Best Practices and Resources

Publications, best practices, reports and other resources to help counties and cities with immigrant engagement and integration efforts.

From the Public Engagement and Collaborative Governance Program

  • Ten Ideas to Encourage Immigrant Engagement
    A one-pager that provides ideas drawn from cities and counties throughout California on ways to more successfully engage immigrant residents.
  • A Local Official's Guide to Immigrant Civic Engagement (2008)
    This guide is designed to help local officials and staff design and implement inclusive civic participation processes that recognize, inform, and engage their community's growing number of immigrant residents and their families.
  • Collaborative Strategies for Day Labor Centers
    This guide will assist local officials, immigrant serving organizations, day labor center planners and leaders, and others to understand how collaborative relationships, partnerships and processes can assist in the successful development and operations of a day labor center.
  • Language Access Laws and Legal Issues: A Local Official's Guide
    Explains the laws that require language access in order to insure that limited English-proficient residents have access to public benefits and services, and an opportunity to participate in public life.
  • ILG's Immigrant Engagement Listserv
    The Immigrant Engagement Listserv facilitates the sharing of information and resources among local officials interested in the successful participation of immigrant residents in the civic, economic and political life of their communities throughout California. To subscribe click on the link above.

For a full list of Public Engagement and Collaborative Governance resources, visit www.ca-ilg.org/engagementpubs.

From Others

Articles

Public Management magazine (May 2009)
  • The article, The Case for Immigrant Integration by Nadia Rubaii-Barrett, focuses on how professional local government managers can integrate recent immigrants in ways that benefit both immigrants and long-term residents of a community and that can make local service delivery more effective. Several examples are provided of communities that have engaged in immigrant integration. This article was printed in Public Management magazine (May 2009).
Western City magazine
  • The article, Lost in Translation: Local Public Agencies and Translating Official Documents by Benjamin D. Winig, looks at the laws governing translating official documents as well as how translating official documents encourages public engagement. This article was printed in Western City magazine (November 2008).
  • The article, Report Highlights Growing Political and Civic Impact of Immigrants and Their Children by Greg Keidan, describes a report by Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees that provides estimates of the size and potential civic impact of three immigrant-related populations in California:1) naturalized adult immigrants; 2) legal immigrants who are eligible to naturalize (become citizens); and 3) immigrants' children who are U.S. citizens and will be able to vote in the next three federal election cycles. This article was printed in Western City (August 2008).

Publications and Reports

California Immigrant Policy Center
  • Looking Forward: Immigrant Contributions to the Golden State 2010 - A compilation of new and existing data primarily on the economic contributions of immigrants to California. It also includes sub-sections to this report focusing on six regions in the state where immigrants represent and important and growing segment of the population.
Grantmakers Concerned for Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR)
  • The Toolkit, Investing in Our Communities: Strategies for Immigrant Integration, from Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR), identifies key stakeholders in the two-way integration process, six pathways to integration, and ways in which integration benefits both the newcomers and the receiving society. This toolkit profiles more than 75 promising program and policy models that can inform work in local communities in the areas of community planning, language access, English acquisition, education, health and well-being, economic mobility, equal treatment, social cultural interaction, and civic participation and citizenship.
Maytree Foundation
  • Webinar: Making Integration Count: Local Gateways to Citizenship

    Cities of Migration seeks to improve local integration practice in major immigrant receiving cities worldwide through information sharing and learning exchange. This webinar features Fort Wayne, Texas and Oslo, Norway and was presented by Palermo Galindo, Planner, City of Fort Wayne, Texas and Torlav Moe, Senior Advisor, Department of Education and Cultural Affairs, Oslo, Norway.

    To learn more about Cities of Migration, visit http://citiesofmigration.ca/lang/en/.
National League of Cities (NLC)
  • Civic Engagement and Recent Immigrant Communities: A Planning Guide for Local Officials and Community Leaders - A new discussion guide developed by the National League of Cities' (NLC) Center for Research and Innovation presents local officials with the first steps and directions for developing or re-establishing efforts toward integrating immigrants into the civic life of the city. This new publication was developed through a collaboration of NLC’s Democratic Governance project and the Municipal Action for Immigrant Integration Program(MAII).
  • The National League of Cities has just published “Municipal Innovations in Immigrant Integration: 20 Cities, 20 Good Practices,” featuring the “top 20 Cities with the best innovative programs and initiatives in the area of Immigrant Integration in the country.” This is second in the American Cities Series produced by the Municipal Action for Immigrant Integration program, part of NLC’s Center for Research and Innovation. The series focuses on city-led efforts to promote the civic engagement and inclusion of recent immigrants in cities and towns across the United States. For questions about the report contact Ricardo Gambetta at Gambetta@nlc.org.
National Governors Association Center for Best Practices