Hundreds of SoCal Legal Immigrants Reach Settlement with USCIS

[SuperDuper! 230]

A victory for Southern California citizenship applicants

Hundreds of legal immigrants whose cases have been languishing for years will get resolution within six months because of a settlement with the U.S. government.

By Anna Gorman

4:40 PM PST, November 9, 2009

Hundreds of legal immigrants in Southern California who have been waiting years for citizenship will have their cases resolved as a result of a settlement with the federal government, attorneys announced Monday.

The immigrants were stuck in lengthy delays as they waited for the FBI to complete their security name-checks and for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve their citizenship applications. The settlement, approved Friday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, sets a six-month deadline for the government to decide on hundreds of citizenship applications from Los Angeles and surrounding counties. The settlement also ends indefinite name-check delays in processing naturalization applications, according to the plaintiffs.

"The naturalization process has been a bureaucratic nightmare for so many permanent residents who did everything right to become citizens of this country," Jennie Pasquarella, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said Monday in a statement. "This restores the dream of citizenship and ensures that the government will be held accountable."

Linton Joaquin, general counsel for the National Immigration Law Center, said that though other problems with delays remain, the settlement will help speed the process for many.

"We're extremely pleased," he said. "This litigation addressed a massive problem that caused hardship for tens of thousands of applicants."

The plaintiffs, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center, filed the suit in 2007 and argued that because of the delays, legal permanent residents lost jobs and were prevented from voting and from beginning the process to bring in family members.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman Mariana Gitomer said the settlement would affect approximately 500 citizenship applicants.

"The settlement is a good result for both the government and for applicants applying for naturalization," Gitomer said Monday.

Sonali Kolhatkar, one of the plaintiffs, came to the United States on a student visa in 1991 and got married 10 years ago. The United Arab Emirates-born journalist filed for citizenship in 2005, but then years passed with no word on her case, despite her persistent efforts to find out what was causing the delay.

"It just came to a complete standstill," said Kolhatkar, 34, a radio host with KPFK-FM (90.7) in Los Angeles. Kolhatkar said the delay prevented her from voting in the last presidential election and affected her work.

As a result of the lawsuit, Kolhatkar said, she became a citizen in March. On Monday, she said she was relieved for other immigrants, whose applications will no longer be sent into a black hole.

"It's about time," she said. "This is absolutely thrilling."

anna.gorman@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ci...0,7251478.story

[Niels Bohr 72]

Great news!

[SuperDuper! 230]

Great news!

I guess it takes 500 cases and the ACLU to push the USCIS around.

[Heracles 417]

I guess it takes 500 cases and the ACLU to push the USCIS around.

No better example of a democracy than the ACLU suing their ideology into America.

Why not just have the ACLU run the government? After all, they do pretty much run everything else. For example, a county passes a ruling supported by its constituents (voters / residents). Yet the ALCU gets to come in and sue from afar, because they 'just don't like' that ruling. What better example of democracy is there for the rest of the world than that.

[Empress of Groovy 373]

As the spouse of someone whose AOS took 2 years because of the FBI name check, I am pleased to read this. If my husband had received his GC shortly after the interview, as normally happens, he'd be applying for citizenship now. As it is, we've got another 18 months to go--for absolutely no good reason.

There have been numerous lawsuits because of these delays. An application can be held up for years because someone's name and birth date are similar to those of someone who witnessed a crime in 1968. A lot of the files, particularly older files, have not been digitized, so an application can sit there for years, literally, until someone gets around to digging out old FBI files. In the meantime, the applicant remains in the country, able to work and travel--for a fee, of course. It's a joke.

At least learn a little bit about the quagmire before making simplistic comments about the ACLU. I wonder if you'd feel different if your or your spouse's application languished for years because of this stupidity.