The American Civic Association is an

immigration services Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not natives or where they do not possess citizenship in order to settle as permanent residents or naturalized citizens. Commuters, tourists, and ...

organization located in

Binghamton, New York Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...

, that provides community integration services to immigrants and refugees in the

Greater Binghamton The Binghamton Metropolitan Statistical Area, also called Greater Binghamton or the Triple Cities, is a region of southern Upstate New York in the northeastern United States, anchored by the city of Binghamton. The MSA encompasses Broome and ...

region. It is unrelated to a former national organization and entity of the same name from the early 20th century. The organization's services include refugee resettlement; citizenship classes; assistance with citizenship and

green card A green card, known officially as a permanent resident card, is an identity document which shows that a person has permanent residency in the United States. ("The term 'lawfully admitted for permanent residence' means the status of having been ...

information; and general help and assistance for immigration- and citizenship-related problems with services provided on a sliding scale of ability to pay by income. The organization is a member agency of (and therefore receives funding from) the United Way of Broome County. The ACA is a

501(c)(3) A 501(c)(3) organization is a United States corporation, trust, unincorporated association or other type of organization exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3) of Title 26 of the United States Code. It is one of the 29 types of 50 ...

non-profit entity and is the only refugee resettlement agency in the

area.

History

The ACA was founded in 1939. At the time, the Binghamton area had a large number of European immigrants coming into the area that were working in the many factories of the

Endicott Johnson Corporation The Endicott-Johnson Shoe Company ("E-J") was a prosperous manufacturer of shoes based in New York's Southern Tier, with factories mostly located in the area's Triple Cities of Binghamton, Johnson City, and Endicott. An estimated 20,000 people ...

. The agency later constructed an office and banquet facility on Front Street in the city and maintains these facilities currently for receptions, events, classes, and other activities. The ACA's offices were the scene of a mass shooting in April 2009.

References

Online Resources

United Way's ACA Information Page
{Dead link, date=October 2018 , bot=InternetArchiveBot , fix-attempted=yes
Official page of the American Civic Association
Organizations based in Binghamton, New York Immigration to the United States 1939 establishments in New York (state)