INS to Add 100 Workers to Speed Citizenship Forms

The Los Angeles office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, reeling under an unprecedented demand for U.S. citizenship, will hire 100 new officers to help speed applications under a funding plan approved by Congress, INS officials said Friday.

The long-awaited congressional action authorizes the use of $76.6 million in INS funds from application fees and penalties nationwide. It allows much of the money to be used for the processing of citizenship applications. The resources will be concentrated in the INS district office in Los Angeles, where the new officers will augment the staff of about 260 that now handles citizenship and other applications.

The money will also fund a two-year pilot project in Los Angeles testing electronic filing of naturalization applications. In addition, the funds will allow authorities to increase the number of operators staffing the INS’s problem-plagued telephone information system.

But authorities cautioned that the new hires will probably not be on board for four to six months after recruiting and training. That means that citizenship backlogs are likely to continue to grow.

Currently, applicants attempting to complete the naturalization process in the Los Angeles INS district--which leads the nation in such applications--face delays that approach a year.

Immigrant advocates have accused top INS managers and Congress of emphasizing border enforcement at the expense of citizenship programs, although President Clinton and INS Commissioner Doris Meissner have extolled the value of citizenship for immigrants. Advocates say the new funds will help, but the agency’s $2-billion budget is still too geared toward enforcement.

The INS is experiencing a record surge in citizenship applications nationwide, traceable in part to fear arising from the Proposition 187 debate in California. The agency received a record 555,407 citizenship applications last year, and that number is expected to increase to nearly 800,000 this year.

Many foreign nationals who delayed signing up for citizenship say they are now doing so belatedly because they fear further cutbacks in aid and other programs for legal non-citizens. In addition, most of the 3 million formerly illegal immigrants who received amnesty under a 1986 federal law have recently become eligible for U.S. citizenship.

In general, legal permanent residents applying for citizenship must have lived in the United States for five years, shown good moral character and demonstrated proficiency in English and a knowledge of U.S. civics and history. Some activists have suggested relaxing standards, but lawmakers in Congress have generally reacted coolly to such suggestions, and some have even proposed tighter citizenship restrictions.