Our story: Helping to make U.S. citizenship
a reality
The United States Citizenship Foundation was founded to help refugees and immigrants earn their U.S. Citizenship so they can become fully engaged and protected members of American society.
Our free personalized classes over Zoom bring our instructors face to-face with refugees and immigrants who can't attend in-person citizenship classes.
We believe all who qualify for citizenship deserve the best possible chance of passing their citizenship interviews, regardless of their income, education, location, work schedule, or disability.
Our founders’ family roots date back to the closing days of World War II helping European refugees as they fled their homes in desperate need of safety, and to the mass exodus of refugees from China in the early 1950s.
Today, the USCF continues to help refugees and immigrants to the United States by providing free personalized preparation for their U.S. Citizenship interviews. We offer live one-on-one training sessions over Zoom, with qualified volunteer instructors. Our team has over 30 years of citizenship instruction experience.
But most of all, we are adamant that USCF students never pay a penny for their live online citizenship classes.
Our students learn more than just rote memorization of the answers to the interview questions. We teach the history behind the questions. And we teach the basics of how the U.S. Government works. Most of all, we teach our students about the rights we all share in America, and the responsibilities they will assume as new American Citizens.
Our founders
Doris Yee
"I love learning about my students' cultures and especially about their recipes!"
Doris has over 30 years experience in special education. She earned her Oral/Aural Education Certification from the University of Utah. As a young girl, her family fled the onslaught of the Red Army in China with only 1 suitcase full of her possessions. "I'll never forget finally getting my U.S. Citizenship and then voting for the first time," Doris recalls. She also volunteered as a citizenship teacher for the International Rescue Committee before helping found the USCF to provide help to refugees who aren't able to come to a classroom.
Tom Greenleigh
"My greatest high is when a student calls to say, 'Hey, I passed my interview!' There's just no feeling like that."
Tom has been working with refugees and citizenship tutors since 2016. He graduated from UCLA and received additional training in Citizenship Instruction from the U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Service and the International Rescue Committee. He helped pioneer live online citizenship instruction early in the Covid-19 pandemic.