Countywide : INS Pledges at Least 15 New Officers

The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service district director for Los Angeles said Tuesday that he plans to put at least 15 new INS officers in Orange County as soon as the funding is available.

Richard Rogers said that if Congress approves a proposed funding increase, 15% of the 100 new positions planned for the Southern California region would go to Orange County.

“The county needs more officers and more space; there isn’t enough space in Westminster,” he said, referring to the county’s sole branch office. “The Westminster office simply can’t handle the workload.”

Orange County accounts for 15% of the 2,000 citizenship applications that are being handled by the Los Angeles district office on a daily basis, Rogers said.

The new officers would deal exclusively with citizenship applications, which have increased by 30% over last year in the county, according to Rico Cabrera, a spokesman for the INS.

Rogers said another office in Orange County will have to be established to relieve the backlog, although officials have yet to determine how to pay for such an office.

Rogers said the new positions could be filled by September, if Congress approves the funding, and the officers would start work the same month. Congress is set to consider the funding request at the end of June, officials said.