Settlement opens door for hundreds of legal immigrants to become U.S. citizens [Updated]

Hundreds of legal immigrants in Southern California who have been waiting years for citizenship will have their cases resolved as a result of a settlement with the federal government, attorneys announced today.

The immigrants were stuck in lengthy delays as they waited for the FBI to complete their security name checks and for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to approve their citizenship applications.

The settlement, approved Friday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, sets a six-month deadline for the government to decide on hundreds of citizenship applications from Los Angeles, Santa Ana and San Bernardino.

The settlement also ends indefinite delays in processing naturalization applications, according to the plaintiffs.

“The naturalization process has been a bureaucratic nightmare for so many permanent residents who did everything right to become citizens of this country,” Jennie Pasquarella, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said today in a statement. “This restores the dream of citizenship and ensures that the government will be held accountable.”

The plaintiffs, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center, filed the suit in 2007 and argued that legal permanent residents lost jobs, were prevented from voting and missed out on in-state tuition breaks because of the delays.

Sonali Kolhatkar, one of the plaintiffs, came to the U.S. on a student visa in 1991 and got married soon after. The United Arab Emirates-born journalist filed for citizenship in 2005, but then years passed without any word on her case, despite her persistent efforts to find out what was causing the delay. [Updated at 1:50 p.m.: A previous version of this post said Kolhatkar came to the U.S. in 1999.]

“It just came to a complete standstill,” said Kolhatkar, 34, a radio host with KPFK-FM (90.7) in Los Angeles.

Kolhatkar said the delay prevented her from voting in the presidential election and impacted her work. As a result of the lawsuit, Kolhatkar said, she became a citizen in March. She said today that she was relieved for other immigrants, whose applications will no longer be sent into a black hole.

“It’s about time,” she said. “This is absolutely thrilling.”

-- Anna Gorman

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Comments

[Joanna Jenkins]

Don't be fooled, all this suit did was to make it easy for illegals to gain citizenship. But then, the ACLU doesn't worry about citizens, only non-citizens.

[unico]

^^^^ really? what garbage!

this is for those going through the legal process.

do you know how to read? this is for people doing it the legal way.

you need better reading comprehension skills.

[Moe L.]

Wouldn't it have been much easier for these people to go to mexico and then just run across the border like millions of mexicans do?

[PQuincy]

Anyone who has had to deal with the immigration and citizenship processes knows they are a morass of arbitrariness and inefficiency. You'd think everyone, conservative or liberal, would gladly see an incentive for efficiency and responsiveness from our public servants. Most of them may mean well, but they are tangled into grossly dysfunctional sets of rules and expectations, and it takes court intervention, sometimes, to break the gridlock.

But of course, some fanatics will doubtless try to spin this as allowing "illegals to gain citizenship", even though the article clearly states this is a pathway for people who came to the US legally, who have _already_ have passed the rigorous review for a Green Card, and who then continued to live and work and pay taxes in the US, to follow generations of other legal immigrants and become citizens.

[AdoptiveFather, Los Angeles CA]

27 barrels of oil per person per year folks. That's how much oil the American Way of Life requires.

Does this decision take into account the millions of additional barrels of oil these 'new' citizens will require? No!!

Meanwhile oil production in the US is dropping 2% per year and has been since the peak way back in 1970.

Now can we discuss water, wild salmon and other limited resources??

[Mufon]

Joanna,

Illegal immigration is a huge issue which most media and politicians choose to avoid, but at least let's give these folks credit for trying to do it right.

[ruben montoya]

Ms. Jenkins, Please go back and re-read the article carefully. It has nothing to do with illegals. It is about LEGAL IMMIGRANTS being delayed after they apply for citizenship.

[Richard Ivey]

Frankly, I do not know why any sane person would want to come to the USA, let alone try to become one of its citizens--after reading the ugly comments from American citizens who are so prejudiced against them. How can Americans talk about freedom and civil rights when they are so ready to trash them?

[Help the LEGAL Immigrants only]

Joanna, please revisit the article. The case was about helping LEGAL immigrants, not ILLEGAL immigrants. We must always make a distinction between those two types of immigrants.

It is good that the courts made a decision that helps LEGAL immigrants. After all they followed the proper procedures, so why should they not get speedy results.

Illegal immigrants on the other hand do not follow the system and do not deserve to be given legal status. Poverty is not an excuse. People immigrate here to improve their lives. It is the people who do it legally that we should support.

[Legalize LA - remove the illegals!]

The case was about helping LEGAL immigrants, not ILLEGAL immigrants. We must always make a distinction between those two types of immigrants.

It is good that the courts made a decision that helps LEGAL immigrants. After all they followed the proper procedures, so why should they not get speedy results.

Illegal immigrants on the other hand do not follow the system and do not deserve to be given legal status. Poverty is not an excuse. People immigrate here to improve their lives. It is the people who do it legally that we should support.

[Mac]

This suit only helps those who file for citizenship. Illegal immigrants can't and don't file for citizenhip. Therefore this doesn't help illegal immigrants. Anyone who thinks this helps illegal doesn't understand how the process works. (For one thing, good luck to any illegal who applies for citizenship and has to explain why Homeland Security doesn't have years of documentation of their status, which includes fingerprints, photos, every address they've lived at in the U.S., applications, petitions, affadavits of support, and so on.)

So surely no one is mad about this case, since no one in this country hates ALL immigrants, only ILLEGAL immigrants, and you're all just fine with people who just follow the law, right?

[Working Stiff]

Ms. Jenkins, isn't the goal to ensure that we have legal citizens in the US? Would you rather that they stay illegal, be kicked out, or become legal?

[Cesar]

Excellent news!
It took me almost 3 years to get my citizenship after submitting my application.

Joanna, it's a shame that this country is filled with so many hateful people like you. I will never understand how the most "Christian" people in this country are also the most hateful towards others. WWJD indeed.

[Jarrod]

Great News!!! Best Wishes and Congrats to all of you whom have waited so long for this day.

Lady Liberty still stands with her torch to welcome all!!!

[Seattle Bellevue Renton HCG Diet & Weight Loss]

This sounds like a balanced settlement to a difficult situation. It sounds like all of these immigrants are eager to become great citizens of our nation.

[Antonio Ivan Easterling]

1. Outstanding, for if we know the truth, in some capacity we are here illegally, as well. Immigration amnesty is legislation that President Obama needs to work on.
2. What good is health care reform without a JOB!!! It is time rational leadership.

Antonio the Sun

[Page]

How does this impact, or does it even impact, the huge delay in moving priority dates forward for tens of thousands of Mexican immigrants who also did everything right, applied for citizenship, did the work, did the job, paid the money, and have been waiting for YEARS to be granted either a permanent work visa or citizenship? Why is it taking so long for legal, hard working immigrants to gain entrance to our Country?

[Tam B]

I don't understand Joanna Jenkins. Exactly how does this make it easy for illegals to gain citizenship? Because the long-arduous path to legal citizenship has been filled with illegal aliens submitting forged paperwork that has been ferreted out by diligent officials? And now those forgeries are going to be missed because of this tight deadline that has been imposed?

I think not.

Let's hear at least one plausible argument instead of a sweeping display of bigotry.

[Home-Is-USA]

In my experience, my application for naturalization was "lost" and I received no word about it for several years. I wrote a letter to the Congressman of the district I lived, with their help, I finally got some attention and follow up about my application; that's when I learned it was lost (in limbo between facilities or something). This is an emotional subject and process for immigrant-- they've followed the rules and have shown they can be be contributing citizens, and I think Joanna Jenkin's comment is hurtful and insensitive to the hundreds of thousands of people who have been and are in the naturalization process.

[volunteer]

Its pretty obvious what the author of the article is trying to do.

Implying that these people where here legally is a lie.

Even the ones who where here on a visa where not legal if they over stayed their visa

Are there any honest reporters anymore????????????

[Jose Velasquez]

I'm not sure why many of these folks are having such problems. I applied for citizenship at the end of April 2009; by late September 09 I had my citizenship. I don't think it's all the system's problem.

[Hammer]

Joanna,

I'm assuming you're a conservative and if you allow your xenophobic views to supercede your conservative principles, I'm sorry. This is just another example of government inefficiency and of a bloated bureaucracy.

Millions of people who do absolutely NOTHING wrong when coming here are all stopped at the gate because the process is archaic, it's slow, in other words it epitomizes the word 'DEMOCRAT' and then we have the gall to tell people "you should go through the legal channels to come here."

Give people an answer. If you're in, you're in, but you're in and promptly. I am familiar with cases of LEGAL immigrants who have to wait 20 years to go from temporary residents to permanent residents and then another 10 years to become full citizens.

If you're out, you're out, and follow through. Send people home. Don't pull any of this 'well, we're "reviewing your case"' garbage. Review their cases from where they came from.

This ruling will hopefully be a flush to the bottle necked system and help us sort out through people who SHOULD be here and people who are likely to make the headline news for illicit behavior.

[readwithcare]

This is great news for our newest Americans. Congratulations and thank you to the brave plaintiffs, the ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center.

Please ignore the thousands of idiotic comments that will follow about "illegals this" and "illegals that." All you have to do is actually READ the article to see that this suit was about following the law and ensuring that the bureaucracy actually does what the law says it must do - and that's a victory for every American.

[TheBigPicture]

Greattt...we have engineers from India clamoring to come to the US, and we allow the strawberry pickers to become citizens...What is wrong with this picture....

[Steven]

This settlement is bad because it forces the FBI to possibly not conduct thorough security checks on the applicants. This shows that we don't have enough people to check all the applicants and that we have too many applicants currently. The US needs to have a moritorium on any new immigration until they catch up. We also need to change the criteria used when deciding who we want to come here and lower the overall numbers of legal immigrants.

[peter]

I don't have problems with those immigrants who go thru the process of getting legalized thru proper channels, like the above case. I have problems with illegals who flood into US illegally and bypass /break immigration laws. I am 100% against illegal immigration and for sealing off the borders. We are in a near depression with over 20% real U-6 UE rate ,and close to 25% U-6 UE in CA.
We need a 2-5 yr moratorium on all immigration till we get the 16-20 million UE Americans retrained and back to work. Sorry but the US is not the land of unlimited opportunity anymore: it is becoming more and more like the 30's depression . We need to raise the drawbridge and severely limit/put strict quotas on all immigration.