Election-year citizenship slowdown intentional?

A

aabbcc11

Registered Users (C)
Folks,
Looks like the Dems are accusing the GOP of intentionally causing a slowdown of N400 since this is a decisive election yr. Any body feels this is true?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25446136, From MSNBC

Parties wrangle over election-year citizenship

Washington is seeing a revival of a 1996 partisan election-year battle over the processing of citizenship applications — in reverse.

Twelve years ago, Republicans protested what they said was a rushed approval by the Clinton administration of new citizens who, the GOP feared, would be Democratic voters. This time, it’s Democrats complaining that the Bush White House is dragging its feet over the approval of new citizens.
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At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April, Democratic senators accused Secretary Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security, of failing to ensure prompt processing of citizenship applications.

As a result, the Democrats implied, the number of new immigrant voters in November’s election would be held down.
 
aabbcc11 said:
Folks,
Looks like the Dems are accusing the GOP of intentionally causing a slowdown of N400 since this is a decisive election yr. Any body feels this is true?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25446136, From MSNBC

Parties wrangle over election-year citizenship

Washington is seeing a revival of a 1996 partisan election-year battle over the processing of citizenship applications — in reverse.

Twelve years ago, Republicans protested what they said was a rushed approval by the Clinton administration of new citizens who, the GOP feared, would be Democratic voters. This time, it’s Democrats complaining that the Bush White House is dragging its feet over the approval of new citizens.
Story continues below ↓advertisement

At a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing in April, Democratic senators accused Secretary Michael Chertoff, head of the Department of Homeland Security, of failing to ensure prompt processing of citizenship applications.

As a result, the Democrats implied, the number of new immigrant voters in November’s election would be held down.
Click to expand...

I personally don't think so. But unfortunatly who knows who has the ability to influence the USCIS
 
A few months ago it really looked suspicious. Then Congress jumped in and things have been moving quite faster. Conspiracy theory or not it was about to screw up the chances of voting to hundreds of thousands of people, but now it doesn't look that bad, and it would look like most people who applied before or right after the fee increase should be able to vote on the coming presidential election. Bottom line, it looked pretty gloomy a few months back, but now it is looking much better for most folks.
 
This is one of the many conspiracy theories floating around. I am in no capacity to determine whether there is any truth to it or not. However if the republicans are that desperate to retain the white house, all they need to do is bring petrol back to $1.99/gallon. The majority of Americans voters are short time thinkers, they will vote the republicans back in :)

aabbcc11 said:
Looks like the Dems are accusing the GOP of intentionally causing a slowdown of N400 since this is a decisive election yr. Any body feels this is true?
Click to expand...
 
If they could, the GOP would bring the prices down to $1. Didn't Bush ask for a magic wand in a press conference? Unfortunately for them, they stand for market control not Govt control ;-)

I think they may try to reduce n400 approvals, it sounds like a Rove tactic. After all they tried to influence the Justice dept and many dept heads are incompetent cronies who can't handle the jobs. So why not try to mess up a few immigrants' lives so they can cling to power.
 
I do not think that any delays are intentional with the purpose of not having new citizens vote in November. It is not even certain how new citizens vote ,and if they truly benefit one party or the other. Take the Latino vote. In 2004 they voted for Bush ,before that they were predominately Democratic voting in large numbers for Clinton. Now a lot of them wanted Hillary , and who knows how they are going to vote this year. On a personal note my application went through very fast. I am a military spouse and my husband is active duty military with more then a few deployments under his belt. My husband has always openly been a Democrat ,and I am a registered Democrat myself now too. So I personally definitely have not experienced any issues. I think we can safely file this allegation under the conspiracy theory file, however I understand how people get that impression as we have have lived under the worst nontransparent government in history lately. And applying partisan politics into the hiring practices of the Justice Department doesn't make the government much more trustworthy either. The party of so called moral values really has eroded its moral grounds to nil. It is no wonder people have lost their trust in the system. It is a shame really.
 
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It has nothing to do with this N-400. It is all media circus, but maybe theory. The point is that USCIS obeys the immigration laws, its goal/intention to reduce the goals, not to grant applicants citizenship to vote in the presidential election. Also, USCIS responds to lawsuits or court order. To reduce the backlogs, there is not enough staff unfortunately. They need more staff. The government should stop spending money on war and focus on oil prices, world economy, and world relationship.

According to the polls, most of American population don't want the Republican government to spend money on the war and damage our relationship with countries. It would lead to soaring the oil prices. I hope the next govt (Democrats, I hope) would open the relationship with countries (including economic, diplomatic, bilateral, cultural relationship) and it would help reducing oil prices. Time to change!
 
I felt very suspicious about this for a while, but as Hurrican said (above) Congress got involved - I think it was Senator Chuck Schumer (Democrat)who started the ball rolling by bringing the suggestion that USCIS retirees be allowed to be brought back to assist with the backlogs, and demanding that USCIS provide regular updates on progress.

Things did improve from early 2008 for most people who had applied in summer 2007.
I seem to recall that the Senator said he wanted all applicants who applied up to September 2007 to have been sworn in by July 2008. Apart from those poor souls stuck in name check, it looks as though that is going to happen.
 
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