Immigrant Paperwork Backs Up At DHS: Delays May Deny Vote to Hundreds Of Thousands

Source: Washington Post, Page One

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, November 22, 2007; Page A01

The Department of Homeland Security failed to prepare for a massive influx of applications for U.S. citizenship and other immigration benefits this summer, prompting complaints from Hispanic leaders and voter-mobilization groups that several hundred thousand people likely will not be granted citizenship in time to cast ballots in the 2008 presidential election.

Bush administration officials said yesterday that they had anticipated applicants would rush to file their paperwork to beat a widely publicized fee increase that took effect July 30, but did not expect the scale of the response. The backlog comes just months after U.S. officials failed to prepare for tougher border security requirements that triggered months-long delays for millions of Americans seeking passports.

Before the fee hike, citizenship cases typically took about seven months to complete. Now, immigration officials can take five months or more just to acknowledge receipt of applications from parts of the country and will take 16 to 18 months on average to process applications filed after June 1, according to officials from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which is part of DHS. Such a timeline would push many prospective citizens well past voter-registration deadlines for the 2008 primaries and the general elections....

***

"I really want to target the elections," USCIS Director Emilio T. Gonzalez told the Associated Press in an interview published Tuesday. "I really want to get as many people out there to vote as possible." Aides, however, contradicted him. "We are going to process these cases as responsibly and as quickly as we can, but we're not focused on any of the election cycle," Aytes said. USCIS spokesman Bill Wright emphasized that political calculations played no role in agency decisions. "Any implication of that is ludicrous," he said....

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/21/AR2007112102419.html

they figure every immigrant, especially Hispanic immigrant that doesn't get citizenship is one less vote the Democrats get next year. Outrage is appropriate. Surprise is not.

They got an early start this time,eh?

This is but a part of the bureaucratic quagmire immigrants must
navigate to become US citizens.

And now they may not be able to vote in 2008!

Sure, they can't anticipate the work it's going to take to process the applications, but they know how much work it's going to take to skew the 2008 election results, and the more work they do now, the more they'll be able to do in September and October next year.

And you know, I can't help but wonder if some of the folks deemed to be "illegal" in our country have achieved that status through similar bureaucratic sloth?

100,000 votes is HUGE! But...but...I'm sure this is just a coincidence...nobody could have predicted such an outcome. Yeah, right.

n/t

emperor shitforbrains and his pulitbureau can't get their shit together and are going to ensure people can't vote?!?!?

yeah, didn't see that one coming...

Krugman offers a perfect explanation for this in The Conscience of a Liberal.

Movement conservatives like immigration for obvious reasons. Foremost, business interests desire an abundant source of cheap labor to depress wages. Second, anti-immigrant fear and resentment is a tool to be used to grab the same voters that the racist Southern Strategy brought in. Third, high immigration means that the right can push policies that benefit the rich and harm the poor, without suffering adverse electoral consequences, because a large proportion of the working poor consists of disenfranchised immigrants.

The right has been playing it both ways: using poor immigrants for cheap labor, and at the same time, stirring racial hatred toward them. The last thing in the world the right wants is for any immigrants to get citizenship and vote.

If the right is competent at anything, it is gaming election numbers. It is no surprise that they are on top of this.

They knew the response to the fee increase would be huge and requested additional funding to deal with the influx. The administration turned down the request for additional funding.

The request was made when Rove was still in the WH and he knew it would affect the immigrant's ability to vote in 2008.

In fact, staff at CIS sites was cut. In my town CIS cut four positions and turned 3 full-time positions into part-time positions.