NATURALIZATION DENIALS ON THE RISE

The INS is reporting a nearly 50% increase in the number of people around the US denied citizenship in the past year. Nearly a third of all naturalization applications were denied this fiscal year quarter, up from 23.2% during the same period last year. In some cities, the increases were more pronounced:

• In LA, denials rose from 8.2% to 42.1%
• In New York, denials skyrocketed from 16.6% to 43%
• In Chicago, 24.2% were denied this year as opposed to 17.6% last year

The INS claims the increase is simply due to an increase in applications by unqualified applicants and not stricter standards. Immigration advocates, on the other hand, claim that they are getting numerous complaints from immigrants complaining that bureaucratic problems are causing the denials.

A number of erroneous denials are due to the INS failing to record address changes and mailing interview and document request notices to the wrong address. When an applicant fails to get the notification and misses the interview or does not respond to a document request, the application is denied. Others are due to the fact that some INS offices only give a few days notice to attend an interview. If an applicant is out of town on a week’s vacation, they can miss there interview and eventually be denied.

The INS has decided to reopen cases of applicants rejected even though they sent in an address change. The planned opening of a telephone hotline to notify the INS of address changes is also expected to help.

Immigrant advocates believe a portion of the increase in denials can also be attributed to inconsistent administration of the civics and English tests for naturalization applicants. Failure rates vary considerably from INS office to INS office indicating that individual biases are affecting approval rates. The INS is studying ways to make the results more consistent and may completely overhaul the testing process.

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