Drive to Increase Naturalization

* Your Oct. 6 article on the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s citizenship efforts is based on faulty information concerning the integrity of our Citizenship USA program.

Citizenship USA is an effective response to an unprecedented tripling of our naturalization workload in 1995 and 1996. The program has maintained and strengthened the legal scrutiny and administrative steps for citizenship, and at no time has the program been lax in enforcing the INS rules. In fiscal year 1996, we denied citizenship to 17% of the applicants, which is consistent with--and in some instances higher than--denial rates in previous years.

Since its inception in August 1995, the program’s main objective has been to reduce the backlogs in citizenship processing nationwide by the end of the last fiscal year (Sept. 30), while maintaining the standards for citizenship required by law. Had we not acted aggressively to respond to escalating workloads, waiting times would have climbed--depending on location--to two to four years by now. This would be clearly unacceptable and negligent, especially since applicants pay fees to INS to adjudicate their cases.

The citizenship process includes successful completion of written and oral English and civics testing, an FBI check, verification that the applicant has met all residence and other eligibility requirements, demonstration of “good moral character,” review of an applicant’s criminal record, if any, review of the citizenship application and a personal interview by an INS examiner. These elements have not changed under Citizenship USA.

DORIS M. MEISSNER

Commissioner, INS

Washington