Citizenship Backlog Chokes Democracy

Standing on a stage by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) New York District Office and facing a crowd of hundreds of immigrants, Jocelyn McCalla, started this chant: "What Do We Want?" "Citizenship!" answered the crowd; "When do we want it?" said Mr. McCalla, "Now!" cried out the crowd. McCalla, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, along with representatives of New York's immigrant communities and members of the New York Congressional delegation gathered on April 15 to express their outrage at the increasing backlog of citizenship applications in the U.S.

Two million people nationwide are now in the citizenship backlog according to INS' statistics. In New York, the citizenship backlog has reached 350,000 and is increasing every day. Current estimates project that at the rate that the INS is proceeding it will take about seven years to get rid of the backlog. "Immigrants have been criticized in the past for not becoming citizens" said Jocelyn McCalla, "Now that tens of thousands of immigrants have spent years studying for the English and History citizenship exam and sending their application, these same critics are preventing the INS from hearing their case."

Immigrants pay taxes but are not allowed to join the democratic process

The April 15, 1998, Tax Day demonstration sponsored by the New York Immigration Coalition was part of a nationwide strategy. In many cities throughout the United States thousands of immigrants demonstrated against this backlog. Press conferences, demonstrations, and the release of reports detailing the backlog and its effects on various communities were held simultaneously in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Washington DC, Houston, Dallas and Harlingen, Texas. The reason for these public demonstrations: It now takes an average of two years for a person who has filed for citizenship to finally be sworn in as a US citizen.

Speaking in his native Haitian Creole, Mr. McCalla, a board member of the New York Immigration Coalition, spoke to the Haitian contingency of the gathering urging them to be vocal on issues affecting them and to combat any encroachment on immigrant rights. Crying out: "We are here and we will be counted," Haitians heeded his call. April 15 was chosen because immigrants file and pay taxes yet are denied the right to decide who and how their tax dollars are spent until they become U.S. citizens. "Immigrants in New York pay billions of dollars in taxes each year, and until they become citizens, they have no vote in how those taxes are spent," said Margie McHugh, Executive Director of the New York Immigration Coalition.

Immigrants have to be re-fingerprinted because their fingerprints have expired

Additionally, about half a million immigrants nationwide have been in the backlog for over 15 months, so long that their fingerprints have expired. All these people will have to return to INS, get new sets of fingerprints and have their background checks redone by the FBI. These procedures will only further postpone these applicants' naturalization and again add to the amount of work to be done by INS who will have to inform each of these applicants, fingerprint them, and send their prints to the FBI. With the number of INS-accepted fingerprinting facilities dramatically reduced in the past year, this will be an addition to this incredible delay.

Your help with advocacy to reduce the backlog is needed. Contact your congressional representative and urge them to provide the INS with the resources necessary to reduce the backlog and tell them that citizenship prolonged is democracy denied. Call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 for the number of your representative.

If you need more information or have sympathetic stories of Haitian immigrants that are waiting in the citizenship backlog, please call Netlyn Bernard Samedy at 212.337.0005 ext. 18 or Sandrine Desamours at ext. 16.