The Citizenship Surge
Emilio T. Gonzalez, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Sevices, thinks his agency can pick up the pace on processing citizenship applications. He announced Friday that USCIS was lowering its projections for how long it would take to complete applications filed last summer from 16-18 months to 14-16 months. That would mean hundreds of thousands of applicants could be naturalized in time for next fall's elections.
The agency experienced a surge of applications last summer just before it implemented a big fee increase. Overall, USCIS received 1.4 million naturalization applications in fiscal 2007. Applications in June and July alone were nearly 350 percent higher than the year before. As a result, the agency has a huge backlog of paperwork to move through the pipeline.
Meeting the new target for processing times won't be easy, the New York Times reported Saturday. Of the more than 1 million applications the agency is currently processing, 75 percent are still in the early, less labor-intensive phases.
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ABOUT THIS BLOG
Government Executive Staff Correspondent Alyssa Rosenberg takes a look at news affecting the management and operations of the massive federal bureaucracy.
I really don't care how long it takes as long as its self funded
dan ketter Posted Monday, March 17, 2008 4:03 PMShame on Mr Emilio ( a former cuban exile) he should know better than to exloit legal immigrant by raising prices and offering poor service that has deprive millions from voting for a better america.
Roy Shank Posted Tuesday, March 18, 2008 1:55 AMSee what the incompetent BCIS did.
They set a deadline to increase the rates to 3 times their previous values.
Everyone rushed in! Result? Those who had to wait because of absurd BCIS rules before they could file filed after the deadline while everyone else filed before.
As a result those who filed after deadline paid three times more and nonetheless have to wait much longer before the backlog created by those who rushed in before deadline!!
If that is not incompetence what is?
Outraged! Posted Wednesday, March 19, 2008 1:30 AMThe legal immigarnt in the process have no right and they get ripped off without having any voice in the system. That is outrageous!