NATURALIZATION AND BACKGROUND CHECKS UPDATE

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced recently that it has achieved the goals regarding elimination of the FBI National Name Check Program (NNCP) backlog, after working closely with the FBI. For the applicants for naturalization, it means that they will be able to become citizens faster. Generally, in most situations, an applicant will likely receive an interview notice for their citizenship examination within months after they were fingerprinted. A separate report also shows that more long time residents are applying to become citizens.

More legal residents become U.S. citizens
Naturalization is a legal process through which a legal resident of the United States can become a citizenship of this free country. There are a few very important requirements for naturalization, including sufficient residency in the U.S., ability to read, write and understand basic English, basic understanding of the U.S. history and government, good moral character, and agreement to support and be loyal to the U.S. government. For most immigrants, these requirements are not obstacles for them to become citizens. For the elderly and those who did not learn English before, the English language requirements could be a challenge. However, the benefits that a U.S. citizen enjoys have motivated many legal residents to apply to become citizens. For example, there are no restrictions of overseas travel for citizens; citizens will hold a U.S. passport and can work for the government; and citizens can vote in elections. Perhaps most importantly, U.S. citizens can never be deported from the U.S. In recent years, the rates of naturalization have increased significantly. According to a recent report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, for immigrants who obtained legal residency status from the early 1970s through mid 1980s, naturalization rates increased to as high as 63 percent by 2008. Interestingly, however, the report notes that the more recent residents have a lower naturalization rates. It means that the long-time green card holders are more likely to become citizens. This could be explained by the less stable lifestyle of the new-comers especially in regards to employment and residency.

FBI Background Checks
For the past five or so years, many naturalization applications were delayed due to the backlog of the FBI criminal and background checks. It was not uncommon for an applicant to have to wait for more than one year or longer to receive a notice for the citizenship examination. Despite many complaints being filed with the USCIS and FBI, the problem still persisted. Finally, Congress got involved and finally FBI and the DHS jointly created a plan to eliminate these backlogged cases. The goal was to process these name checks as quickly as possible without compromising security concerns. The final goal of the plan was to achieve a sustainable completion rate of 98 percent of name check requests submitted by USCIS within 30 days, and the remaining two percent within 90 days. To reach this goal, the agencies transferred additional funding and fee revenues to fund this project, streamlined the name check process, used more refined and focused searching criteria, conducted additional training, etc.

The result has been a success thus far. For most cases, the name checks were completed swiftly and resulted in a “no record response” – meaning that the case can resume normal processing. If there are no other additional issues, most applicants will receive a notice for the citizen examination. However, there are still a percentage of cases that require further investigation and evaluation by the USCIS or FBI to obtain updated or additional information.

Conclusion
With elimination of the name check problems, citizenship examinations are scheduled a lot faster than before. A new citizenship examination was also pushed out last year. It is extremely important that the applicants get ready for the test as soon as they submit the N-400 application.