry and other fees for use of recreational lands.

Mount Rainier National Park recently transitioned to an entirely cashless fee system on May 26, 2024.

Without credit or a bank account, unbanked people cannot enjoy some of our most treasured public lands and waters. Latino/a/e immigrants bear the brunt of exclusion from the ongoing trend of recreational lands going cashless. A 2021 study by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation found that 8.4 percent of Hispanic households and 8 percent of Black households with income between $30,000 and $50,000 were unbanked, compared with 1.7 percent of White households. In a literature review on financial exclusion points to a study in 2006 that found “immigrants as a group are significantly less likely to have bank accounts than people born in the United States, with Mexican and other Latin American immigrants displaying the highest unbanked rates.”

This is why 68 community-based organizations call upon the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Forest Service, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to increase access to national parks and federal recreational lands for immigrants and unbanked individuals.

The organizations released a community letter addressed to heads of the U.S. departments of Interior, Homeland Security, and Agriculture, and aforementioned agency leads, calling for inter-agency cooperation to:

• Provide an America the Beautiful Pass as a “Welcome to America” gift to each newly naturalized citizen at swearing-in ceremonies;
• Consider the barriers that cashless entry to National Parks and other recreational sites impose on unbanked individuals and
• Cooperate to host swearing-in ceremonies on public land recreation sites.

The Latino Climate Justice Framework, which addresses the climate and conservation issues that disproportionately impact Latinos in the U.S. and territories, calls for a pathway to citizenship for migrants. Naturalized U.S. Citizens pay up to $760 for application fees on their pathway to citizenship. Rural immigrants spend countless hours and dollars traveling to USCIS field offices in metro areas to process their documentation.

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About GreenLatinos

GreenLatinos (NOTE: GreenLatinos is ONE WORD) is an active comunidad of Latino/a/e leaders, emboldened by the power and wisdom of our culture, united to demand equity and dismantle racism, resourced to win our environmental, conservation, and climate justice battles, and driven to secure our political, economic, cultural, and environmental liberation.