Promise Arizona among hundreds of groups encouraging permanent legal residents to naturalize
Tania Granados Perez was sworn in as a citizen on the Fourth of July in Phoenix. Courtesy photo.
PHOENIX – Promise Arizona and a growing coalition of community partners and elected officials nationwide have launched the Tear Down the Second Wall/Naturalize NOW Campaign.
“Promise Arizona is working hard to encourage permanent legal residents in Arizona to naturalize and make their voices heard,” said Petra Falcon, executive director of Promise Arizona, an immigrants rights and civic engagement founded in response to the passage of Senate Bill 1070.
According to a report by National Partnership for New Americans, Arizona had a naturalization backlog of 14,445 pending applications (13th largest in the nation) and the 11th fastest growing backlog as of December 31, 2017. There was a nationwide backlog of 729,400 citizenship applications with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) at the end of last year. There was a near-doubling of the backlog over the past two years. At the current rate, it would take federal government more than 25 years just to return to the Obama administration’s backlog figure of 380,639 applications in 2015.
“People who have been waiting years to join the ranks of proud Americans are being blocked from doing so and we can’t help but ask, given this administration’s record, if part of the problem is willful neglect,” said Falcon.
Janet Murguia, president and CEO of UNIDOS US, added, “Lengthy backlogs and processing times are inherently unacceptable and unfair. Let’s get to the bottom of these processing delays.”
UNIDOS is the nation’s most influential Latino advocacy organization with more than 300 community-based affiliates.The group, which is holding its national convention July 7-10 in Washington, D.C., plans to address citizenship application backlog during its event.
The naturalization efforts are targeting the large and growing backlog of citizenship applications managed by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and demanding the agency reduce the backlog and waiting times for processing applications. The backlog prevents eligible lawful permanent residents from accessing the right to citizenship, as envisioned by the nation’s founders, created by the Constitution, and codified by federal law.
“What we’re calling ‘The Second Wall” is preventing people from having equal rights. This should not define us and we should do better,” said CHIRLA Executive Director and NPNA Co-Chair Angelica Salas.
Any suggestion that the backlog has been caused by an overall increase in the number of citizenship applications is a fallacy, Salas added, since the cost of processing the applications are covered by the $725 fee assessed to each applicant. Salas instead blames the federal government for simply failing to assign the required staff and resources.
“There’s not a dime of taxpayer money in this,” said Democratic Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren, who is supporting the naturalization campaign.
Congressman Luis Gutierrez, also a Democrat, said applicants in some states are facing a nearly two-year wait. In those states, Gutierrez estimated that immigrants eligible to apply for citizenship would have to apply in the next 60 to 90 days to vote in 2020.
“It is a shame that hard working people, immigrants who are playing by the rules, cannot participate fully in the civic society of this country, in the same way that Melania Trump has by making it so that their families can come and join them in the United States of America,” said Gutierrez. “President Donald Trump will never get to build his wall across the southern border of the United States, but America also understands he’s already built a second wall by slowing down the citizenship application process.”
As part of its campaign, the NPNA-led coalition will be filing a Freedom of Information Act request to increase the transparency and accountability of USCIS; apply Congressional and Mayoral inquiry and scrutiny over the agency; encourage eligible lawful permanent residents to apply for citizenship; and analyze and report on USCIS data regarding the processing, scrutiny, and wait-times related to citizenship applications.
Peter Schey of Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law (CHRCL), which is fighting reunite migrant families separated at the border in recent months, said, “I think what we’re seeing an extreme vetting process that is designed to slow down the approval of these applications.”
About National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA): The National Partnership for New Americans (NPNA) is a national multi ethnic, multiracial partnership. We represent the collective power and resources of the country’s 37 largest regional immigrant and refugee rights organizations in 31 states.
Our members provide large-scale services—from DACA renewal application processing to voter registration to health care enrollment—for their communities, and they combine service delivery with sophisticated organizing tactics to advance local and state policy.
We exist to leverage their collective power and expertise for a national strategy. We believe America’s success is rooted in our ongoing commitment to welcoming and integrating newcomers into the fabric of our nation, and to upholding equality and opportunity as fundamental American values.