Residents rush to become citizens

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Feb. 18, 2002 | 9:10 a.m.

Jose R. Villaverde-Obejas recalled a saying last week from his homeland, Cuba: "A penny is just one cent by itself, but if you add 99 more, it's a dollar."

The lesson of saving was appropriate. Villaverde-Obejas, 79, was among scores of immigrants in Las Vegas rushing in recent weeks to beat a price hike in the cost of applying for citizenship -- from $250 to $310. It takes effect Tuesday.

By Friday the number of applications filed with the Immigrant Workers Citizenship Project, a nonprofit agency that helps with the process, numbered 142 for the month, compared with 79 in all of January.

Since it opened in October, the project has seen a steady stream of immigrants who say they are seeking to become citizens because of Sept. 11 and its aftermath. But this week's price hike seems to have swelled those ranks, said Silas Shwarver, executive director of the project.

Villaverde-Obejas left no doubt about why he was filling out the paperwork Thursday, even though he and his wife, Elpidia Batista-Rodriguez, 82, have been eligible for citizenship for a year.

"We wanted to do it, but we didn't have the money. Then we saw that the price was going up on the news, and my daughter and granddaughter offered to pay for the process," Villaverde-Obejas said.

"They said we better do it fast, before it's even more expensive."

Las Vegas isn't the only city seeing a surge in citizenship applications.

"This is something occurring all over the nation," Immigration and Naturalization Service spokeswoman Virginia Kice said. The agency's most recent figures show that citizenship applications totaled 196,169 nationwide from November to December of last year, compared with 121,432 for the same period in 2000 -- an increase of 62 percent.

"First you have those who feel more patriotic or connected to the nation since they remain residents," she said. "Then you have those who have a concern for losing their rights. And recently, I'm sure many want to save some money, especially in these times.

"Getting the same benefit for a lower price -- isn't that part of the American way, after all?"

Aureo Bosque Cejas, 57, also from Cuba, said that the upcoming change in price was one of the reasons he was applying for citizenship, but that he was also concerned about changes in immigration law after Sept. 11.

"I feel a sort of sense of what's to come, where the laws may change from one day to another, and one's freedom may be curtailed as a resident," he said.

Cejas also said that recent arrests of undocumented immigrants, including the recent indictment of 27 workers at McCarran International Airport on charges of falsifying documents to obtain their jobs, has only added to his anxiety.

Both Villaverde-Obejas and Cejas said one of the first benefits they look forward to enjoying as citizens is the right to vote.

Shwarver, the executive director of the project, noted this, and said he hoped that the current bumper crop of future citizens is noticed by political parties -- and that they support the nonprofit agency with donations.

"These are a lot of potential voters, after all," he said.