Elderly, Disabled Refugees Cite Hardship

Elderly and disabled immigrants are suffering hardships because of tighter restrictions on citizenship applications by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, according to some local agencies that aid immigrants.

Applications for citizenship are being delayed, they say, by procedural changes that include the halting of an outreach program, the adding of more background checks and increased rejection of medical certificates that allow some applicants to avoid interviews in English and the citizenship exam.

The delays, they say, have put disabled and elderly refugee applicants at risk of losing some government benefits, because in order to be eligible for those benefits, they have to meet a deadline to become citizens.

“All this is causing great hardship for our clients,” said Ashraf Habibi, director of Orange County Social and Immigration Services, an Irvine-based agency that assists elderly and disabled immigrants, many of them refugees, with citizenship applications.

Officials at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acknowledge giving greater scrutiny to applications, including requests for exemptions from having interviews in English and from taking the required civics test.

“We started to see more and more requests for disability waivers,” said Marie Therese Sebrechts, an agency spokeswoman.

“It was noticeable enough that our adjudicators decided it was necessary to take a closer look, to take more time to look at the evidence given to them before making a decision,” she said.

Sebrechts said successful applicants for exemptions must be more than simply elderly and disabled. There has to be a proven connection between an applicant’s physical or mental health and that individual’s inability to learn English or take the test, she said.

Government regulations require that applicants have a command of written and spoken English and know aspects of U.S. history and government, unless they are able to prove a physical, developmental or mental disability. A licensed medical doctor must certify the immigrant’s health.

Refugees are eligible to apply for citizenship after five years’ residence in the U.S. They have up to seven years to secure U.S. citizenship or risk losing Supplementary Security Income, federal funds designed to help aged, blind and low-income disabled people meet basic needs that include food, clothing and shelter.

“This is all most of them have to live off,” said Dmitry Mazisyuk, citizenship coordinator for Jewish Family Services of Los Angeles, an agency that assists about 400 immigrants a year with naturalization applications.

Mazisyuk and others who assist with citizenship applications said immigration authorities started rejecting more requests for waivers last March.

“Up to February of this year, we had a very positive rate of passing,” said Habibi, noting that her agency handles between 60 and 70 cases a week, primarily for the elderly. “As of March 4, we started having problems.”

Habibi said her organization’s approval record for obtaining citizenship exam waivers had been almost 100%, until March. Since then, most of her clients’ doctors’ certificates confirming disabilities have been rejected, she said.

Sebrechts said the citizenship and immigration agency was unable to provide statistics confirming the number of requests for waivers in recent years and the percentage denied.

“We look at every application based on that individual application,” Sebrechts said. She said immigration officials had noticed applicants younger than 50 applying for waivers, claiming to be disabled or unable to learn English. “The goal of this agency is to give everyone benefits who is eligible for them.”

If a waiver is denied, refugees can reapply, but it takes time.

“It sometimes takes six months to get another interview,” Mazisyuk said, adding that refugees have lost government benefits because the time limit expired.

Fatameh Soltanpour, 70, and Mirali Asghar Mousavi, 82, immigrants from Iran, said they were trying again to get permission to bypass the citizenship exam. The married couple said they cannot speak English and cited physical ailments they said were confirmed by doctors.

Soltanpour said that during her first interview last March, officials at the Citizenship and Immigration Services office in El Monte refused to allow her to use an interpreter.

“I didn’t know what they were talking about,” said Soltanpour, who immigrated to America 13 years ago. She spoke through her daughter-in-law, Azar Alavi.

“They kept me in a room for half an hour. They were very insulting. I felt like a criminal,” she said.

She failed to get an exam waiver and has had to reapply.

Mousavi said that after a second interview in July, he was told through an interpreter that his request for an exam waiver had been granted. But a few weeks later, he got a letter saying it had been rejected.

“We just don’t know what’s going on,” said Alavi. “It’s terrible the way they are treating these people.”

Immigration officials said they cannot discuss individual cases.

Compounding the delays in citizenship applications is an additional background check introduced after 9/11 for all citizenship applicants that advocates say can add several months to the process.

Immigrants’ advocates also complain that the stoppage in March of an outreach program that used to enable elderly and disabled citizenship applicants to be interviewed at convenient local venues has also added to the hardship.

“It was good for the client and it was good for” the immigration authorities, said Rabbi Naftali Estulin, director of Chabad Russian Community Center. “It was easier.”

But Sebrechts defended her agency’s decision. “It was just not an efficient use of our resources,” she said.