As we reported in November, Congress has ordered the INS to abandon the Designated Fingerprint Service program that allowed private firms to fingerprint permanent residency and naturalization applicants. The rule went into effect last December shortly after the law was passed. The INS immediately terminated its contracts with thousands of DFS firms around the country leaving many firms with multiyear contracts that had only been in effect for a few months.  

Now many of those firms are fighting back against what they see as the unlawful termination of the agreements. A class-action lawsuit representing 3,800 DFS firms has been filed seeking a temporary restraining order that would force the INS to allow the firms to resume their services until their contracts terminate.

The suit alleges that the firms will suffer more than $32 million in damages each year.

We will report on this suit as it progresses especially if it has any bearing on the establishment and operation of the new INS fingerprint centers.

There is other news on the fingerprint front as well. The INS has released further guidance on how the new fingerprint procedures mandated by Congress last fall are being implemented. As we above, most of the Designated Fingerprint Service (DFS) facilities around the country will no longer be able to prepare fingerprint cards for naturalization and permanent residency petitions. Only state or local law enforcement agencies (LEAs) previously registered as DFS facilities will be able to continue issuing fingerprints and only for permanent residency petitions. The INS will take over the rest of the responsibilities and will be operating its own fingerprint centers.

According to INS documents, for LEAs to be registered to issue fingerprints, they must notify INS of their intent to fingerprint and provide a list of personnel who will be fingerprinting. LEAs previously registered as DFSs will continue to be authorized to take fingerprints without registering again.

Siskind, Susser, Haas & Chang has placed the latest list of LEAs for the whole nation in the documents collection of our web site at http://www.visalaw.com/docs/.

With respect to the new "Application Support Centers" (ASCs), the INS' fingerprint issuing facilities, the INS has already opened a number of locations. Naturalization applicants and applicants for benefits other than naturalization whose initial fingerprints were rejected will be the first group scheduled to appear at the ASCs.

The INS has given discretion to its district officers to take fingerprints themselves in certain circumstances. If an ASC is not expected to open immediately in an area, officers may take fingerprints for naturalization applicants whose fingerprints were previously rejected or who filed their application appropriately without a fingerprint card and who the INS believes should be fingerprinted without delay.

Naturalization applications with an invalid fingerprint card included will be accepted, but the applicant will be required to get new fingerprints.

The INS has also changed internal rules in order to speed fingerprint processing. All fingerprint cards are now being forwarded to the regional service centers for machine readable data processing. The cards are then forwarded to the FBI for the background clearance. Apparently, the machine readable data process increases the turnaround time for the FBI. Expedited processing will only be entertained in extremely rare circumstances.