News Update - February 10, 2007

By Alan Lee, Esq.^†‡

Permanent Residents take DHS to Federal Court Over Citizenship Delays

Citizenship applicants have banded together and filed a lawsuit in the 9th Circuit seeking to force the Department of Homeland Security to Complete adjudication within 120 days of an applicant’s interview. Immigrants who have cleared biometric security checks but have been pending additional FBI name check clearance have had to wait many months and sometimes years to become citizens. The additional clearances were instituted after the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001. The USCIS stands behind the background check process citing rigorous security checks as vital to national security. The suit was filed on behalf of eight immigrants by the Northern California branch of the ACLU.

† The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004.

‡ This article © 2007 Alan Lee, Esq.

Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee, Esq.
The information provided here is of a general nature and may not apply to any particular set of facts or circumstances. It should not be construed as legal advice and does not constitute an engagement of the Law Office of Alan Lee or establish an attorney-client relationship.