Muslim Lawsuits Speed Up Processing of Citizenship Applications

In response to class action lawsuits filed by Muslims in several states, federal authorities began in May to reduce a nationwide backlog of citizenship applications that have been delayed because of required name checks and background checks. Today's Arlington Heights (IL) Daily Herald reports that the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the FBI have reduced the backlog from 82,000 to 10,000 cases, and hopes by November to process any name checks that have been pending for more than one year. Groups such as CAIR say that that regulations on name and background checks have unfairly targeted Muslim immigrants, and that officials spend too much time investigating applicants' connections with Muslim organizations. Federal officials deny this, saying that the problem is multiple spellings of foreign names and a large increase in citizenship applications in 2007 ahead of new fee increases. The FBI is building a new high-tech records facility that it hopes will prevent future processing delays. (See prior related posting.)