Great question! This is really up to the office. There are many examples of international students or other non-citizens interning in congressional offices, and there are no strict rules against it on an institutional level. So it’s possible. But some offices may decide they only want US citizens, and even ones that don’t have such a rule still prefer people with ties to their district/state, which might disqualify/disadvantage certain non-citizens. On the whole, I’d say that if you’re an international student or other non-citizen, you’d probably require support from a structured university semester in DC program (discussed in the post) or very warm connections to insiders if you wanted to get an internship offer.
There’s also the question of the relative payoff of doing a congressional internship as a non-citizen. Many of the benefits of internships involve them being good stepping stones into full-time post-graduation jobs. But getting a full-time job in Congress, or elsewhere in government/policy, often does require citizenship or at least work authorization — whereas there’s often flexibility with internships, jobs can involve more of an immigration headache. We’ve written a bit about this here. It’d vary case-by-case whether a congressional internship is still worth it for a non-citizen (depending on opportunity cost, future plans, how much time you’d need to invest to get the internship, etc.).
And just in case any green card holders read this: the most important distinction is probably not between citizens and non-citizens, but between “US persons” (citizens or permanent residents) and others. Once you have a green card (i.e. permanent residency), most jobs Congressional and policy jobs will be open to you and you’d have a relatively smooth path to citizenship.
Great, thanks for writing this up! I don’t work in policy, but it seems to be an extremely pragmatic and helpful guide from an outside-perspective.
A question—is being a US citizen a hard requirement for all of this advice?
If not a hard requirement, what hidden (or explicit) barriers would you expect a non-citizen to face?
Great question! This is really up to the office. There are many examples of international students or other non-citizens interning in congressional offices, and there are no strict rules against it on an institutional level. So it’s possible. But some offices may decide they only want US citizens, and even ones that don’t have such a rule still prefer people with ties to their district/state, which might disqualify/disadvantage certain non-citizens. On the whole, I’d say that if you’re an international student or other non-citizen, you’d probably require support from a structured university semester in DC program (discussed in the post) or very warm connections to insiders if you wanted to get an internship offer.
There’s also the question of the relative payoff of doing a congressional internship as a non-citizen. Many of the benefits of internships involve them being good stepping stones into full-time post-graduation jobs. But getting a full-time job in Congress, or elsewhere in government/policy, often does require citizenship or at least work authorization — whereas there’s often flexibility with internships, jobs can involve more of an immigration headache. We’ve written a bit about this here. It’d vary case-by-case whether a congressional internship is still worth it for a non-citizen (depending on opportunity cost, future plans, how much time you’d need to invest to get the internship, etc.).
And just in case any green card holders read this: the most important distinction is probably not between citizens and non-citizens, but between “US persons” (citizens or permanent residents) and others. Once you have a green card (i.e. permanent residency), most jobs Congressional and policy jobs will be open to you and you’d have a relatively smooth path to citizenship.