INS to Add Staff for Citizenship

WASHINGTON —  Responding to months of bitter complaints from California politicians and immigrant advocates, the federal government plans to spend $7 million to double the staff working on Southern California’s massive backlog of citizenship applications, officials said Wednesday.

But even with such an aggressive effort, the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s goal of a six-month naturalization process remains out of reach. The new effort, to be unveiled at a congressional hearing today, sets the bar at 10 to 12 months. It also gives the INS until September 1999 to achieve that average across the nation, sources said.

“Until the backlog starts coming down, the wait times will remain fairly constant,” said an INS official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “A lot of the changes we’ve put into place were very dramatic. . . . But it takes time.”

Lawmakers and activists alike welcomed the added resources, though some questioned why the INS has such a plan only for its Southern California office, which covers seven counties and accounts for one-fourth the nationwide backlog of 1.7 million citizenship applicants.

Several also reiterated objections to the agency’s plan to raise naturalization fees this summer from $95 to more than $200.

“Given the new technology available, I don’t know why we can’t speed up the process and have a goal of 90 days, or three months,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), who heads the House immigration subcommittee before which the new INS plan will be detailed today.

“If all they have is a plan for one city, that’s clearly disappointing,” he added. “I intend to ask them why they don’t have a plan for every major city.”

Backlogs have been growing nationwide, with some immigrants waiting up to two years for citizenship, because of the boom in applications--from 300,000 in 1992 to 1.6 million last year--and a simultaneous effort to overhaul the naturalization process and increase security checks of applicants.

At this point, the backlog reduction plan focuses exclusively on the Los Angeles INS office, which also handles applicants from Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. In the pile of about 400,000 pending applications there, officials found 150,000 that are more than 15 months old, meaning that--under the law--those immigrants will need to be fingerprinted again. An additional 50,000 applications are at least a year old.

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Focusing on those 200,000 cases, the INS will create a special backlog reduction team, increasing the number of officers from 15 to 45 and the number of clerks from 36 to 76. Separately, the agency will increase the number of interviewers in Los Angeles from 48 to 89, and demand that the number of interviews double to 2,000 daily by June.

“That’s a great productivity improvement,” the INS official said.

Overall, the agency will add 111 people to the 496 employees working on naturalization cases in Los Angeles. The $7-million price tag accounts for half the $14 million allocated this year for backlog reduction, officials said.

“It’s terrific that they’re finally doing something. They’re just overwhelmed. They need these resources desperately,” said Arturo Vargas of the Los Angeles-based National Assn. of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.

“What’s really just frustrating is when you hear of individual cases,” he added, noting that applicants are afraid to visit relatives abroad in case the INS calls to set their interview appointment while they are out of the country. “Folks feel like they’re in limbo.”

Pressure on the agency to address the backlog problem has increased of late, with Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lashing out at an INS official during a public hearing earlier this month and Smith scheduling today’s hearing to focus specifically on backlog reduction.

“It heartens me that the department has been responding,” Feinstein said in a statement Wednesday. “At least we’ve got some specific targets and the personnel now to implement those targets.”

But even as the INS attempts to wade through piles of old applications, the agency is radically changing the naturalization process. Immigrants must now be fingerprinted at INS or law enforcement offices and pay a $25 fee. New applicants will also take an English and civics test early in the process. And in the wake of a scandal over at least 6,000 people being improperly naturalized without adequate criminal background checks, officers are ordered to be extra vigilant.

Legislation introduced earlier this month would prevent the INS from raising the citizenship fee above $150 until the backlog is cut by a third in each agency office. It also calls for an additional $100-million investment in the naturalization system.

“The INS has to take these growing backlogs more seriously, and Congress has to put its money where its mouth is,” said Frank Sharry, director of the National Immigration Forum in Washington. “They’re literally picking the pocket of immigrants to pay for these improvements without a serious commitment to bringing the backlog down to six months.”