Guest Column
Fit to Print?
- By Emilio T. Gonzalez
- Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
- March 20, 2008
The
Times got it wrong again. I feel compelled to set the
record straight for 17,000 employees who work late nights and
weekends to welcome lawful immigrants into our society. I will
not stand idly by as the New York Times insults the
dedicated and professional services they provide.
If the Times seeks to add legitimacy to its editorial,
they should first get the facts straight. USCIS received more
than 600,000 applications for citizenship in June and July of
2007 - a 350 percent increase from the same time the year
before. While this surge was substantial, it isn’t close to the
“perhaps a million empty promises” the Times suggests.
Further, all applications received during that time have been
opened, issued receipts, and entered into our processing queue.
The idea that there are “envelopes with large checks and money
orders, delivered by truckloads, waiting in shrink-wrapped
pallets, unopened” at any USCIS facility, is an outright
fabrication, hastily conceived by an imaginative writer.
What the writer failed to mention, and what I personally
conveyed to the Times, is that more than half of all the
citizenship applications received in June and July will be
completed by September 30. Further, many of the applicants who
filed for citizenship after July 2007 have already been
naturalized. The writer also omitted that not withstanding our
challenges, in 2008 we will process some 20-25 percent more
citizenship applications than in 2007, while maintaining the
integrity of the immigration system and the security of the
process.
The fact is, last year we anticipated an application surge, and
dedicated USCIS employees at our Service Centers worked hard and
long hours to process the increased number of applications
received before fees were raised in July. As a result of their
dedication, nearly 750,000 applications were processed in a
record amount of time. Instead of commending this effort, the
New York Times degraded it, suggesting “intentional
disenfranchisement” of Latino voters. That is both absurd and an
insult to our workforce.
This agency does not lose focus by such editorial bias. Our
workforce will continue to do everything possible to assist
immigrants on the path to legal residency or citizenship,
facilitate the smooth transit of others who wish to work here
temporarily, and safeguard the security of the United States
through the integrity of our immigration system. Modernization
efforts to build a fully-electronic immigration platform
continue to move forward. More than 34 USCIS facilities will be
renovated or replaced nationwide, and more than 3,000 new
employees will join our ranks by the end of this year. Our
professional training programs are varied and robust.
My posting today demonstrates to the more than 700,000 newly
naturalized citizens that this country embraces free and open
debate. It is a shame, however that a newspaper like the New
York Times – which boasts with each paper that it contains
all the news that’s fit to print – only values its version of a
story and leaves no room for that debate or for the facts.
New York Times Editorial at:
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