Aside from dealing with the limited extension of INA Section 245i (discussed earlier in this issue), the Department of Justice appropriations bill passed by Congress in November also provides for a dramatic change in the INS’ fingerprint policy for naturalization cases. Under the new system provided for in the law, applicants will now be fingerprinted by the INS after submitting their naturalization applications. Currently, the INS requires fingerprints to be taken by Designated Fingerprint Service (DFS) entities and the fingerprint cards are submitted at the time of filing the naturalization application. The DFS program terminates under the new legislation which went into effect a week after passage in mid-November.
Though the INS denies that the move will cause cases to any longer to process, critics of the new system are claiming that the process could cause cases to be delayed by as long as an additional year. This is particularly troubling as two year processing times are no longer unusual in certain parts of the country.
Under the new rules, applicants will submit naturalization applications WITHOUT fingerprint cards. After filing, the INS will send the naturalization applicant a notice indicating the specific INS location where the applicant should go for fingerprinting and the specific window of time that the applicant has to get the fingerprinting done. According to the INS, notices will be sent out within 90 days of filing the naturalization application. The applicant will bring the notice and their green card (or alternate photo identification) to the INS to get the fingerprinting done and the INS will submit the fingerprint card to the FBI at this point in order to conduct a criminal background check.
The INS plans to open at least 80 Application Support Centers (“ASCs”) with the first coming on line in the next few weeks. The first ASCs will open before the end of the year in Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco and Newark, New Jersey. The rest are scheduled to be opened by February of next year. According to the INS, it will choose sites for ASCs based on several factors including
- the density of immigrant populations
- availability of public transportation
- highways and parking
- accessibility for people with disabilities
The ASCs will be staffed by contractors, not INS employees. These contract employees will be hired and supervised by INS personnel after being cleared by the FBI.
According to INS Commissioner Doris Meissner, the ASCs will be focused on “customer service” and will offer weekend and evening hours to make the centers more accessible to the public. ASCs will be open from 9:00 am to 8:0 pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 9 am to 5 pm on Wednesdays and Fridays and from 8 am to 2 pm on Saturdays. The ASCs will not be open on Federal holidays. They also plan on establishing a fleet of vans to serve as mobile fingerprinting centers in addition to the permanent sites. The vans are scheduled to make regular visits to areas not served by the ASCs including stops for homebound applicants, those in nursing homes and others with special needs that make stopping at the ASCs difficult.
Applicants who have filed their naturalization applications already will not be required to submit new fingerprints. Only new applications are affected. If an applicant’s fingerprint cards are rejected, then the applicant will have to comply with the new rules. However, the INS has indicated that it will attempt to expedite processing for these individuals in order to avoid further delays in the processing of their cases.
According to the INS, the new fingerprint rules are a response to a seriously high number of fingerprint rejections that occur due to problems with the information posted on the masthead of the fingerprint cards as well as problems with the poor quality of fingerprints taken by DFS entities.
The INS insists that the new process will not delay naturalization applications. The agency claims that it will be able to complete the new fingerprint checks within or before the current waiting time for interviews within their districts.
The INS will not charge for fingerprints at the beginning. The INS will begin charging for the service later, but the amount has not been stated nor has the timetable for beginning to charge for the service.
One definitely good piece of news in all of this is the fact that the INS is planning on deploying new technology to speed the turnaround time on clearing fingerprints. The INS plans to implement live-scan fingerprint technology in select sites to assess its use in the future. The INS office in Baltimore is currently testing the equipment. The new equipment uses software to automate the collection of data on the fingerprint card masthead. The INS also plans to use bar codes on fingerprint notifications in the future to eliminate errors on collecting information on the card mastheads. The INS anticipates being able to electronically transmit fingerprints to the FBI by the end of 1999. Also, the INS will begin to use new software it hopes will ensure consistency and efficiency.
The INS also hopes to speed up the process and increase efficiency by expanding the direct mail program under which naturalization applicants are sent to one of four regional service centers. INS district offices are then expected to be able to focus exclusively on interviewing.
The INS also collects fingerprints for other types of applications in addition to naturalization and the question naturally arises concerning how these applications are now to be handled. The DFS program will also be terminated for other applications for which fingerprints are required. Non-naturalization applicants will now have to have their fingerprints taken by a registered Law Enforcement Agency (“LEA”).
The new fingerprint program has not come without criticism. There are currently 3,800 DFSs around the country and there will not only be 80 ASCs as well as an unnamed number of mobile units. Whether the INS will be able to open the ASC centers on time and whether it can avoid chaos in the centers that do open remains to be seen. The INS’ proposed timetable is incredibly ambitious. While the INS has approved locations in California, it has not yet, for example, found any locations in TexasFurther, the INS has reportedly considered charging as much as $35 for fingerprints. This is much higher than most DFSs have charged and the lack of competition in the fingerprint process worries many as the INS is an agency that does not have a good reputation for service and efficiency. It also runs contrary to the general trend in government to move toward privatization.
The INS has also not provided any real evidence that the DFS program was not working or could not be fixed. Though a number of fingerprint cards being returned was excessive, the INS could have attempted to either improve the training for DFS personnel or to end DFS designation for entities that failed to correct ongoing problems. And, of course, there is no guarantee that the INS will do any better job monitoring the quality of the process with contracted employees than they did with the DFSs. The INS claims that the new fingerprinting personnel will receive better training than the DFS personnel, but it begs the question of why not provide better training to the DFSs instead.
The INS has been allocated $84 million to pay for the new program, but the short term disruptions in local office processing could be severe. Already overburdened officials are going to have to be reassigned to supervise the implementation of the process and the INS has not stated how it will prevent disruptions in these officials existing workloads.
Attorneys representing applicants in the naturalization process will not, at first, be copied on fingerprint notices sent to their clients. This lack of notification has created serious problems for attorneys in the past when clients were not aware of the need to share information with their attorneys and attorneys were not up to date on the progress in their clients cases.
Finally, one of the most unjust aspects of this new system is the fact that DFS entities will not receive a refund of their $370 application fees unless their applications have not yet been approved. A DFS approved even one day after the new rules go into effect is out of luck.
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