THE Name Check DEBACLE

[mynameis 0]

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/033...echeck0330.html

Ihsan Hasoon lives with the soldiers at Fort Polk.

The Phoenix resident and employee of a military contractor sleeps in the same quarters with troops he trains at the Louisiana base.

He eats with the troops.

And he wants to join the troops when they ship out to Iraq. But he can't. His citizenship is stalled, and with it the security clearance that would allow him to work alongside those troops in helping his native country recover from the war.

He, like hundreds of thousands of others, is caught in a bureaucratic morass: the FBI Name Check.

The program has been around since the Eisenhower era and is used by federal agencies to screen everyone from potential applicants for high-level jobs to prospective citizens. But after the attacks of Sept. 11, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration officials decided to add it to their screening arsenal.

Citizenship and Immigration Services alone gave the FBI 2.7 million names to check in December 2002, in addition to the 80,000 requests the bureau handles in a normal week.

"The numbers are just astronomical," said Richard Kolko, an FBI special agent.

Name Check was among dozens of security tools the government implemented after the attacks, developments that ultimately changed everything from what you need when you travel to Mexico to the shoes you wear through the airport.

But the roadblocks put up to prevent terrorists from entering the country also have proven to be barricades to well-meaning prospective citizens, many of whom were invited to the U.S. for asylum as refugees. Hasoon, a native of Baghdad, fled the country as a teenager with his father and lived in Jordan for several years before the U.S. granted him asylum.

Those who are most at risk of a lengthy delay have names similar to those that match criminals or terrorists.

Few are calling for the program to be dismantled. But advocates say more needs to be done to speed up the citizenship process.

The government has taken extreme measures in the past year to remedy the problem:

• This month, the FBI doubled its staff committed to conducting name checks.

• Last summer, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration raised processing fees for citizenship applications to generate more revenue and supplement its staff in the hopes of speeding up the application process.

• And last week, the agency announced new steps to free up another area that is bogged down by Name Check: green cards. Refugees and other legal immigrants have long been stalled in seeking permits to work in the U.S. when their names were linked to broadly defined "terrorist organizations." Immigrant advocates said many times that those organizations weren't actually involved in terrorism or that the refugees' links to them did not indicate any actual danger.

Those steps to address green cards, though, do little to help the more than 180,000 people like Hasoon who have waited beyond the required time to have their citizenship applications approved.

Citizenship elusive

U.S. codes require Citizenship and Immigration officials to make a ruling on an application within 120 days of an interview.

Hasoon's application has sat in an immigration office for two years. Immigration officials have delayed his interview to prolong starting the clock on when a ruling is due on his application.

Attorneys say it's an increasingly common step, and while it makes the nation's Citizenship and Immigration agency produce better results as fewer cases linger beyond that 120-day mark, it does little to improve the quality of life for refugees waiting to exercise their rights.

The FBI acknowledges the process is cumbersome and that in many cases it takes longer than what the law requires.

That is why Phoenix immigration attorneys are fighting back with a lawsuit that includes nearly a dozen Valley residents. They are asking courts to take jurisdiction in their citizenship cases because they believe such a move is the only way to get out of the administrative logjam.

If the prospective citizens prevail, a judge can make the decision for Citizenship and Immigration Services and award attorney's fees, which must be paid by the government.

Attorneys say suing the government is the only way to force the U.S. to follow its own policies.

"These are people . . . who do believe in democracy and had a choice to go another place from here, and they're being put through the bureaucratic ringer," said Regina Jefferies, a Phoenix attorney filing a lawsuit on behalf of 10 refugees in the Valley.

Program criticized

The agencies involved in the program point out that they process and clear hundreds and thousands of names each year.

But critics say Name Check attacks the problem from the wrong end and creates an untenable situation in the process.

They contend that Name Check does little to prevent terrorists from doing damage in the U.S., largely because all of these refugees already live here and are under no supervision as their citizenship application is processed.

Even the federal agencies at the center of the fight say Name Check is forcing the refugee-to-citizen process to take far too long.

"It's certainly something we've been aware of," said Marie Sebrechts, a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokeswoman. "As an agency, we've worked with the FBI on how it can be done more expeditiously and still maintain the security the American public expects of us."

Living in fear

Attorneys say the process unfairly targets men of Middle Eastern descent.

The agencies involved and observers who work to relocate refugees deny there is any bias against Middle Eastern men.

There are immigrants from all over the world whose applications may be stalled.

But Michael Cannon, the FBI agent who oversees Name Check, stated in a 2007 court filing that "common names" could contribute to processing delays.

Jefferies, the immigration attorney leading the local charge, said it's a natural byproduct of U.S. foreign policy.

"Because we're so focused on terrorism and Muslim, Middle Eastern countries, I think it is true that more of those names are held up in the check."

Valley resident Ghalib Mahdi said he is hardly a security threat and his case has languished for years.

Awaiting a resolution

For Hasoon, the changes made to help expedite the path to citizenship have not helped.

He will spend much of the next month working with soldiers at Fort Polk, acting as a translator for commanding officers and occasionally playing the part of an Iraqi native in a training exercise.

Hasoon, whose criminal record is spotless, fled Iraq in 1995.Most of his family lives in British Columbia, Canada, now, but Hasoon is determined to stay in the U.S.

"I chose to come to the United States because it's the country to give you opportunities, you know," Hasoon said. "It's a great country, but the thing is, we're a victim of the terrorist, too."

A civil engineer with the Arizona Department of Transportation, Mahdi arrived in the United States in 2001.

He fled Iraq after Saddam Hussein's henchmen came after Mahdi's physician brother for refusing to cut off the ear of a soldier who left the military, Mahdi said.

Convinced that Hussein's men would seek out his own family for revenge, Mahdi left Iraq, first for Libya and then for Jordan before he was granted asylum in the U.S. His wife and four children joined him, and all five were granted green cards and ultimately citizenship in the U.S. while Mahdi waited.

He still waits.

Federal officials have fingerprinted Mahdi numerous times in the past 6 six years but won't clear his name check and allow the Glendale resident to proceed with his quest for citizenship.

Authorities can't comment on specific applications, but like many, Mahdi's could get held up because his name resembles that of a terrorist, criminal or associate on a watch list.

"We take this very seriously," the FBI's Kolko said. "I think we've been very successful. It's unfortunate that some people get caught up in it."

For Mahdi, 46, who lives in fear of losing the paperwork that shows he is in the country legally, the delay has amounted to near house arrest. He carries the well-worn I-94 legal residency form with him everywhere he goes and has left the state only twice in the past seven years because he fears deportation.

"I told (Citizenship and Immigration officials) very clearly if there is any issue with me or my background, you are supposed to not let me stay at work; you're supposed to send me to jail. If not, you should process my paperwork," Mahdi said. "Sometimes I can't sleep through the night because I can't figure out what (will) happen."

But that is little consolation for Hasoon.

His file is sitting in a Phoenix immigration office while the FBI cross-references his name against thousands of others.

For troops on the ground in Iraq, the delays mean the loss of valuable resources in combat. The same men who train soldiers at Fort Polk can't join them in war unless they are citizens because of the security requirements from many of the businesses that contract with the military overseas.

Capt. William Chesher said as much to Citizenship and Immigration Services in a letter he wrote on Hasoon's behalf after his unit in the 82nd Airborne Division went through training last year.

"Ihsan embodies the very determination and desire that has made America great. If not for his tireless efforts, (we) would have not been as successful at JRTC (Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk) or better prepared for our real-world mission in Iraq," Chesher wrote in a memo Hasoon still carries.

"I would be proud to call Ihsan an American and a patriot," Chesher wrote.

[ELW 5]

Interesting article!

[mynameis 0]

I know some of you might dissagree with me on this

but i agree that during name and background checks

some countries should be looked at more closely

than others. However 2,3, 4 years is a bit excessive