Immigration office
in isles among worst in U.S.The waiting period for some
applications is now up to two years
The Honolulu office of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services is one of the worst agencies nationwide in processing applications for immigrants seeking work visas, legal residency or citizenship in the United States, federal officials told Congress yesterday.
Local immigration attorneys agreed with the assessment, saying that waiting periods for some immigration applications have gone from months to years long.
"It has gotten a lot worse over the last year," said Maile Hirota, Hawaii chairwoman of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. "We were so lucky up until a year ago. Honolulu was one of the fastest. (Now) it's bad. It's really bad."
Eduardo Aguirre, head of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, testified before the House Judiciary Committee's immigration subcommittee yesterday that his bureau has a plan to erase the application backlog by September 2006.
Steps include reallocating resources and modernizing outdated computer systems.
David Gulick, district director of Citizenship and Immigration, said the biggest contributor to backlogs in Hawaii are staffing-related. He said he has four positions that have remained vacant for more than a year.
"We're taking steps to reduce the processing time," he said. "We're working with our regional office and our headquarters."
According to the service's Web site, Honolulu staffers were processing applicants this month who had filed for naturalization as of June 2002.
Also, Hirota said it used to take four to six months to get a green card before the service was moved to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about a year ago.
Now it takes about two years.
Overall, the average nationwide wait for naturalization is 14 months. Green card applications linger for 22 months on average.
Performance records for Houston, Atlanta and Cleveland also ranked among the worst for completing applications, according to officials.
The bureau -- formerly known as the Immigration and Naturalization Service -- has about 6.1 million applications pending for U.S. citizenship, green cards and various visas.
Of those, 3.7 million are considered backlogged, meaning they have been pending for more than six months, Aguirre said.
Subcommittee Chairman John Hostettler, R-Ind., said, "Those aliens who follow the law and dutifully apply for immigration status with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services should not be stranded in legal limbo."
Aguirre acknowledged the backlog is a serious problem but said he expects to reduce processing times to less than six months -- a goal set by President Bush.
In addition to making better use of technology, the bureau plans to save time by storing applicants' biometric information, such as fingerprints, to save steps should they decide to change their immigration status.
It also plans to divert resources from delay-free offices to cities with backlogs.
San Antonio and Anchorage, Alaska, had some of the best performance records for completing applications.
Star-Bulletin reporter Mary Vorsino and the Associated Press contributed to this report.