Tucson Region
Record numbers of new citizens created; critics say they're too few
The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.16.2008
advertisementPHOENIX — Though immigration officials in Phoenix are churning out record numbers of new U.S. citizens, critics say federal officials aren't working fast enough, so many immigrants won't become citizens in time to vote in November.
The Phoenix office for Citizenship and Immigration Services plans to grant citizenship to 2,000 legal immigrants this month, more than twice the usual 800 for May.
Charles Harrell, the office's acting district director, said the immigration service is responding to a surge of applications that poured in last year.
Citizenship applications spike every four years preceding a presidential election, but the record surge last year was triggered by factors including a 70 percent fee increase that prompted thousands of immigrants to apply before the increase took effect Aug. 1.
Many immigrants also applied in hopes of being able to vote for president in the November general election.
Others were prompted by citizenship drives launched after the collapse of immigration reform in Congress. Still others applied out of fear of being caught in stepped-up immigration crackdowns.
A legal resident is eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship five years after getting his or her green card. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for citizenship.
In Phoenix, 15,976 immigrants applied for citizenship during fiscal 2007, which ended Sept. 30. That's up 64 percent from 2006. Nationally, 1.4 million applications poured in during 2007, almost twice as many as in the previous year.
The flood of citizenship applications created a huge backlog. By the end of December, more than 1 million immigrants were waiting for their applications to be processed, and the CIS said it could take up to 18 months to plow through the backlog, compared with the usual six-month wait.






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