Backlog leaves some immigrants in limbo

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Peejay sez: If you think it's bad now...wait until the shamnesty dumps 12 - 20 million illegal aliens into the system. Of course the illegal aliens will take priority. Do you have any doubts?

Backlog leaves some immigrants in limbo

Lengthy wait to clear name checks by the FBI delays citizenship quest

By SUSAN CARROLL

2007 Houston Chronicle

Backlog leaves immigrants in limbo Senate will hold test vote on immigration bill THE WOODLANDS — Dr. Joseph Vadas, a legal immigrant from Hungary who has practiced medicine in Texas since 1978, seems like an unlikely national security threat.

The 73-year-old Woodlands physician wears an American flag tie on special occasions, has a framed picture of Ronald Reagan in his home study and boasts about delivering more than 1,400 Texas babies. "I've never lost a baby. I've never lost a momma," he says, grinning.

Yet, after 29 years as a physician in Texas and a legal permanent resident, and more than two years after filing his naturalization application, Vadas is still waiting for the FBI to finish his background check so he can become a U.S. citizen.

Like hundreds of thousands of other would-be citizens and green-card holders, Vadas' application has quietly stalled in the FBI's Name Check Program, a part of the immigration process U.S. officials say is critically important, yet remains understaffed nearly six years after 9/11.

Prakash Khatri, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services ombudsman, said in his annual report this month to Congress that the FBI name checks "may be the single biggest obstacle to the timely and efficient delivery of immigration benefits."

As of May, USCIS reported that 329,160 FBI name check cases were pending, according to the report. Of those, about 104,600 — or 32 percent — had been in the system for more than three months but less than a year. Sixteen percent, some 51,497 applicants, were pending between one and two years. About 17 percent of applicants had been waiting more than two years.

In May, USCIS officials in Houston reported in court filings that nearly 1,200 applicants had been waiting more than 18 months for their immigration-related background checks to clear.

The problem has become so pervasive that hundreds of would-be citizens and green-card holders are suing the federal government to expedite their background checks. The plaintiffs in Houston include a former member of the Texas Army National Guard, a Chinese osteoarthritis researcher, a Russian petrophysicist and a Peruvian doctor-in-residence.

In February, Vadas also sued. He finds the idea that the federal government may consider him a security risk so "absurd" that he's convinced that the FBI simply lost his fingerprints, the explanation given by his lawyer, he said.

"I've led a very good life here. I've treated thousands and thousands of patients. I've worked very hard," he said. "But I'm ashamed to say that I'm not a U.S. citizen because I'm having these problems.

"My only wish is to become a U.S. citizen before I die," he said. "I'm not a young chicken anymore."

3.4 million processed

Immigration and FBI officials said they could not comment on specific cases but said more than 90 percent of cases are processed within a few months. The FBI processed about 3.4 million name check requests in fiscal year 2006, with USCIS as its biggest customer.

Applicant names are electronically submitted against FBI counterintelligence, homeland security and criminal databases. People delayed because of a "hit" or other questionable information are handled by the FBI on a first-come, first-served basis, officials said.

"We cannot bestow citizenship or lawful permanent residency, for that matter, until such time that the record comes back clean from the FBI," said Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, a USCIS spokeswoman based in Dallas. "I think we owe that to the American people."

The FBI bottleneck has led to professional and personal frustration among legal immigrants. Foreign-born scientists have been unable to get federal grants to research a range of conditions, from osteoarthritis to AIDS, according to court filings. Immigrants with pending applications have endured travel restrictions, sometimes for years, as they wait for their applications to move through the system.

In some cases, families have been separated for extended periods of time because of the delay in adjusting from green card to citizenship status, which allows for a greater range of family reunification visas.

Some members of the Muslim community in Houston have grown increasingly concerned that they are being disproportionately delayed in the naturalization process, said Shariq Abdul Ghani, the director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Houston.

On Friday, CAIR launched an Immigration Delay Project to help people in Houston who have been waiting more than 120 days for their background check to clear after their naturalization interview. CAIR officials are reaching out to local Muslims through e-mails and at mosques, offering free legal advice, Ghani said.

"I want to protect borders and ensure the safety of this country just like everyone else," Ghani said. "But isn't it logical to have these background checks sped up, so you know if this guy's a terrorist, you can get rid of him quickly or detain him and put him in prison?

"In our opinion, these lengthy background checks only hurt national security," Ghani said.

More stringent criteria

Paul Bresson, an FBI spokesman, attributed the long wait faced by the relatively small percentage of applicants to a "lack of resources and the sheer volume" of requests. The FBI receives about 70,000 name check requests per week from about 70 agencies, he said, with about half of those coming from USCIS.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Congress also strengthened the requirements for the check for green card and citizenship applicants. Instead of just checking to see if someone is under investigation, now the FBI is required to see if the applicant has ever been a witness to or interviewed in connection with suspicious activity, which has increased the processing time, Bresson said.

Haytham Alkhaldi, a Lebanese immigrant and former member of the U.S. Army National Guard, also has had difficulty understanding how he ended up in the backlog of cases. Alkhaldi, a legal permanent resident since 2002, signed up for the Army National Guard in Texas and received his military security clearance in 10 to 14 days, he said. He was fingerprinted in St. Louis during basic training and passed his naturalization interview in November 2005, according to court records.

Alkhaldi's story

During boot camp, Alkhaldi broke his right foot and then developed stress fractures in his left. He received an honorable discharge from the military in late 2005 and returned to Houston with hopes of joining the Houston Police Department.

Alkhaldi, soft-spoken and college-educated, passed the tests for the police academy in 2006, he said, but he was stuck on one critical issue. He wasn't yet a U.S. citizen, a prerequisite to become an officer in Texas. He waited as months passed, and he eventually received a letter from the HPD suggesting he reapply once he gets his citizenship.

In March, Alkhaldi filed a lawsuit in federal district court, seeking to have immigration officials expedite his petition. In the meantime, he's working as a retail supervisor, he said, but still hopes to someday become a police officer to "get the bad people," the same goal he had when he signed up for the military.

"I thought that I would pay back what the U.S. has given me," he said. "I have this feeling that I want to serve the community."

On Monday, Alkhaldi received a phone call from USCIS. He was told his check had finally cleared, and he would be sworn in at a ceremony on or before the Fourth of July.

"That would be a nice memory," he said.

Vadas, however, is still waiting. His next court date is scheduled for May 2008.

"God forbid, I may die by then," Vadas said. "I can't understand this. I love this country.

"But sometimes," he said, "we have a problem with bureaucracy."

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headli...on/4919922.html