The Immigration and Naturalization Service is overhauling the naturalization process to reduce its huge backlog of citizenship applications and address criticism that criminals have been allowed to become U.S. citizens.
INS and its parent department, the Justice Department, announced its plan Monday after two consulting firms, Coopers & Lybrand and KPMG Peat Marwick, completed reviews of the service's management structure and its ability to keep felons from being granted citizenship.
The Coopers & Lybrand study found INS managers and employees are frustrated by the red tape they must administer and fearful of reprisal if they try to fix problems.
"Given the great influence of external forces, the INS culture, with regard to the naturalization program, is risk-averse," the Coopers & Lybrand study said. "Many managers feel stuck in the middle, lacking the appropriate tools and support from headquarters to react to the problems facing the naturalization program. They feel unduly criticized about circumstances they cannot control and frustrated with what they perceive to be reactive and uninformed responses from headquarters."
In addition to morale problems, the study found that ineffective information technology systems at INS hinder program improvements, applicants are frustrated by long waits and poor communication from the agency and safeguards to prevent fraud are inadequate.
On top of that, applications for citizenship doubled from 1994 to 1996, leading to a current backlog of 1.6 million applications. More than 1.5 million new applications are expected in 1998.
"INS has not had the infrastructure necessary to deal with this influx," said Assistant Attorney General Stephen R. Colgate.
INS has hired several hundred employees to help out with the backlog. The service is also developing a single automated system for applicant information and processing, which is now handled by several different systems around the country. New applicants will be given an eligibility checklist to prevent them from having to return several times to an INS office to comply with application rules. In addition, the agency will develop an information packet in up to 14 languages will be developed and a create a new telephone information center.
"One of the biggest problems we have is communication. People can't get the information they need," said Robert K. Bratt, executive director of naturalization operations at INS.
INS' plan for a revamped naturalization process follows severe congressional criticism of the service's Citizenship USA program, during which more than one million people were naturalized in 1996. Citizenship USA was also touted as a radical redesign of the naturalization process. But last year, reports indicated that thousands of applicants had potentially been allowed to become citizens without proper criminal background checks.
KPMG Peat Marwick's study found that 369 people were naturalized even though they had been convicted of serious crimes. Another 5,954 applicants did not reveal that they had been arrested for crimes that would have put their citizenship requests in question. INS' general counsel is reviewing those cases.
To prevent future slips, INS is moving its fingerprint services operation, which had been contracted out, back into the agency. INS is also speeding up development of a digital fingerprinting service and is planning to consolidate all applicant testing under one nationwide contractor. INS officials also said they will beef up review standards and performance measures at the agency's field offices after a random sampling of 5,000 cases revealed at least one error in 90 percent of applicants' files.
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