Immigration Backlog May Grow

By: Ankur Bahl, Anna Johnson and Carrie SeimThe U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has a long-standing reputation for inefficiency and backlogged cases, especially in Chicago. The special registration program has created even more paperwork and duties for the agency.

“The extra duties that were assigned to the agency are adding a strain on the existing mess,” said Lhakpa Tsering, coordinator of the Independent Monitoring Board, a Chicago-based INS watchdog group. “Without adequate resources, the paperwork will continue to pile up, and they’ll never be able to eliminate the backlog.”

The Independent Monitoring Board released a report in 2001 that examined almost 800 INS cases in Chicago. The report found that 90 percent of respondents complained about the amount of time it took for the INS to process their applications and requests. The INS claimed the average processing time for all cases was 14 months, according to the report. But, it noted, most respondents said the waiting period was “significantly longer.”

The Chicago district office has about 600 employees to handle all cases, including special registration, for Illinois, Wisconsin and Indiana. The INS was recently re-organized into three bureaus under the federal Department of Homeland Security, but department officials in Chicago said no new staff have been hired to handle the extra workload brought on by special registration.

“Everyone’s just working harder,” said Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman for the Chicago office. “Since [Sept. 11, 2001], the primary focus of the immigration service has been … national security. So this is what we’re supposed to be doing.”

“This is not the fault of the Chicago district office,” said Paul Zulkie, first vice president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, a national, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C. “If they have to give all this manpower to this special program, something’s got to give.”

Spurred by criticism from congressional leaders, including U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, an Evanston Democrat, the INS made significant progress toward eliminating the backlog of naturalization applications. Still, hundreds of thousands of people remain on a waiting list.

Despite completing nearly 730,000 naturalization cases during fiscal year 2002, another 623,000 applications still lingered nationwide. As of February, the list of pending applications had grown by an additional 16,000 cases.

The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, one of the new immigration divisions of the Department of Homeland Security, requested 534 new positions nationwide in November 2002, including more than 300 permanent positions, according to the New York Immigration Coalition, which includes more than 150 organizations. Both Congress and the Bush administration denied the request. As a result, the division estimates that its effort to eliminate backlogged applications was set back one year.

Contributing: Rui Kaneya