The New York Times
But a mere three months and 10 days after Ms. Lindsay applied, she
was sworn in as a citizen. “I’m proud, and I’m happy I’m going to vote in
November,” said Ms. Lindsay, 49.
Her success, however, underscores the frustration of Sophia
McIntosh, another New Yorker from
“It’s not fair,” said Ms. McIntosh, 34, a nursing assistant and
mother of two, who has been a legal resident of the
Until recently, the glut of pending cases was so large that
President Bush’s vow in 2001 to cut the standard wait to six months or less
nationwide seemed unreachable. Now immigration
officials say they have more than met that goal, shrinking the average wait to
five months for a citizenship decision. And no district shows more dramatic
improvement than
But the numbers are not quite as rosy as they seem. To accomplish
their mission, officials at the United States Citizenship and Immigration
Services explain, they identified and stopped counting thousands of backlogged
cases that they now define as outside the agency’s control, mostly those
delayed by unexplained lags in standard security clearances by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
The result is a two-tier system. More applicants than ever are
receiving a decision in record time, in part because of an influx of temporary
workers working for the agency and new efficiencies. But others are still
falling into the system’s black holes, joining thousands who have been waiting
for years, but are now off the map. While praising the agency’s improvements,
immigrant advocates contend that officials have manipulated the figures to
declare victory and made it harder to seek redress.
Behind the clash over the agency’s new math are anxieties
heightened by the immigration debate and looming elections, advocates and
officials said. Legal residents who lack the security of citizenship feel more
vulnerable to deportation these days and deprived when they cannot vote. And
the immigration agency is under political pressure to show that it can handle
any new programs without derailing old ones.
“Why should we be faulted for sitting on cases that we aren’t
sitting on?” asked Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of Citizenship and Immigration
Services, which now takes responsibility for fewer than 140,000 of the 1.1
million immigrant applications that it identifies as pending for more than six
months.
Mr. Gonzalez added that he would soon seek “significant” fee
increases to cover the costs of processing applications. The agency is losing
many of the 1,200 temporary employees who helped speed lagging cases under a
four-year Congressional grant that ended Sept. 30.
But to Laura Burdick, a national deputy director of Catholic Legal
Immigration Network, raising the fees would only compound the inequity
experienced by those who have nothing to show for what they pay — for a
citizenship application, the cost is now almost $400. As for the change in the
way cases are counted, she added, “It makes you just question the validity of
any of the information they’re giving us.”
Data supplied by the government to The New York Times showed some
unusual fluctuations. The
Christopher Bentley, a spokesman for Citizenship and Immigration
Services, said a physical inventory conducted for the first time in three years
had revealed that the agency had overcounted its backlog by more than 33,000
cases. “The really good news is the vast majority of those cases were cases
that had already been completed,” he said.
Temporary workers were deployed to help from as far away as
“I really don’t understand why they’re doing this,” she said,
“because they have accurate good news to give: They have improved enormously.
But it’s pretty obvious to anyone who has observed this process for any amount
of time that they are playing with the numbers.”
She added, “All these cases they aren’t counting still have to be
adjudicated — it’s not like they’ve gone away.”
Thousands of applicants are being omitted from the backlog for
reasons other than security checks, usually because the agency has asked for
more information, the applicants are awaiting a second interview or a local
court has not yet scheduled an oath of allegiance.
But delays in conducting security clearances are especially
frustrating for applicants. Lorenzo Zepeda, 38, who immigrated from El Salvador
at 18 and worked his way up from pot washer to head chef at a nursing home in
Woodmere, N.Y., applied for citizenship almost three years ago.
“We already write, like, 10 letters to them; we never get no answer
back,” said Mr. Zepeda, who is married to an American. The couple are expecting
a child in April. “I really love this country. I want to make decisions in this
country. And I’m paying my taxes like everybody else.”
Also still waiting are a number of Iraqi Kurds who arrived in the
United States a decade ago as political refugees, settled in Nashville and were
interviewed by the F.B.I. before the Iraq war as experts loyal to the United
States.
One refugee, Hadi Gardi, 49, says he teaches Arabic and Kurdish to
American soldiers at an Army base in
“I lost so many opportunities,” he said, referring to government
jobs that were open only to citizens. He added that he had made fruitless
appeals to his congressman.
By law, applicants who are not given the citizenship oath 120 days
after passing the interview can seek a court order compelling government
action. Such suits have pushed the authorities to expedite some security name
checks that had been languishing, including cases of elderly and disabled
refugees who have to naturalize within seven years or lose government aid.
But in May, citing national security concerns, Citizenship and
Immigration Services closed off that path by ordering district offices not to
hold interviews until clearances were completed.
Last month, in court papers seeking the dismissal of a federal
lawsuit brought on behalf of stymied applicants in
The first step involves a computerized search of the F.B.I.’s
Universal Index of 94.6 million records for all mentions of a name, a close
date of birth and a Social Security number. Different permutations of the name
are tried, like the first and middle name only. Nearly a third of
naturalization cases come back as having a potential match.
Most of those are cleared up within three months through a search
of computer databases. But in 10 percent of all cases, the possible reference
is in paper records created before automation in October 1995 and in one of 265
possible locations. F.B.I. analysts must retrieve and review records to see
whether the information actually pertains to the same individual and is derogatory.
“Common names (such as Mohammed, Singh, or Smith) may result in
hundreds of potential matches,” government lawyers wrote. “The sheer volume of
the requests has also resulted in delays.”
Immigration name checks compete not only with those needed for counterintelligence,
but also with a growing number sought by government agencies before they bestow
a privilege, like attendance at a White House function. Demand has risen
drastically, from 2.5 million requests a year before Sept. 11, 2001, to more
than 3.7 million in fiscal year 2005. Among those still unresolved are more
than 400,000 immigrant name checks dating to December 2002.
Still, more recent applications are moving so fast that the
citizenship program at the health care workers union has doubled the size of
its annual celebration, said Celeste Douglass, the coordinator. “People want
the safe status of a
Jo Craven McGinty contributed reporting.