U.S. Is Planning an Overhaul of INS Procedures

Clinton administration officials plan to unveil a blueprint today for overhauling the nation’s naturalization process, noting that at least 369 people naturalized during an aggressive 1996 citizenship drive had criminal convictions that should have made them ineligible.

The new system, developed after a yearlong study by outside experts, would help reduce fraud, cut wait times and boost customer service, according to administration officials familiar with the plan. The application process would be redesigned so that ineligible candidates could be eliminated earlier while fingerprints and digital photographs would be used to ensure the identity of an applicant.

Ultimately, people would be able to take the oath of citizenship in an Immigration and Naturalization Service office right after the interview confirming their candidacy.

“Some of these are pretty dramatic changes,” said an administration source who spoke on the condition he not be named. “It relies on technology, efficiency and boosting integrity and customer service.”

The total price tag for the new system remains unclear, but most of the cost would be covered by citizenship application fees, which are scheduled to jump from $95 to more than $200 later this year.

The outside study by the consulting firm Coopers & Lybrand, as well as an audit of the 1996 citizenship files by the accounting firm KPMG Peat Marwick, was triggered by widespread congressional criticism of the administration’s Citizenship USA drive, in which more than 1 million people took the oath in the 13 months leading up to the 1996 elections.

About 180,000 people were naturalized without proper criminal background checks.

KPMG’s final tally of 369 criminals does not include as many as 5,000 people whose citizenship may be revoked because they lied on their applications about their arrest records. INS officials are still combing through the files to determine whether they will revoke citizenship.

“It’s more than we would like. Obviously, one is too many,” the administration official said of the wrongly naturalized citizens. “But for a process that does involve humans, that involves human error, it’s not a large percentage.”

At the same time, he conceded, “It’s clear the [naturalization] process needed fixing.”

According to the blueprint, prospective citizens would begin with an “eligibility work sheet” to determine basic qualifications. Under the old system, applicants sometimes went through the entire process even though they did not meet such simple requirements as the five-year residency rule.

To further streamline the process, rather than fill in key information by hand, applicants would use a bar-coded form. They would take an English and civics test early in the process rather than at the end, and the results would be entered electronically into INS computers. Only after passing the test would prospective citizens get an application, have their fingerprints examined by the FBI and be scheduled for an interview.

Throughout the process, applicants could check their status through the Internet or a telephone Touch-Tone voice-mail system. At every stage, they would be required to give two fingerprints; a digital photograph would also be used at the interview to prevent fraud.

“That will verify that you are the person who applied and you’re still the same person,” the source explained. “It’ll remove the doubt of any identity switch.”

Applicants would receive an appointment for the final interview in the mail and would be able to choose between getting naturalized right after the interview or waiting for a group ceremony, as is the current practice. In addition, the report calls for all INS offices to use the same software, rather than the half a dozen different systems now in place.

INS Commissioner Doris Meissner hopes that the new technology and other improvements will cut waiting times as well as reduce fraud. There is currently a backlog of about 1.7 million applicants, one-fourth of them in Southern California. Some have waited as long as two years.

Meissner has promised that the higher fees will not go into effect until some of the changes--including unity in software, availability of direct-mail for applications and a reduction in the backlog--are in place.