Judge pressures federal government to speed FBI name checks

[maore 0]

May 12th, 2008, 12:38 pm ·

A federal judge on Monday turned up the pressure on the federal government to speed up name checks on immigrants who have applied for citizenship to avoid seeing a lawsuit turn into a class-action.

Judge David O. Carter told lawyers in his Santa Ana courtroom early Monday that he was tired of seeing hundreds of lawsuits filed by legal immigrants whose applications to become U.S. citizens were tied up for years in FBI name checks, which can involve manually sifting through files if an applicant’s name matches that of a suspect or witness.

Carter said he was hesitant to grant class-action status to the case because each individual is from a different country and has different experiences. But with so many lawsuits taking up federal judges’ and attorneys’ time, he said he’d need to see some proof the federal government was rectifying the problem.

“Across the country, these (cases) are inundating us,” he told attorneys. “It’s not just an immigration issue, it’s not just an issue of resources. This is taxpayer money being wasted.”

Over the next week, attorneys for the plaintiffs, who are being represented by the ACLU and immigrant rights groups, and the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI will meet to hash out what will constitute proof of progress made toward resolving the name check delays, which have left some immigrants waiting for years to become citizens.

The lawsuit was filed in Santa Ana last year — one in a flurry of suits filed around the country over the name check delays. Plaintiffs’ attorney Jacob S. Kreilkamp said he expected thousands of people in Southern California may have their applications tied up in the delays; the ACLU currently has a list of about 150 plaintiffs.

James Moorhead, 57, of North Hollywood, said he applied to become a U.S. citizen in 2005 after living in the country for nearly three decades. To date, he hasn’t yet had his interview and hopes Carter will help speed up the process. “There is a continual pattern of lies from immigration,” said Moorhead, who is originally from London.

U.S. government attorney Elizabeth Stevens said the FBI and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services had recently drawn up a plan – and received an allotment of $20 million in funding — to speed up the name check process, making a class-action lawsuit unnecessary. That’s the plan Carter will review this fall to ensure progress has been made - before making a final decision on whether to grant class-action status to the plaintiffs.

[almaty 19]

old news...and not much has changed since MAY

[LaL 418]

The have until 2009 to bring the duration of the FBI namecheck in line with the guarantee of 6 month greencard processing. The fact that many of us who waited years for greencard approvals are being cleared - demonstrates they are making progress.

[maore 0]

old news...and not much has changed since MAY

Yep it is old news (may 2008) unless you read between the lines of this article, the good news are :

+ District Judges are getting fed up

+ Now the DOS or FBI are running the risk of going against class actions (instead of individuals)

+ Finally the FBI has to provide concrete and tangible proof they are doing something about fixing this mess ( a while ago just stating " national security " was sufficient for getting rid of any sort of scrutinity of the process/procedures)

[LaL 418]

old news...and not much has changed since MAY

Yep it is old news (may 2008) unless you read between the lines of this article, the good news are :

+ District Judges are getting fed up

+ Now the DOS or FBI are running the risk of going against class actions (instead of individuals)

+ Finally the FBI has to provide concrete and tangible proof they are doing something about fixing this mess ( a while ago just stating " national security " was sufficient for getting rid of any sort of scrutinity of the process/procedures)

no need to read between the lines though ... this is still old news. They have made strides to come to a faster workflow, have a new process implemented, but it just takes time.