New Immigration Rules and Reduced INS Funding Has Would-be Citizens Mired in Red Tape

By Lea Aschkenas

In its most streamlined, idealistic version, the process to become a U.S. citizen goes something like this. Step 1: An immigrant mails in the application and fee. Step 2: The immigrant gets fingerprinted. Step 3: The immigrant goes for an interview. Step 4: The immigrant participates in an oath ceremony and is sworn in as a citizen of these United States.

But for nearly a million immigrants every year, the system rarely goes this smoothly.

Complicating the plight of many immigrants is the lack of any INS office in San Luis Obispo County and the presence of only a smattering of temporary satellite centers offering partial services in the other six counties that are under the jurisdiction of the L.A. office. So that four-step process translates into a nearly four-hour-long commute for SLO County residents who must, according to the INS, make a minimum of three trips to Los Angeles, barring any bureaucratic glitches along the way.

Meet Steve McGrath, a British native who has been living in SLO for 10 years. In 1995 he decided to submit his citizenship application, his fingerprints, and $95 processing fee to the INS.

Within two weeks, his check was deposited. Within three years, his file was somehow lost, his case was closed without his knowledge, his fingerprints expired, and the congressman who was looking into his case died.

Today, even after numerous letters of complaint to the INS, to immigration liaison services, and to an L.A. lawyer who was considering representing him in a class-action lawsuit against the INS, McGrath is still awaiting naturalization, as this cryptic, chaotic process is formally called.

A detailed chronology reveals that 15 months after McGrath first applied for citizenship, in response to a query from the late congressional representative Walter Capps, the INS reported that they could not find McGrath’s application. He would have to send copies of all his paperwork, including fingerprints and his canceled check, to restart the process.

Fingerprints technically "expire" after 15 months, although no one informed McGrath of that minor detail. Fingerprints themselves do not have a shelf life, but the FBI stations where they are sent to be checked against criminal databases have limited storage facilities.

In August of this year, following queries from Congresswoman Lois Capps, the INS mailed McGrath a letter inviting him into the third step of the four-tier naturalization process. For McGrath, as with many immigrants, the steps are often jumbled or irreparably stalled in the middle, and that's just part of the unwritten equation of naturalization.

McGrath, a self-employed environmental consultant, took a day off work in mid-September to make the three-and-a-half-hour trek to Los Angeles. After waiting in line for more than an hour after his scheduled interview time, McGrath was admitted inside and informed by an INS officer that his fingerprints had expired. He would need a new set and would have to reschedule his interview.

Until recently, citizenship applicants could get their fingers printed in any number of places ranging from a police station to a community center with facilities. But in December of 1997, Congress shut down all fingerprinting substations, claiming that the process needed more standardization to ensure that convicted criminals were not being granted citizenship. Today, a digital computer system in the Los Angeles INS building is the only mechanism authorized to take fingerprints.

By the time McGrath was informed of all this, it was late afternoon so, since he was already in L.A., he made an appointment with the INS officer to have his fingers printed the next morning. He took a hotel room and woke early for his appointment, but when he returned to the INS building the following day, he was informed that he would have to wait for a cut on the back of his hand to heal before he could be fingerprinted.

In a complaint that he sent two days later to the Department of Justice, along with a $669.02 bill for the expenses incurred in his two days of travel and missed work, McGrath wrote, "I can drive to appointments, rather than trying to work with a poorly functioning public transit system.... I am self-employed and do not have to risk the loss of a job to attend interviews; I can speak English; I can physically wait without undue discomfort. From what I saw...this is by no means the case for the vast majority of applicants. How some of these people, without the blessings I have, manage this process is beyond comprehension."

From her tiny Grover Beach office that she shares with two Promotoras Comunitarias employees, supervisor Rosa Saucedo-Rodriguez has been listening, for the past 20 years, to the stories of immigrants who attempt to navigate their way through the naturalization maze without any of McGrath’s "blessings."

Promotoras Comunitarias is a division of the nonprofit EOC Health Services and works with SLO County’s Latino community on issues ranging from domestic violence to pesticide education to citizenship.

"We take whoever comes to the door," Saucedo-Rodriguez says.

During an afternoon in late October, that included a large number of disillusioned, confused, weary, and sometimes even angry naturalization initiates.

"Sometimes people get mad. They think we’re not doing our job," says Saucedo-Rodriguez. "But what can we do? Who knows? It’s the INS."

Saucedo-Rodriguez flips through a stack of manila folders approaching a foot in height to reveal a cross-section of her applicants. There is a couple who applied at the same time. One received an interview date in eight months and the other, a year and a half later, is still waiting.

There is a woman who applied for citizenship in July of 1995. Finally, in September of this year, she had an interview in Los Angeles. Afterwards, an INS officer told her she passed and said she should wait for a letter with her swearing-in date. Two weeks later she received a letter from the INS with a date for another interview.

"She is one of the few who made contact with the INS, but now she is confused," says Saucedo-Rodriguez. "And I am, too."

Saucedo-Rodriguez is planning to bring these applications and correspondences to an upcoming Los Angeles meeting with the INS, but she says that often, even after an in-person request, it may be another five or six months before she gets any sort of response.

It is even more difficult for individuals to contact the INS on their own because it is only people like Saucedo-Rodriguez, congressional representatives, private INS liaison services that charge up to $80 to serve as a go-between, or the lucky reporter who has access to the coveted INS direct L.A. number who can reach a real person. Everyone else gets an 800 "ask immigration" line, which even INS officials, who are surprisingly frank about the defects of their system, admit won’t get you anywhere.

"You can’t get status checks on it," says Jane Arellano, the L.A. INS assistant district director for adjudications. "There’s no live operator."

After conferring with her co-worker, public affairs officer Rico Cabrera, Arellano decides the best way to check on the status of an application would be to write to the INS post office box.

Saucedo-Rodriguez points out that even she often cannot get through to anyone on the direct line she’s been given. She has been trying to reach INS Application Support Center coordinator Raul Acosta to find out if the INS might reopen some of their mobile fingerprinting stations in SLO County.

"Oh, but he’s pulled a good one on me," she says. "They change their numbers all the time. I call the number they give me and poof." She throws her hands into the air. "They’re not there anymore."

To demonstrate, she flips through her Rolodex for Acosta’s number. She rolls her eyes before picking up the telephone receiver and dialing the number with much deliberation. A look of shock crosses her face as a live voice answers on the other end.

"Can I speak with Raul?" she asks. "Yes, I can hold."

In the intervening five minutes, balancing the phone between her shoulder and ear, Saucedo-Rodriguez helps a woman who comes into her office with a response she has just gotten from the INS, following a call put out by Saucedo-Rodriguez asking why no one had responded to her June 1997 application. Saucedo-Rodriguez says she contacted INS last May. Their October reply is a form letter that has a check in a box that says the INS will respond to the request within 90 days. The 90 is crossed out and 120 is handwritten in.

"What does this mean?" the woman asks Saucedo-Rodriguez in Spanish.

And then, just as Saucedo-Rodriguez is preparing to launch into her "who knows?" eye-rolling routine, the receptionist returns to the line.

"Yes, OK, fine," Saucedo-Rodriguez says into the phone. And then in Spanish she asks, "Can you tell him to call me about the fingerprints?"

She hangs up the phone and says, with an I-told-you-so smirk, "It took all that time to find out that he’s out of the office until next week."

Saucedo-Rodriguez sighs, as she looks around the clutter of papers that line her desk, uncertain of which mess of unanswered questions she should delve into next.

How has she managed this job, day after day, for 20 years now without going crazy?

"I like trying to help people, and a lot of people feel better after talking to us," she says. "At least they get to talk to someone who has a little access to the INS.... There are so many barriers, but you can’t give up just because it takes a long time because," she says, playing devil’s advocate to the randomness of the whole process, "what if it doesn’t?"

On the wall behind Saucedo-Rodriguez’s desk is a yellowing Telegram-Tribune article from July 4, 1997, titled "Celebrating in Style." A gray-haired Latina woman is sitting in a chair, waving an American flag above her head.

"This was when we had a grant from the California Endowment to offer citizenship classes," Saucedo-Rodriguez says. She would review U.S. history with her students to prep them for their interviews. "This woman was in my class and she was very excited because she had just filed her form."

Saucedo-Rodriguez fingers the newspaper clipping nostalgically.

"I used to have fun teaching those classes," she says. "Oh well, maybe by next month we will know something. Maybe then we’ll hear about this woman’s status because you know," Saucedo-Rodriguez says, rolling her eyes once more, "she’s still waiting."

The process takes so long that, for many potential citizens, the wait is negating the merits of citizenship.

"I’m trying to do this legally," says Susan Wright, a pet stylist who works in Grover Beach and who has been attempting to bring her fiancé over from Mexico to obtain his legal resident status since February. Wright has been working with Lois Capps’ office and Lomeli’s Immigration Unlimited, a private Arroyo Grande company that investigates the status of INS applications, to find out what is going on with her "fiancé petition." Wright’s fiancé is currently living in Mexico, and his visa to enter the United States expires on Dec. 4.

"So we have to get married by then," she says. "But I have to sponsor him and take him to INS first to fill out forms."

INS dictates that Mexican citizens must file their forms with the INS in Mexico. Wright was recently informed that she must go bring Oscar to Juarez, Mexico, just south of El Paso, Texas. This means Wright will have to take a week off work, drive down to San Felipe, Mexico, to pick up her fiancé and then drive the 30-plus hours to Juarez.

"It’s crazy," Wright says. "It would be so much easier if we could just go to Tijuana."

According to Arellano, there used to be INS stations throughout Mexico. But in 1994, Congress passed a bill enabling aliens to gain citizenship in the States by paying an additional $1,000 in fees, essentially buying the freedom that was offered for free to thousands (who had been living in the United States since before 1982) through the Immigration Reform and Control Act.

"The INS decided that we wouldn’t need so many people in overseas posts," says Arellano. "They thought the workload would decrease since people could just pay their fees and get naturalized in the States."

In January of 1998, Congress put an end to this "bought amnesty" by not renewing the bill. But still the INS still has not reopened any of its Mexico offices. Why?

"That’s a good question," says Arellano. "A very good question."

Not knowing that there were no other offices in Mexico, Wright contacted the INS to find out about a change of consulate. Apparently, whoever responded to Wright’s request didn’t know about that detail either. In October Wright received notice that the request would be processed in 240 days.

"It’s just ridiculous," says Wright. "I really want to do this the legal way, but Oscar’s got relatives in San Luis on the Arizona border and they’ve been mentioning the coyote thing...."