TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Lawsuit Loosens Citizenship Backlog

ADVERTISEMENT

By KAREN BRANCH-BRIOSO

The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 19, 2008

Updated: 04/19/2008 12:11 am

TAMPA - Iman Kadom's invitation to her naturalization ceremony landed in her Carrollwood mailbox in early March.

Her husband, Akram Jawad, was pleased: "I said, 'Oh, I'm married to an American now.'"

They celebrated with cake. Kadom wasn't so festive because her husband's letter hadn't arrived. It still hasn't.

Jawad, a retired Iraqi surgeon-turned-Realtor, has waited almost four years to become a citizen. Like his wife, he is a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit with a dozen other Muslims in the Tampa Bay and Orlando areas to prod the federal government to finalize their citizenship applications. Since its filing in February, three of the plaintiffs' applications have been approved.

The rest are still victims of a backlog that the federal government said this month it's working feverishly to eliminate.

The culprit in the delay, according to the lawsuit: a laborious FBI name-check process that immigration officials intensified in 2002 as an extra security measure beyond the criminal background check. It checks any name match in all FBI case files, whether the name pops up as a subject, associate, conspirator or witness.

Many FBI files are still on paper. So the check often involves hand searching files to see whether the name is indeed a match with the would-be citizen and whether it includes derogatory information that is passed along to immigration officials.

Some Applicants Have Waited Years

The Orlando lawsuit, argued by lawyers from the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center, and others in Miami by 11 other plaintiffs, say the name checks have left their citizenship applications in a holding pattern for years.

Ana Santiago, a spokeswoman for the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services, said that as of March, the agency had 72,000 name checks pending with the FBI in which the applicant has waited more than six months.

That's less than 5 percent of the 1.5 million annual total.

For those waiting, however, that's little solace.

Jawad and his wife have been legal U.S. permanent residents for more than 11 years. They both passed their citizenship interviews Sept. 13, 2004. The name check kept them waiting for more than three years.

The ombudsman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a recent report that the "FBI name check process has limited value to public safety or national security, especially because in almost every case, the applicant is in the United States during the name check process, living or working without restriction."

Jawad said he doesn't mind the name check itself.

"We are absolutely in support of name-checking after Sept. 11 - but not to take that long of a time," he said. "One year is OK. Eighteen months? OK ... But not to take this long of a time. Because that makes you feel different. You feel little in comparison to other people. Your dignity, I feel, has been hurt."

The would-be citizens are suffering far more than a loss of dignity.

Danette Zaghari-Mask, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations in Orlando, said the delays have affected people financially as well. One Orlando plaintiff, she said, wanted to bring his foreign-born wife here. Without his U.S. citizenship, she said, the only way he could do that was to bring her as a foreign student.

"She can't apply for a green card. She's paying out-of-country tuition," Zaghari-Mask said. "They've gone into significant financial ruin."

Others are hoping for enhanced job opportunities that come with U.S. citizenship. Some are separated from family members abroad.

For a long time, Kadom wanted to visit her parents abroad in Saudi Arabia, but her Iraqi passport expired while her U.S. citizenship was in limbo. One of the first things she did as a U.S. citizen was to apply for a passport for herself and her middle son, Abdullah, 17 - who with her petition automatically is granted citizenship because he is a minor - so the family can travel to see her parents.

"I already got my passport last week and we applied for my son's passport and we're waiting one week more," Kadom said. "And we're waiting for my husband's citizenship. We hope it will be soon."

Many Want To Participate In Democracy

There's another sense of urgency among many of the plaintiffs this year. In an extremely competitive presidential election year, many want to be citizens so they can vote in November.

That's the wish for El Shafey Ashour, an Egyptian and Spanish national who regularly discusses the political campaign with his U.S.-born wife, Beverly Raymond.

He applied for U.S. citizenship in the last presidential election year, in June 2004.

"I would like to vote in the elections very much," said Ashour, 42, who lives in St. Petersburg, owns a gas station and a convenience store, and is also studying for an acupuncturist degree.

"I'm not Republican. I'm not Democrat. Actually, I like the three candidates. Everybody has some ideas that I love. John McCain, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, they have great ideas. But in the end when we see the Democrat and Republican nominees, then we'll really see their ideas."

He hopes that by that time, he'll be able to help choose the president in the country where he has been a legal permanent resident for more than six years.

"My wife contacted somebody here in Congress and he contacted the FBI and he asked about me," Ashour said. "The FBI's answer to him is they have millions like me. They can't take me before anybody else."

Plan Leaves Expert Skeptical

That could change. In early April, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the FBI announced a joint plan to do away with the backlog. The plan is to first process name checks that have been pending more than three years. That would cover Ashour and Jawad and most of the other plaintiffs from the Tampa Bay and Orlando areas.

Santiago, the CIS spokeswoman, said the agency recently devoted an extra $6 million to the effort to help the FBI hire analysts who will be dedicated to the name-check backlog.

Tania Galloni of The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center is skeptical that the agency will be able to clear the backlog as quickly as it projected in its April 2 announcement.

"We're not holding our breath for a couple of reasons," Galloni said. "The press release only gives the guidelines as to when the FBI will complete name checks, not when USCIS will complete the processing of the actual citizenship application. So even if the FBI meets the targets, there could still be additional delays."

Still, the citizens-to-be find hope.

Ashour takes heart in the news that three of his co-plaintiffs, including Kadom, have been approved for citizenship since the lawsuit was filed in February.

Jawad, Kadom's husband, hopes that a second letter will land in his Carrollwood mailbox - this one addressed to him.

"It is really exciting and very relieving news for my wife to get hers, and I got great hope with this move," Jawad said. "I'm really looking forward to it. That would help me to vote, to feel more secure and to feel that I'm a citizen. Because, really, after all this long while, I feel as if I am not welcome here."

Reporter Karen Branch-Brioso can be reached at (813) 259-7815 or kbranch-brioso@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT