{"id":23235,"date":"2020-07-20T13:48:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T17:48:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/?p=23235"},"modified":"2020-07-20T13:48:47","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T17:48:47","slug":"mpi-report-uscis-shows-nothing-but-bias-immigrationreform-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.immigrationreform.com\/2020\/07\/20\/mpi-report-uscis-shows-nothing-but-bias-immigrationreform-com\/","title":{"rendered":"Report Hits a Dead End on USCIS\u2019s \u2018Rockier Road\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new report — \u201cA Rockier Road to U.S. Citizenship?\u201d<\/a> \u2013 suggests that the Trump administration is making it harder for green card holders to become American citizens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the end, the study by the Migration Policy\nInstitute (MPI) knocks down its own straw man. After floating a few unverified\nanecdotes from immigration lawyers, the D.C. think tank concluded that approval\nrates by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) remain in the 90\npercent range, statistically no different than they were in the Obama era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In fact, USCIS<\/a> reported that it naturalized 834,000 citizens in fiscal year 2019, an 11-year high in new oaths of citizenship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, MPI trotted out Leon Rodriguez, USCIS director from 2014-2016, to raise random \u201chard questions\u201d about the agency\u2019s current operations. Among them: Is USCIS more vulnerable to fraud? Have longer processing times precipitated an agency budget crisis<\/a>? He offered no answers at a teleconference<\/a> Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Too bad Rodriguez wasn\u2019t so committed to \u201creal accountability\u201d when he sat in the director\u2019s chair. A 2016 Inspector General\u2019s report<\/a> assailed Rodriguez\u2019s USCIS for improperly issuing at least 19,000 green cards, potentially \u201cenabling terrorists, criminals and undocumented aliens to remain in the United States.\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While insisting that his agency \u201coperated with\nintegrity,\u201d Rodriguez at least acknowledged that sharp increases in citizenship\nprocessing times began on his watch. \u201cWe own it, it wasn\u2019t perfect,\u201d he\naverred.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its amorphous critique of USCIS under\nTrump, MPI complains that the agency \u201cshifted its focus from customer service\nto intensive vetting and fraud detection,\u201d as if those are inappropriate\nactivities. Holding a green card does not automatically confer citizenship;\nwaiting periods, interviews and document reviews are all required by law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If, as immigration attorney Eric Cohen claimed Thursday, USCIS is \u201cmanipulating the process\u201d to unfairly deny citizenship applications, official statistics and MPI\u2019s own numbers show the agency is doing a bad job of it. MPI has presented no valid reason to believe that the 700,000 citizenship applicants awaiting USCIS adjudication will get anything other than full consideration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new report — \u201cA Rockier Road to U.S. Citizenship?\u201d \u2013 suggests that the Trump administration is making it harder for green card holders to become American citizens. In the end, the study by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) knocks down its own straw man. After floating a few unverified anecdotes from immigration lawyers, the<\/p>\n

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