INS Backlog Growing as Aid Cutoff Gets Closer

At a time when the federal welfare overhaul is pushing naturalization applications to record levels, the processing of would-be citizens has slowed down considerably in Los Angeles and other immigrant enclaves, raising fears that thousands of aged, disabled and otherwise needy applicants will be unable to take the oath before their benefits are cut off this summer.

The waiting period in Los Angeles, which leads the nation in prospective citizens, has crept back up to nine months after immigration officials last fall finally succeeded in shaving the bulging backlog and bringing the wait down to the government’s target period of six months.

Among benefit recipients, there is rising apprehension that their crucial citizenship applications will still be sitting on a government shelf when their benefits are terminated.

“I have no idea how I’m going to live without this,” said Chul Baek, 59, a Korean native who said he became mentally disabled after the 1992 riots, in which his Crenshaw-area restaurant was burned down.

Baek is one of about 100,000 legal immigrants in Los Angeles County who stand to lose their Supplemental Security Income checks, which are provided for impoverished elderly, disabled and blind individuals. He has applied for citizenship, but has little hope his petition will be approved before this summer. “I’m afraid everything will get worse for me,” Baek lamented last week after a community forum in Los Angeles.

If the nine-month waiting period persists, or lengthens, those who have not yet applied for citizenship could not qualify in time to save their SSI or food stamp benefits. The federal welfare law calls for aid to be terminated to most legal immigrants by August.

In December, a mass swearing-in ceremony in Los Angeles was canceled because of new delays.

The waiting period is also rising in New York, Miami and other immigrant havens, officials acknowledged, as authorities spend more time making sure that applicants with disqualifying criminal pasts do not become citizens.

The delays have arisen largely due to time-consuming new safeguards imposed in November in the wake of Republican charges that the Clinton administration was cutting corners in a partisan, election-year drive to sign up masses of new citizens--a charge denied by the White House. Immigration and Naturalization Service officials say the revisions are vital to ensuring confidence in the system.

“We’ll move people through the process as quickly as possible, while maintaining the integrity of the process,” said Allen Erenbaum, counselor to INS Commissioner Doris Meissner. “We want to ensure that eligible applicants become citizens, but that ineligible applicants don’t.”

In one key change, the INS is holding up all citizenship applications until receiving criminal background checks from the FBI. Longtime INS policy had mandated 60-day waits before officials proceeded under the assumption that applicants had no records, a period that was doubled to 120 days last fall; now the INS waits until it has heard back, no matter how long it takes.

Also, a team of INS auditors is manually reviewing thousands of citizenship cases approved since the fall of 1995 in which applicants had criminal records that, examiners ruled, did not bar them from naturalization. Conviction for certain misdemeanors, such as theft and marijuana possession, do not necessarily bar applicants from citizenship.

Meantime, the sweeping new immigration law approved by Congress in September has greatly expanded the list of crimes that make people ineligible for citizenship, forcing examiners to go back and check tens of thousands of applications that had already received initial approval. In the Los Angeles INS district, which includes seven counties, officials have had to review 64,000 previously approved applications.

The new procedures are braking the system at a critical juncture, when citizenship has become the only way for many poor legal immigrants to maintain essential aid. Immigrant advocates fear mass evictions, increased homelessness and hunger as the aid ceases.

“This slowdown is coming at the worst possible time,” said Christopher Tan of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles.

The Clinton administration has proposed restoring cuts for some legal immigrants, but the plan faces an uncertain future in the GOP-controlled Congress.

At the National Governors’ Assn. meeting in Washington on Sunday, the state executives approved a resolution calling on Congress to consider restoring certain benefits to legal immigrants who are waiting for their citizenship applications to be processed and to find a way to help those who are so disabled or elderly that they are unable to apply for citizenship.

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This week, the Social Security Administration plans to begin mailing notices informing 1 million foreign-born SSI recipients nationwide--including more than 300,000 in California--that their monthly payments will end in August unless they have become citizens or qualify under one of several exemptions.

The impending August deadline is unnerving recipients and local officials nationwide, but nowhere is the apprehension more pronounced than in Los Angeles County, with its huge immigrant population. According to county estimates, 99,000 legal immigrants would lose SSI benefits, while another 150,000 face being cut off from food stamps.

“We’re clearly concerned about any delay in the naturalization process which would result in legal immigrants losing their benefits,” said Phil Ansell, welfare reform strategist for Los Angeles County, which is coordinating the nation’s most aggressive citizenship sign-up campaign.

Eloise Anderson, director of California’s Social Services Department, said state authorities are aware of the slowdown and also are concerned.

As delays mount, some activists are voicing fears that waits could balloon to the two-year mark not uncommon just two years ago, before the INS launched its ambitious Citizenship USA program and more than doubled resources directed toward naturalization. For years, ethnic activists had excoriated the INS for inflating enforcement budgets at the expense of naturalization and other services.

But INS officials insist that the new delays are only temporary. Federal authorities predict that waiting periods will ease once ongoing reviews are completed and improved safety procedures are in place.

“We’re working toward developing a process that is still six months from start to finish,” said Donald Neufeld, the INS deputy assistant district director in Los Angeles, where more than 5,000 citizenship applications are now flowing in each week.

A key hurdle, though, is a $33.8-million INS funding request for citizenship services that is pending before Congress. Officials say the funding is essential to maintaining the program at a time when applications continue to rise to new heights.

Naturalization applications have been skyrocketing in recent years as legal immigrants view U.S. citizenship as their best protection against what many see as a wave of anti-immigrant measures, including the welfare downsizing approved by Congress last year. The INS processed a record 1.3 million citizenship applications last year, a number that is expected to increase again in 1997.

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Waiting for Citizenship

Thousands of legal immigrants awaiting naturalization are due to lose food stamps or Supplemental Security Income (for the elderly, blind and disabled) if they are not sworn in as U.S. citizens by August. Here is a look at the situation in Los Angeles.

* PEOPLE AFFECTED: L.A. County officials estimate that about 250,000 legal immigrants will lose either food stamps or SSI payments. It is unknown how many of those facing benefit cutoffs have pending citizenship applications, or how many are even eligible for citizenship.

* AVERAGE WAIT FOR CITIZENSHIP, early 1995: 18 months.

* AVERAGE WAIT, fall ‘96: six months.

* AVERAGE WAIT, February, ‘97: nine months.

* BENEFITS IN JEOPARDY: SSI maximum of $640 per month, including state contribution, typically used for rent and food. A family of three now receives an average of $244 monthly in food stamps.

* REASON FOR THE SLOWDOWN: The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service instituted new safeguards last year amid Republican allegations that ineligible applicants, including many serious criminals with disqualifying criminal records, were becoming citizens--a charge disputed by the White House. In one major revision, examiners are now holding all applications until the arrival of FBI criminal background checks, a process that can drag on for months. In addition, the new immigration law passed by Congress last year greatly expands the kinds of crimes that bar immigrants from citizenship, forcing a review of about 64,000 previously approved applications in Los Angeles County alone.