Posted on 04/04/2008 9:19:53 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - The number of people who legally immigrated to the U.S. dropped 17 percent last year, largely because of administrative problems, according to a Homeland Security Department report.
A total of 1.05 million people became legal permanent residents in 2007, falling from 1.27 million a year earlier, according to the report by the department's Office of Immigration Statistics.
Citizenship and Immigration Services has been under fire after processing times grew because immigrants flooded the agency with applications filed last year in advance of a dramatic increases in filing fees. The delays will keep some people from becoming citizens in time to vote in November.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Veronica Nur Valdes said Friday comparing the 2007 legal resident numbers to the previous year is unfair. Citizenship and Immigration Services hit the height of a five-year effort to reduce backlogs in 2006 and the drop in green cards reflects that, she said.
The report made public Thursday said: "This decrease was due primarily to application processing issues" at Citizenship and Immigration Services, also a Homeland Security Department agency. It compared the past two years' numbers.
Willie Ramos, Washington director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said Citizenship and Immigration Services shifted workers from other duties last year to deal with the hundreds of thousands of applications it received.
"It is troubling that at a time when our immigration system should be running at its top notch because of the discussion running across the country, that people cannot move forward in the process to become legal permanent residents so they can work out their last step before becoming a legalized citizen," said Ramos, whose group works to improve the citizenship process.
Congress failed to pass a sweeping immigration bill last year aimed at curbing illegal immigration and fortifying the nation's borders. Without the immigration reform, the issue has been hotly debated in political elections while states and local communities have crafted their own crackdowns.
To become a citizen, most immigrants must be a legal permanent resident at least five years.
Foreigners living abroad can get green cards once they are granted visas to immigrate to the U.S. Also, people already living in the U.S. who are refugees, certain types of temporary workers, foreign students, family members, and some undocumented immigrants also can apply for green cards.
The majority of people who received green cards in 2007 were already living in the United States. Green cards are given to people granted legal permanent residency.
Two-thirds were granted permanent residency because they had family ties to a U.S. citizen or another legal permanent resident.
Most were living in California, followed by New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Illinois, the DHS report said.
Why bother with legal immigration?
Illegal entry is faster, cheaper, and gets you citizenship quicker.
And you can bring your mother, brother, twelve kids, and girl friend. And vote while your waiting.
As more resources are allocated to dealing with all the problems illegals generate the bureaucracy alters to serve their needs over those of legitimate immigrants and citizens. There are quarterly seminars posted on the official government pages on how best to manage “the transition” and promote bilingual services - so long as they are in Spanish.
That was two years ago when I last looked into it.
You can get a driver’s license to, or will be able to soon. Also, there’s free health care for your entire family! Don’t worry if you can’t communicate, someone else will pay for that too! Plus, you can have rallies and block traffic and trash business and flip the finger to the very public that is supporting your a$$. Society won’t expect a thing from you because you will be ‘nonexistent.’
What’s not to like?
uh to should be too. Wrong to, geez, I’m tired.
Why, of course. Why go through a long, laborious process when one can circumvent the law? AND the left wing will protect lawbreakers.
Just living in the shadows.
True. Just walk across our Southern border.
This is called globalization, baby. Places like China, South America, India, Africa and Russia are also becoming lands of opportunities. The so called “administrative problems” is just a minor reason of the legal immirgration drop. Those who swamp to US for whatever cost are usually unskilled labors.
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