Thread: TX: FBI background checks mire immigration process

FBI background checks mire immigration process
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
El Paso Times
Article Launched:06/17/2007 05:05:24 PM MDT

FBI background checks can slow down the processing of immigration applications for years, a recent report by Citizenship and Immigration Services officials revealed, leading some to wonder about the government's ability to handle millions of new visa applications under a proposed immigration reform.
The annual report delivered last week by the CIS ombudsman called the FBI checks, known as "name checks," "the single biggest obstacle to the timely and efficient delivery of immigration benefits."

The ombudsman reported that there were more than 300,000 name checks pending around the nation, including 30,000 pending for more than two years and nine months. The backlog is only increasing. Last year, there were only around 20,000 such long-running cases, according to the report.

El Pasoan Hector Piña, a Venezuelan businessman, has waited close to four years for his background to be checked. He applied for permanent residency with this wife. The Piñas were interviewed by immigration officials a month and a half after filing their paperwork and everything was in order, Piña said. Because their daughter is an adult U.S. citizen, the Piñas' case should have taken months.

But they didn't count on the FBI name checks.

"We pay a visit to the (CIS) Hawkins (Boulevard) office every other month to check our status. It is unfortunate. We do have business here. There are a lot of opportunities we may lose because of that," said Piña, who owns an information technology business in El Paso. "How can people be in the country for six years and the FBI not know who they are? It is incongruent that the U.S. government is talking about handling (visas for) 12 million (undocumented immigrants)."

Such bureaucratic hurdles reminded U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, of the government's failure to handle a recent rush of applications for U.S. passports.

"Some critics are justifiably asking: If the federal government cannot even handle routine passport applications for U.S. citizens, how can it possibly do thorough background checks and issue visas for millions of foreign-born applicants?" he said.

Officials at the CIS ombudsman's office said they did not have backlog figures specific to El Paso. CIS officials in El Paso directed calls to Dallas where a media representative declined to give out backlog figures for El Paso but said the delays attributable to FBI name checks represented only 1 percent of the case load.

Iliana Holguin, executive director of the Diocesan Migrant and Refugee Services of El Paso, said at least a quarter of the cases that her group handles experience delays because of FBI checks.

"The really frustrating thing is that we can't complain to CIS. It's out of their hands," Holguin said.

The checks are conducted by the National Name Check Program's in Washington, D.C., which serves more than 70 federal agencies requesting name checks. The agency's goal is to check each name and other biographical information against FBI databases within 120 days. But when the migrant has a very common name, such as Kim in Korea or Garcia in Mexico, the check can be very lengthy, officials said.

Robert Garrity, former acting assistant director of records at the FBI, explained the name check process during a 2003 testimony in Congress.

"The names are searched in a multitude of combinations, switching the order of first, last, middle names, as well as combinations with just the first and last, first and middle, and so on. It also searches different phonetic spelling variations of the names, especially important considering that many names in our indices have been transliterated from a language other than English," he said.

About 1 percent of the checks come back with negative information about the applicant, government officials said.

The CIS ombudsman's report also said that one third of the calls made to a national immigration customer service hotline were inquiry about delays. As of March 2007, there was still a national backlog of 1,3 million immigration cases that hadn't been decided.

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes

http://www.elpasotimes.com/breakingnews/ci_6165078

"We pay a visit to the (CIS) Hawkins (Boulevard) office every other month to check our status. It is unfortunate. We do have business here. There are a lot of opportunities we may lose because of that," said Piña, who owns an information technology business in El Paso. "How can people be in the country for six years and the FBI not know who they are? It is incongruent that the U.S. government is talking about handling (visas for) 12 million (undocumented immigrants)."

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE.... THIS IS A HISPANIC SAYING THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

AMERICA, IN ALL OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL COLORS, OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE THE TRUTH! THIS IS A SCAM SET UPON US BY THOSE WHO WOULD HAVE US BE THEIR SLAVES!

If this isn't a clear cut case of the right hand not knowing what the left is doing...Ted Kennedy...John McCain...

Originally Posted by dragons5

"We pay a visit to the (CIS) Hawkins (Boulevard) office every other month to check our status. It is unfortunate. We do have business here. There are a lot of opportunities we may lose because of that," said Piña, who owns an information technology business in El Paso. "How can people be in the country for six years and the FBI not know who they are? It is incongruent that the U.S. government is talking about handling (visas for) 12 million (undocumented immigrants)."

PLEASE TAKE NOTICE.... THIS IS A HISPANIC SAYING THAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE.

AMERICA, IN ALL OF YOUR BEAUTIFUL COLORS, OPEN YOUR EYES AND SEE THE TRUTH! THIS IS A SCAM SET UPON US BY THOSE WHO WOULD HAVE US BE THEIR SLAVES!

Add to that the present debacle with passport applications. They are months behind in processing them and have had to suspend the requirement until they can catch up.