Backgrounder

March 23, 1999

Naturalization Update - January 1999

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) continues to focus on rebuilding the naturalization system as its top service priority. As a result, the agency has made progress in the number of naturalization applications completed.

During the last three months (November, December, January of FY 1999), the agency completed 247,706 naturalization applications. This is a 122 percent increase over the same period last year (111,820 completions during November, December, January of FY 1998).

Processing Goals and On-going Initiatives

While this upward trend is encouraging, the completion numbers are not as high as INS had projected. Year-to-date data indicates that the agency completed 307,481 naturalization applications during October 1 - January 31 of FY 1999. The agency continues to encounter production problems and is experiencing frustrating delays in achieving solutions to production issues. The INS is on the way to resolving these issues with aggressive solutions, and fully expects to increase production during the remainder of FY 1999 in order to achieve agency goals.

INS is addressing these issues by:

• additional staffing - bringing on-board most of the 200 new term (nonpermanent) adjudications officers and about 320 new contract clerical employees this spring;

• production management - appointing fully empowered site managers in large key districts to focus on production management. As a result of production management initiatives in Los Angeles, the district completed 68,226 naturalization applications during the first quarter of FY 1999 -- a nearly 150 percent increase from the same time period last year (27,624 during the first quarter of FY 1998). As production management initiatives proceed in INS' largest offices, process improvements, which require no new resources, will continue to have a positive impact on productivity during the third quarter of FY 1999;

• automation improvements - establishing better automated connections between older existing computer systems and the new computer system, CLAIMS 4.

To further reinforce production efforts, quality and production standards are being incorporated into the performance work plans of naturalization managers, and all field and regional directors are being held accountable for specific production goals.

Moreover, effective March 15, 1999, the INS has detailed two senior field managers with extensive immigration benefit adjudications experience to Headquarters Immigration Services Division - the division which oversees the naturalization program as well as other immigration benefit programs:

• Andrea J. Quarantillo, District Director, Newark, is the Acting Deputy Director for Headquarters Immigration Services Division; and
• M. Frances Holmes, Deputy Director, Philadelphia, is the Acting Naturalization Backlog Reduction Manager for Headquarters Immigration Services Division.

The INS remains committed to reducing processing times from a national average of 27 months at the beginning of this fiscal year to a national average of approximately 12 months by the end of this fiscal year, and further reduce them to a national average of approximately 6 months by the end of FY 2000, if application receipts remain steady at a projected rate of 700,000 per year.

On January 15, 1999, the INS implemented a fee increase for naturalization applications, from $95-$225, to enable the agency to recoup actual application processing costs. The rush to file for naturalization under the old fee resulted in a tremendous increase in application receipts during the month -- INS received 253,402 new naturalization applications in January. While this sudden influx of applications far exceeded agency expectations, the INS anticipates that receipts will decrease significantly in the next few months.

Application Denials

In implementing backlog reduction initiatives, field offices have been advised to process naturalization denials as they are encountered and not to put them aside, as was usually the case because it takes considerably more time to process a denial than a grant of citizenship. (Naturalization denials require higher levels of supervisory review.)

In addition, because of backlog reduction, the agency has encountered a larger volume of old work, mostly filed in 1996 -1997, that includes instances where:

• Applicants did not appear for their scheduled interview appointment;
• Applicants did not appear for fingerprinting or re-fingerprinting;
• Applicants did not submit additional information necessary to complete their application in response to INS requests;
• Applicants have submitted multiple applications for naturalization and the INS denies the duplicates; and/or
• Applicants were denied for eligibility reasons.

These two factors have resulted in an increase in application denials. It is important to note that INS has not changed the criteria for naturalization, nor its policy regarding denials. Each application is considered on its own merits.

It appears that many applicants may have lost interest in their pending naturalization applications, since a number of applicants have either requested that their application be withdrawn or failed to respond to an INS notice. Any of these actions may result in the case being counted as a "denial."

In considering why applicants did not respond to an INS notice, the agency is concerned that INS records may not reflect the applicant's current address. Therefore, INS has requested its field offices to ensure that no application has been inappropriately denied because of an address change issue.

If the INS denied an applicant's naturalization case for failure to appear for an interview, or to appear for fingerprinting, or to submit requested information -- and INS records do not reflect the change of address that the applicant had submitted to the agency -- the INS may reopen the case at no additional cost. In these cases, applicants should contact in writing the INS office or Service Center that sent them their denial notice.

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