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Report Finds Some Federal Judges Put Off Swearing-in New Citizens

December 19th, 2008
by VJ News

Federal judges in some parts of the United States are delaying the swearing-in of new citizens, apparently so that courts can keep millions of dollars in naturalization fees paid by immigrants, according to a new government report and immigration analysts.

In one of the nation’s busiest courts, a judge’s delay caused nearly 2,000 people to not receive the oath in time to register for November’s general election, according to the ombudsman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Michael Dougherty, in a 13-page report posted on his office’s internet site yesterday.

The conclusion adds a new twist to longstanding complaints that applicants for citizenship face long waits, poor service and different treatment from U.S. immigration authorities depending on which office handles their application. While USCIS has made big gains in clearing massive backlogs since summer 2007, including working with the FBI to speed up security background checks, the new report cites a new bottleneck.

While generally “federal courts are very responsive” to USCIS requests for naturalization ceremonies, Dougherty reported “that court officials denied USCIS the opportunity to naturalize persons in time to vote in the recent general elections” and “otherwise engaged in conduct inconsistent with the letter or the spirit” of the nation’s immigration law.

read entire article at WashPost.com.

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This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 7:54 pm and is filed under General Immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.