100 Stage Protest Over Backlog in Citizenship Cases
About 100 protesters who are irate about growing citizenship backlogs marched in front of Immigration and Naturalization Service headquarters in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday.
The demonstrators used toilet plungers and toilet bowls to symbolize what they complained was a “clogged” naturalization process.
About 400,000 people are mired in the citizenship pipeline in Southern California. Delays are approaching two years--compared with six months a year ago.
Causing the backlog are new safeguards demanded by Congress after disclosures that many applicants became U.S. citizens in 1996 without completing the mandated criminal background checks.
Congressional Republicans have denied a political motive, but demonstrators called the slowdown an effort to deny voting power to Latino immigrants.
“There’s a desire on the part of some people to slow up the naturalization process,” said Father William Delaney, co-pastor of St. Agnes Roman Catholic Church in South-Central Los Angeles, who led the protest.
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