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Related Stories in This INS Feature: • Stuck! The INS Red Tape Nightmare • Washington Journal: The Terrors of Terminology • Blast from the Past: Waiting for Naturalization

Illustration by Daniel Kwak Click for Daniel's Web site.

Stuck!

How the INS turns the American Dream into a tangled nightmare

By Neela Banerjee

My Huynh immigrated to the United States from Vietnam with her parents in 1980. Huynh did not become naturalized, so two years ago she applied for citizenship. She is still waiting, caught in a web of never-ending paperwork and INS backlog.

Her mother, who recently applied for naturalization, is also biding her time in the system. Huynh’s father applied a few years ago and after a long wait, failed his interview due to his lack of English skills, even though he was officially exempt from having to take the test in English because of his age.

“He slipped through the system. He just didn’t know his rights,” said Huynh, who ironically works for the Asian Law Caucus’ Immigration Rights Project.

Huynh and her mother are just two of the nearly 60,000 Bay Area immigrants stuck in the backlog for citizenship. At this time, the “official” wait between the time someone files their N-400 naturalization application and gets their interview is two and a half years. Often, it takes longer than that.

With thousands of immigrants in limbo and more cases than INS officers can handle, the system has been labeled one of the most inefficient and confusing of the United States government. But over the past five years, as the immigrant community has recovered from the backlash of the 1996 welfare and immigration laws, both community based organizations and the INS itself are striving to shorten the lines and abolish the red tape that makes this process so sticky.

Anti-Immigration in the ’90s

Over 1000 people marched through the streets of Oakland in January of 2001 to bring attention to the continuing plight of immigrants in this country. Photo by Joseph Hong.

At the end of January, more than 1,000 supporters marched through the streets of Oakland. Labor and immigrant rights groups, ranging from the Spanish Speaking Citizens Foundation to San Jose’s Association for Residency and Citizenship to the Internationa£ Brotherhood of Teamsters, came together to demand rights ranging from general amnesty for undocumented workers to expanded opportunities for legal immigration.

Along with these demands was the underlying need for a streamlining of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the institution that is responsible for the enormous task of enforcing immigration policy and naturalizing citizens.

The march, organized through the Labor Immigrant Organizing Network, is the latest in an ongoing effort of community activists who have been working double-time to protect immigrant rights since the crisis of the 1990s.

Following historical and economic cycles of capitalism, the recession of the early 1990s was met by wide-ranging anti-immigrant sentiment. This attitude was institutionalized in a number of federal and statewide laws, especially affecting those in California.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996 were serious blows to the immigrant community, changing immigration policy at every level.

These laws took away access to welfare and other public benefits from legal immigrants and permanent residents by establishing new, confusing eligibility rules, and made several categories of previously eligible legal immigrants ineligible for these services. For example: legal adult immigrants were no longer eligible for food stamps; there was no longer any Supplemental Social Security benefits for elderly, blind or disabled legal residents: and new immigrants were denied access to any welfare program.

With these chilling laws, seniors who had been living in the United States for years and were relying on these services were left out in the cold. Nearly half of the cost savings of the federal welfare reform bill took away benefits from legal immigrants.

Rand Quinn (left) and Thomas Le of SIREN (Services, Immigration Rights and Education Network) in their Santa Clara, California office. Photo by Neela Banerjee.

The genesis of the backlog was really after these laws in 1996,” Rand Quinn, director of the Santa Clara county-based Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network, or SIREN, said. “There was a huge increase in the number of green card holders who applied for citizenship. Whereas before people could basically have the same number of rights and have access to government programs, after 1996 all that changed and the INS couldn’t handle it.”

In California, these federal laws coincided with legislation such as Propositions 187, 209 and 227, which took away support systems for immigrants in schools and other institutions. Altogether, more laws came down at once to harm the immigrant community in 1996 than at any other time in United States history.

A Need for Community Action

At that time, the plight of immigrants as they were about to lose their benefits spurred mass organizing and service work around the Bay Area, especially in Santa Clara county, which has the highest number of immigrants of any county in Northern California. Local government actually stepped in and worked to create a landmark citizenship program in direct response to the problems being faced by the community.

“After the 1996 laws passed, providers doing work in Santa Clara county realized that some 51,000 legal immigrants would lose their benefits,” Richard Hobbs, director of the Santa Clara County Citizenship and Immigrant Services program, said, from the county’s Office of Human Relations where the program is officially housed.

According to Hobbs, when it became clear that this many people were going to lose very basic life support, a number of community advocates urged the Board of Supervisors to create a way for the county to get into the business of citizenship.

“There were really two reasons for this program. One was so that the legal immigrants could reestablish eligibility for public benefits; and also to allow a larger number of immigrants to vote and have access to the political process,” Hobbs said.

Today, the program has grown from a staff of two people to four, and their name has changed to the Immigrant Action Network (IAN).

Hobbs and co-worker Teresa Castellanos came on board from the Catholic Charities immigration program, in August of 1996. Their immediate goal was to try and provide citizenship to the immigrants about to lose benefits. They held citizenship days every Saturday for six months, recruited over 500 volunteers, and walked people through the forms and steps that they needed.

“It was an amazing time,” Hobbs recounted. “There was a very positive community response because of the dire consequences of welfare reform.”

Working with a number of community-based organizations, IAN was able to provide citizenship days in 18 languages every six months. Since they started in 1997, IAN has completed about 15,000 N400 (naturalization) forms. In addition to that, Hobbs claims they have helped some 40,000 people with some aspect of the citizenship process, from photos to fingerprints.

But Hobbs said that of the 15,000 people who filed their applications, there are still over 4,000 who are still waiting in the backlog, along with thousands of others who have come after that.

Lost in the Backlog

Illustration by Daniel Kwak.

Immigrants and INS officers alike say they are frustrated. Much of the backlog stems from an inefficient bureaucracy entangled by stacks of confusing paperwork.

“It is just hard because you get these people who have done everything right, filled out their forms, received a notice from the INS a year ago and have heard nothing since then,” said Ivy Lee, immigration lawyer with San Francisco’s Asian Law Caucus. “They just don’t know what they are supposed to be doing.”

People have learned to wait. When they do become distraught, it is often because officials tell them the backlog is shorter than it is, Hobbs said.

“If people start to think it is going to be six months, then they really start getting anxious,” Hobbs said. “They start asking if the INS forgot about them and wondering if they did something wrong.”

Language barriers can further exacerbate the confusion. Thomas Le, citizenship coordinator with SIREN, who immigrated from Vietnam in the 1980s, said that often immigrants are low-income and have poor English skills, so they get lost in the backlog.

“When I first came to this country, I moved around all the time. And every time you move, you have to let the INS know,” Le said. “If they don’t get your change of address, then you may miss a deadline or not know when the next step of your process is. It becomes very difficult.”

Le said that he had a client in 1997 who had applied to be naturalized. She was fingerprinted but never received notice from the INS after that. When Le did an inquiry, the INS said that her case was closed because she never showed up to her interview.

Said Le: “Our client had the burden of proof. It was her voice against the INS. And there was nothing she could do but get back at the end of the line.”

A Less Than Perfect Relationship

When asked about their relationship with the INS, immigrant rights workers tend to exhibit similar expressions: They shrug, shake their heads, flash a wry smile.

“We work with and against the INS,” Hobbs said.

Agencies such as IAN and SIREN have criticized the INS for its insensitivity and inconsistency in adjudication.

“Frequently, we have seen results that are very different for different people who are similarly situated,” Hobbs said.

In 1997 and 1998, IAN was part of the larger community network that sent petitions with thousands of signatures to then-President Bill Clinton and local legislators.

“We were seeking more funding for the INS and a separate district office in San Jose, because it has always been the stepchild of the San Francisco INS and had not really received its dues,” Hobbs said.

Representative Zoe Lofgren proposed this separate office. But her bill did not pass through the Republican controlled sub-committee on immigration.

“We protested in front of the INS office with hundreds of people carrying signs and protesting the backlog, urging them to do something about it,” Hobbs said. “Tom Campbell, Republican Congressman, set up a podium in front of the INS and blasted them. There was unanimity of concerns about the backlog.”

In response, the INS created a customer service initiative in 1998 to improve the system. A pilot program based in San Jose added some 15 additional officers, but they were not adjudication officers, Hobbs noted.

“We don’t necessarily need more people to deal with the public,” he said. “We need more people who could give interviews.”

But the INS was struggling to do anything they could to reduce the backlog. Any help they could get was crucial. The county even helped out by lending nine clerks from their offices to help with the paperwork. This was an unprecedented move, which took a lot of legal footwork because the INS is such a high-security government office.

“It was very necessary, though, because the INS was receiving something like 10 inquiries for every citizenship application, and they didn’t even have anybody to open the mail,” Hobbs said. “There were tens of thousands of unopened letters, and they didn’t know what to do with them.”

Trying to Connect

The INS’s Customer Service project, known as the Customer Service Laboratory, prides itself on opening lines of communication up and getting feedback from the community. From 1998, the customer service advisory board has met regularly with community based organizations around the Bay Area.

“These meetings are so we can hear everything that is going on in the community,” INS spokesperson Sharon Rummery said. “They suggest changes that we might make and we incorporate this into our work and try and fix the problems.”

The customer service project also does informational outreach every month and holds seminars for immigrants on different topics, such as “How to Immigrate Your Parents.” But the key part of this program is being open to the community.

“We’re really trying to open the door,” Rummery said. “We need to break down the fear that surrounds the INS and help people to understand exactly what their rights are.”

Cultural and Language Barriers

Along with long waiting periods, the fear that people have of the INS continues to be a significant problem.

IAN spent over a year doing research in the immigrant communities of Santa Clara. Their report, “Bridging Borders in Silicon Valley,” focuses on economic empowerment, education, family support, health and legal issues. In the section on citizenship, they found that most immigrants view the citizenship process as “difficult, complex, inaccessible and stressful.” Many immigrants also felt that the INS is insensitive toward them, saying that INS expectations are often unclear and that there are often “cultural misunderstandings.”

IAN is now in the planning stages of implementing many of the recommendations that were made in the report. They are working with ESL instructors and meeting with the community to make things happen.

“But it is tough and slow because a lot of it includes changes in the federal law, and some of it includes changes in the attitudes of INS workers toward our clientele,” IAN researcher Teresa Castellanos said. “We definitely get complaints about this issue. Seniors will come to our office in tears because of the way they were treated at their INS interview.”

Le sees this fear everyday as he works to prepare immigrants for their interviews.

“The whole process is really a nightmare for them,” Le said. “We try to work with them to break everything down. We do everything, from when you walk in, how to shake the officer’s hand, how to look them in the eye.”

Le said cultural and language barriers can become huge issues during interviews.

“If an immigrant comes with limited English and that deep-seated fear of the INS, no matter how much they participated in classes or how much training they had, they often freeze up,” Le said. “They are stigmatized by the INS. They are afraid.”

Le thinks that the INS system should change so this process is more comfortable and not so intimidating. He emphasized the importance of sensitivity training for the officers, as well, citing specifically his 70-year-old mother’s interview experience.

“My mother cannot use or raise her right hand because of an injury, and when the INS officer told her to raise her right hand, she raised her left instead and did not know how to explain why in English. The officer kicked her out of the office,” Le said. “This is their idea of sensitive?”

It seems the INS has not gotten the message, though. When asked about what kind of on-going cultural proficiency training is being done at the INS, spokesperson Rummery seemed surprised by the question.

“What exactly do you mean by cultural proficiency?” asked Rummery. “Like how in some cultures it is an insult to look you directly in the eyes and in others it is not?”

Later on Rummery clarified that there is no training program for adjudication officers beyond their initial training.

“They are trained in this kind of thing when they go through their actual training,” Rummery said. “Again, if people are having problems they should come to the meetings and tell us about any complaints.”

But, said Hobbs: “It has been brought up again and again by community groups and even Zoe Lofgren brought it up to the INS. There is this sense that this is an overblown issue when it really is not.”

Lee said that the problem could even stem from the initial training for officers.

“In 1996, the INS was infused with funds to hire more agents and more adjudicators,” Lee said. “The one thing that I don’t think went along with that was funding into more expansive training. That’s a problem. You have money and zealousness, but you don’t have the training to direct that zealousness appropriately.”

Both Hobbs and Lee also emphasized the fact that INS officers are low-level, federal wage earners. With the huge numbers of interviews, these officers are probably overworked.

“I am not saying that all of them are horrible people who don’t know what they are doing. A lot of them are good and sensitive and will bend over backwards to get people to pass their naturalization interview,” Lee said. “But doing the same thing over and over is hard.”

Harsh Laws

The 1996 laws also increased the apprehension people have toward the immigration process. With harsher laws concerning deportation, immigration workers look over client’s files for any red flags that may cause problems during the process.

In the aftermath of the 1996 laws, especially IIRIRA, this has been an incredibly important and scary part of the immigration process. IIRIRA greatly expanded the list of offenses for which a non-citizen could be deported. Under old immigration policy, a person could be deported if he or she were convicted of a crime that came with a five-year sentence. The new law changes that to crimes that carry as little as one year of probation.

“The intention was to take all the dangerous aliens in the United States and have them detained or shipped off,” Lee said. “But again, it was the overzealousness. They changed a lot of misdemeanors into what are called aggravated felonies. So now, if an immigrant shoplifts more than once, they are considered an aggravated felon and can be deported.”

These laws are retroactive, which means that if someone was caught with a joint of marijuana when they were 20, when they tried to naturalize at 40 they could be arrested and deported.

“You may be an upstanding member of your community and have contributed all kinds of things, but no judge can even consider that in your case,” Lee said. “I am sure that most of the American public would not think of this as being part of our policy.”

Immigrant rights groups are pushing for changes in these laws because they do not take into account things like remorse, rehabilitation or the severity of the crime.

SIREN’s Le said that this all has to do with the “good moral character” requirement of being a citizen. During counseling he has to work really hard to get his clients to tell him everything about their pasts.

“Someone who did something stupid 10 or 15 years ago would not imagine the kind of repercussions that it can have on their citizenship,” Le said.

For most people who have red flags like this, there is really nothing that can be done.

“For these people, it would just be better to stay a permanent resident than be deported,” Le said.

Laws like these point to inconsistencies within the INS office. Immigrants rights groups often suggest some kind of split between the enforcement side of the INS and its services.

“A big part of these problems is that you have one department responsible for intensive harsh border patrol to keep immigrants out, and they are also supposed to turn around and provide services to immigrants that are within this country,” SIREN’s Quinn said. “I think the focus has been too much on the enforcement side, and it has been up to advocates like SIREN and other organizations to make sure that services to immigrants don’t get shorted as a priority.”

Illustration by Daniel Kwak.

Changing Times

Today, the numbers of applications for citizenship have dropped dramatically. This is mainly because citizenship fees have gone up from $90 to $250 and the crunch of welfare reform has been lifted, with a change in laws and added California state laws that give back some public benefits to immigrants. According to IAN, the number of applications per month has gone from 10,000 at the peak to 2,500 or less now. The San Jose INS office now has 42 permanent officers and the San Francisco office has 67, which gives them the capacity to interview some 6,000 people each month.

“They should have had all the cases completed through July of 1998 by the end of February,” Hobbs said. “People are still stuck in the backlog, but this bottleneck should be through in the next couple of years.”

For people like Huynh and her mother, the waiting does not get easier with time.

“Who would have thought that this process would take so long?” Huynh said. “There definitely needs to be some kind of change.”