THE ISSUE: Today, over 1.8 million people who are eligible for U.S. citizenship suffer interminable delays waiting for their naturalization applications to be processed.
BACKGROUND: The 105th Congress began to reform the naturalization process because of both unprecedented demand and the controversy surrounding INS's Citizenship USA project. During Citizenship USA, a very small number of ineligible applicants (less than 1% according to a recent audit) were determined to have been naturalized inappropriately. Notwithstanding this small number, Congress and INS responded by making it increasingly difficult for all applicants, the vast majority of whom are law-abiding people, to go through the process. Heightened scrutiny of all applications and increased demand for naturalization have slowed the process, leading to an unprecedented backlog in which almost two million people have been waiting for an average of two years to become citizens.
Despite a recent audit concluding that current INS naturalization procedures have integrity, some Representatives continue to focus on the integrity of the process, rather than on the eligible, deserving people who are waiting in the backlog and should be embraced as new citizens. Legislation (H.R.2837) introduced during the 105th Congress by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) would have further increased the backlog by making the naturalization process more bureaucratic and precluding appropriate streamlining (by, for instance, mandating a personal interview for every case and requiring more detailed investigations). The legislation also would have expanded the INS' ability to denaturalize persons without court review. Despite vigorous efforts by Representative Smith, this bill did not clear the House.
In contrast to the Smith bill, the "New American Citizenship Act" (S. 1717/ H.R. 3341), introduced by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA and Representative Dick Gephardt (D-MO), would have articulated a vision of welcome to immigrants seeking to become citizens and would have provided an antidote to the negative legislation and allegations repeatedly raised by opponents of immigration. This measure also did not clear Congress.
CURRENT STATUS: The 106th Congress has yet to finalize how much it will directly appropriate the INS to deal with the naturalization backlog. While the FY 2000 Senate Commerce, Justice State bill appropriates $96 million, the House has indicated it would support $124 million. (The 105th Congress approved $171 million to address this backlog.) However, the INS has indicated that, even with these funds, the agency will face a deficit of about $200 million due to an expected decrease in the number of petitions filed (with the backlog discouraging people from filing).
AILA's POSITION: Congress needs to affirm, on a bipartisan basis, support for the naturalization process and the importance of naturalizing eligible people in a timely manner. Congress and INS should work together in order to ensure both the integrity of the process and the efficient and timely adjudication of applications from those bona fide and eligible candidates for U.S. citizenship. While the naturalization process must have integrity, it also must achieve efficiency and fairness. Any reform must serve people eligible to naturalize or receive other benefits. Furthermore, while timely adjudication of naturalization applications must remain a high priority, sufficient resources also must be allocated to family and employment-based adjudications so that these applications are not further disadvantaged. These issues are central to the debate surrounding the reorganization of the INS. (Please refer to the AILA Issue Paper on reorganization for more details.)