washington post article: take 10 yrs to security check
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 11, 2004; Page B01 ...Yonas is one of millions of foreigners affected by a ballooning backlog in applications at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which has been struggling to incorporate a new system of anti-terrorism checks.
Even as President Bush presses for a giant new program for foreign workers, the current system is overwhelmed, according to immigration lawyers and workers. The backlog for such benefits as citizenship and green cards -- which allow foreigners to live and work in the United States indefinitely -- has grown about 60 percent in the past three years, to more than 6 million applications, according to a new GAO report.
Some question whether the immigration service can handle a sweeping new program.
"Over the last six to 12 months, we've crossed the line into crisis proportions," said Crystal Williams of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "I've never seen backlogs to this extent."
Bush took office vowing to have every immigration application processed within six months of submission. And in fact, the immigration agency has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to reduce the delays. Nonetheless, processing time for many applications has grown -- in some cases to more than four years.
The main reason is the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The president's plan to slash the backlog "was just thrown out the door" as officials scrambled to increase security, said Russ Knocke, a spokesman for the immigration service, part of the Department of Homeland Security. Officials frantically ran extra checks on 3.2 million existing petitions, he said.
The immigration service then ordered that each new applicant be run twice through a database of lawbreakers, alleged terrorists and other potential undesirables, Knocke said. About 7 percent of the names on applications in the last fiscal year got "hits" requiring further investigation, and 2.3 percent were confirmed to be the people in the database, although the percentage with alleged ties to terrorism was "infinitesimal," he said.
"We obviously aren't happy about the backlog. But we aren't making any apologies. The commitment was, and continues to be, national security," Knocke said. He added that his agency has addressed those concerns sufficiently and is refocusing on cutting the backlog. In recent days, it has announced an increase in fees for immigration applications and requested a 60 percent increase in federal funds to attack the pile of petitions.
But immigration lawyers say the new security system continues to be unwieldy and slow. In addition, immigration officials are devoting extra scrutiny to the documents submitted with applications, for fear of inadvertently aiding a terrorist.
"What our members have seen is a tremendous spike in requests for additional information on the applications," said Williams, who added that much of it was redundant or unnecessary.
Mary Lynch, vice president of AFGE Local 2076, the union at the Vermont immigration processing center, which handles applications for a broad area including Washington, said staffing problems have added to the delays. The center is trying to add employees, but it often takes a year to get security clearances, she said.
"We don't have enough staff on board to do anything but keep our heads above water right now," she said. She added that security checks on applicants have resulted in a decline of about 50 percent in productivity.
The bureaucratic snarls can have painful consequences for immigrants, some of whom are in the United States and others abroad. Many already here are unable to leave the country while their documents are being processed. Young people might not be able to get into college without legal papers. In the worst cases, people can lose their jobs or be deported as they wait for their green cards to come through.
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Yonas's father, who also got a green card, sponsored the boy in April 1999 for permanent residency, the first step toward citizenship. At the time, authorities said the application could take 21/2 years to process.
Nearly five years later, Yonas is still waiting.
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Immigration officials say they don't bear all the blame for the glacial pace of processing. Knocke said about 500,000 applications have been slowed because immigrants were late in providing documents or failed tests and had to retake them. In addition to the processing delays, some foreigners must wait for years for their green cards because of annual caps set by Congress on how many immigrants each country can send.
But the immigration system is straining. It will have difficulty handling Bush's proposed new program without an infusion of personnel, according to immigration workers and lawyers. Administration officials have said the estimated 8 million illegal immigrants in the country could apply for temporary-worker visas under Bush's plan, which also would be open to foreigners coming to fill U.S. jobs. Some of those workers eventually could apply for green cards.
Lynch's union estimates that, with current staffing levels, it would take 10 years just to do the security checks on 8 million applicants. "Unless we have a better program for allocation of resources . . . it will sink us," she declared.
Knocke said the program would need adequate staffing. "That would have to be something that Congress takes into consideration" if it approves the new immigration plan, he said.
Even as the new program is debated, the backlog feeds on itself. Many immigrants awaiting green cards must apply annually for documents to work or to travel outside the country, increasing paperwork choking the system.
The Rev. Christopher Halliday is one of those caught in the paper chase. The Irish minister arrived at St. George's Episcopal Church in the Southern Maryland town of Valley Lee four years ago with a temporary religious worker's visa. He was promptly sponsored by the church, his employer, for permanent residence.
While waiting for his green card, Halliday has been able to get continued work authorization and annual permits to leave the country. But the latest travel permit for which he applied in October hasn't arrived.
"We can't move," he said, explaining that his old permit expired in January. He worries about not being able to visit his family in Ireland, including his 84-year-old mother-in-law and his brother-in-law, who had a stroke.
Halliday was dumbfounded when he learned recently why his travel papers were held up: The Vermont processing center has run low on the counterfeit-proof paper used for the documents.
"If this was somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the world, you might just about accept that was possible," he fumed. "But this is America."
