Thread: CIS to accelerate citizenship applications

Agency Acts to Cut Delay in Gaining Citizenship
By JULIA PRESTON
Published: January 12, 2008

Federal officials said Friday that they had agreed on an emergency plan to hire back about 700 retired government employees in an effort to pare an immense backlog in applications for citizenship by legal immigrants.

Under the plan, first proposed by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, retired workers could return to the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services agency without sacrificing any part of their pensions. The agency will be authorized to hire former employees who have long since passed training programs and could be on the job quickly to help handle the more than one million citizenship applications filed in the first 10 months of last year, Mr. Schumer said.

The required waiver was approved in a letter on Thursday to immigration officials from Linda M. Springer, the director of the Office of Personnel Management.

The rehiring program is one step to help the immigration agency overcome an embarrassing backlog. Legal immigrants, saying they were spurred by a fee increase that took effect July 30 and by worries raised in the fierce political debate over immigration, applied in huge numbers last summer to become citizens. They were aided by a nationwide drive led by Hispanic groups and Univision, the Spanish-language television network.

According to its Web site, the immigration agency is projecting that it could take up to 18 months to process citizenship applications received after June 1. Hispanic groups have protested that hundreds of thousands of applicants would be unable to vote in the presidential election.

“It’s a problem of their own making,â€

Federal officials said Friday that they had agreed on an emergency plan to hire back about 700 retired government employees in an effort to pare an immense backlog in applications for citizenship by legal immigrants.

Where's the funding coming from--the gutted border fence?

Isn't this really about buying votes!

"We have had a Bush-Clinton crime spree in America that has lasted 27 years and we know it is all about oil, money and power." ~ Keith Olbermann