http://www.tbo.com/news/metro/MGB1VJ4OOVE.html

His Agency Opens Golden Door
Skip directly to the full story.

By CHRIS ECHEGARAY The Tampa Tribune

Published: Dec 14, 2006

TAMPA - The man in charge of the world's largest immigration service moved here from Cuba when he was 4 and can't go back because the Castro government considers him a terrorist.

Emilio Gonzalez is the head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. He is in charge of an agency with 15,000 employees that operates on $2 billion of its own revenue.

Gonzalez was 9 when he became a U.S. citizen.

Since then, he has called Tampa home, growing up in Town 'N Country and graduating from Tampa Catholic High School and the University of South Florida. His parents and other relatives live here.

Today, Gonzalez will be at a swearing-in ceremony of 75 new citizens at the University of South Florida.

There are 8 million legal U.S. residents who may become citizens at any time. And, depending on the outcome of immigration reform, Gonzalez says his agency is ready to deal with an additional 12 million illegal immigrants waiting their turn.

Gonzalez was a career military man who once taught at West Point and retired as an Army colonel after 26 years of service. Gonzalez then worked as director for Western Hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council. He served as a national security and foreign policy adviser to President Bush and Condoleezza Rice.

According to a 2002 Granma article, the Cuban government lists him as public enemy No. 4 of the top 10 "anti-Cuban Miami Mafiosi."

This is his first return to Tampa since Gonzalez was appointed to the Department of Homeland Security post Jan. 4.

The Tampa Tribune and its sister paper, CENTRO Mi Diario, caught up with Gonzalez before his visit.

If Congress decides to legalize the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country through citizenship and temporary work permits, it would be a huge undertaking for your office. Can it handle such volume? And what would be the backlog?

We are ready. We have studied, analyzed and have been preparing for that eventuality.

We have several plans. We are waiting for the green light from Congress. We have learned a lot from immigration officials who went through the 1986 [Immigration Reform and Control Act] legalization process and are still part of the institution.

Through them we understand what works, what doesn't, what needs some work, what to expect. It would take six months or less to process if there are no glitches with the background checks.

No immigration service in the world deals with the volume that we deal with.

Let's say 97 [percent], 98 percent of green card solicitors are processed, that still leaves 2 percent who are delayed because of background checks and other things. If there are 6 [million] to 7 million petitions, 2 percent would be 120,000 people - the size of a small city. That would be an administrative backlog, not a processing backlog.

Another thing, for example, that causes the backlog is the quotas we have for some countries. If countries like India, Mexico and the Philippines are overrepresented, let's say, those people could [wait] 15 years to come here. That case falls in backlog, but it's not.

You arrived from Cuba at age 4. Do you remember when you became a citizen?

I became a citizen on Dec. 16, 1966. I was 9 years old.

I remember the INS official coming over and asking if I wanted to change my name. I remember looking at him and thinking, "Is he crazy?" I told him, "No."

I've been Emilio all my life. Why would I be anybody else?

Till this day, they ask that same question. But some people, interestingly enough, do change their name. A lot of times people from Latin America shorten their names. For example, a person with the name Pancracio Miguel Perez is usually known as Miguel. When he becomes a citizen, he is known as Miguel Perez.

Congress voted to build a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. Does this benefit your agency?

The population I deal with exclusively is legal immigrants. We have border security, which we all want, which we are getting day in and day out.

There is internal enforcement to root out criminal aliens that are among us and that have to be sent home.

We need to have the ability to account for and document a population that is the size of Belgium and that lives in the U.S. That's a security concern. That's why Citizenship and Immigration Services is under [the Department of Homeland Security].

It's a security issue. But obviously, the more they come into the country, and if and when we do have immigration reform and they are part of the process, it will affect my work because the population will be growing.

CENTRO Mi Diario reporter Geraldine Perez-Cook contributed to this report. Reporter Chris Echegaray can be reached at cechegaray@tampatrib.com or (813) 259-7920.