Delays Feared Under Senate Immigration Plan
Beep Beep
Huge Backlogs, Delays Feared Under Senate Immigration Plan
By S. Mitra Kalita and Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, July 24, 2006; A03
Arturo Zavala entered the United States illegally from Mexico in 1976 and
picked mushrooms in Pennsylvania for a decade before he became a legal
resident. But that menial labor was not the toughest part of life here.
More difficult was gaining permission for his wife, daughter and two younger
sons to join him and his eldest son here. The family finally reunited in
2001, 14 years after Zavala received his green card as part of a 1986
amnesty program for illegal immigrants.
"I missed my family," he said. "I would live here nine months and go visit
them three months. When I went, they were little, and by the time I saw them
again, they were all grown up. My wife was like a mother and father."
The long delays for Zavala's family were among the many unintended
consequences of the 1986 law, which allowed nearly 3 million immigrants to
gain legal status. But illegal workers and the government may face far
greater problems if pending immigration legislation passes and three times
as many people -- as many as 10 million by some estimates -- are permitted
to apply for legalization.
"It would be an utter meltdown," said Peggy Gleason, a senior attorney at
the Catholic Legal Immigration Network. "Despite the problems, [the 1986
amnesty] was actually an enormous success. Government made this huge effort
to make all these offices that were very consumer friendly. I have no idea
what the government is doing right now to prepare, but back then, they
thought about it hard."
Now, there are two versions of the legislation. In the House, the focus is
on border security. The Senate would permit illegal immigrants who have
lived in the United States for at least two years to apply for legal status;
smaller legalization programs would apply to illegal farm workers and some
children of illegal immigrants; and a guest-worker program would be
established for as many as 200,000 people a year.
Of the nearly 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States,
about 10 million may register to apply for legalization if the Senate plan
passes, said Demetrios G. Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy
Institute, a research center.
That could overwhelm the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration
Services, which last year granted permanent residency to 1.1 million people
and awarded temporary worker visas to 200,000.
Back in 1986, the numbers of illegal immigrants were far fewer than they are
today, but federal agencies still had difficulty keeping up. Their backlogs
grew even deeper when immigrants granted legal status exercised their rights
to bring immediate relatives. Processing those applications took years, as
in Zavala's case.
Zavala recalled long lines and a chaotic scene at the Lima, Pa., district
office when he went to apply for amnesty in 1986. He said he felt lucky that
his proof of residency and employment were accepted quickly. Many of his
friends were not as lucky. Others were terrified to come forward, fearing
they would be deported. "Many of my friends were afraid to apply," he said.
"By the time I told them the rumors weren't true, the deadline was up."
Of this year's debate, he said, "I hope they make it like '86. But I hope
they do it quicker for their families."
Supporters of the Senate proposal note that Congress has learned some
lessons from 1986. The bill would set a six-year processing window and would
require participating immigrants to register within 90 days.
Citizenship and immigration bureau officials, however, said they would need
much more time and more staff to register millions of applications. Director
Emilio T. Gonzalez said it would take six to nine months just to register a
group the size the Senate bill contemplates.
Michael Aytes, the agency's associate director for domestic operations,
added: "We can't approach anything like legalization on the scale being
discussed in a traditional way. We would have to grow too far, too fast."
The Senate bill would set up complex rules for how illegal immigrants can
apply for legal status, depending upon how long they have been here. The
legislation also says immigrants would have to prove their U.S. work history
with at least two documents. Many would not have pay stubs or tax records,
so the law provides for sworn affidavits from employers. The rules and use
of affidavits would open the process to fraud, experts said.
"The document of choice inevitably will be an awful lot of legal statements
saying, 'Yes, I employed this guy.' Well, once you move to affidavits, then
you basically have next to nothing," said former Immigration and
Naturalization Services commissioner Doris Meissner. "How do you design an
affidavit system that has integrity?"
Skeptics of the Senate proposal cite a provision of the 1986 amnesty law
that targeted agricultural workers. Congress expected 200,000 to 400,000
people to apply. Instead, 1.3 million people came forward -- twice as many
people as were employed on farms in some states, according to labor
statistics -- taking advantage of shorter residency requirements and low
burdens of proof. Many then disappeared to take non-farming jobs. By 1989,
federal officials placed nearly 400,000 applications on hold and made
hundreds of arrests for fake documents. Some applicants are still in limbo.
"Legalization got a bad rap because of (the agricultural program). That was
the leaky sieve. And that was because the legislation was written in a way
you could drive a truck through" the regulations, said Meissner, now a
senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute.
The citizenship and immigration bureau currently faces a backlog of pending
cases and security checks, as well as antiquated technology and a shortage
of skilled personnel.
The Bush administration has set aside $560 million over five years to reduce
a backlog that numbered 3.8 million cases in 2003 -- there were 276,000 as
of June 2006, not counting 1 million cases that await actions by applicants,
other government agencies or openings in quota-based programs. The
Government Accountability Office says the citizenship and immigration bureau
is unlikely to meet a six-month processing target by September as it had
promised.
In 2004, the agency submitted 1.9 million sets of fingerprints and 1.5
million names to the FBI, numbers that would grow tremendously if the Senate
bill became law, according to the GAO. As of now, 113,000 FBI name checks
have been pending more than six months, and 40,000 more than two years,
officials said.
"The hidden chokepoint here is going to be the security background checks,"
Meissner said. "The FBI is not set up to handle the volume that the
immigration agencies are generating."
In Tallahassee, Aman Kapoor, a computer programmer who is in the final
stages of obtaining his green card, has been called for fingerprinting five
times. "Next time if they call me, I am just going to leave my fingers
there," said Kapoor, one of the founders of Immigration Voice, a group that
advocates for legal immigrants. "Give me back my fingers once you are done."
New technology is supposed to help. The Senate bill would require that by
October 2007 all permanent immigration documents be machine readable, fraud
resistant and linked to biometric indicators, such as fingerprints, and that
Homeland Security and FBI automated fingerprint systems be compatible. All
U.S. employers would have to adopt an electronic system to verify the
eligibility of workers within six years.
But that would be costly. The Congressional Budget Office said the Senate
bill would require $800 million to pay one-time costs for facilities and
computers.
Officials hope to transform the $2 billion-a-year, 15,000-worker citizenship
and immigration bureau through new technology and the expanded use of
contractors, paid for by its share of billions in new fees, Aytes said.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Congress must not
micromanage eligibility rules, or else even new computer systems won't be
able to handle the workload. "The more documents you have . . . the more
fraud you have -- that's the lesson from 1986," Chertoff said.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
J.C.
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> Huge Backlogs, Delays Feared Under Senate Immigration Plan
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più humble termine: _ nostro ripet petizione essere rispond soltanto
ripet ferita. _ un un principe, di cui carattere essere così
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_
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vita, nostro fortuna e nostro sacred honor.