Scramble to be American

By Timothy Pratt

Saturday, July 14, 2007 | 7:03 a.m.

Men and women who drive trucks, make beds and bring food to tables crammed into a naggingly hot hallway, trying to assemble pieces of their past on paper.

After they wrote down such details as the dates of trips abroad, marriages and divorces, and waited a spell, a voice called them by name one by one into a large meeting hall where volunteers manned lap tops on lunch tables. The screens were set to a 10-page federal government form called the N-400, or application for naturalization.

The scene is playing out throughout the Las Vegas Valley and across the nation this month.

Unions, nonprofit organizations, Univision, attorneys and others are pitching in to help a dizzying number of immigrants who want to become U.S. citizens before July 30, when the price for doing so jumps from $300 to $675.

The Citizenship Project, the valley's only nonprofit organization dedicated solely to helping people become citizens, sent off 316 applications in June, compared with 105 in the same month last year. This year, the organization has helped 1,479 people apply for citizenship, more than in all of 2006.

Marie Sebrechts, spokeswoman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the surge continues an earlier trend.

"They've been going up for two years," she said of citizenship numbers. Reasons for the increase in applications include the national debate on immigration laws, upcoming changes in the test required for citizenship and improvements in the federal agency's Web site.

The thousands of new citizens locally, and hundreds of thousands nationwide, may lead to a large bloc of first-time voters and more arrivals in the future, because many will petition for their family members abroad to become citizens as well.

At the Culinary Union's hall downtown Tuesday afternoon, it was the present that mattered. Political Director Pilar Weiss stood at the entrance to the hall, wielding a clipboard.

The event was scheduled for 4 to 8 p.m. At 4:20, she was already building a waiting list.

Last names on the list dropped hints of the globe's generosity when it comes to sending newcomers to Las Vegas: Vrbensky, Skrypka, Shatoo, Vasquez.

Standing in the hallway, Jay Yuen spoke on behalf of his mother, Sue Yuen. They came from Canton, China , 10 years ago, having been petitioned by Jay's father's sister. Jay Yuen became a citizen three years ago. His mother became eligible for citizenship five years ago.

Why the wait?

"It's hard for her, because she doesn't speak English well," he said of his mother, who works in housekeeping at Circus Circus.

So they hoped the federal government would take at least six months to schedule Sue Yuen for the interview and exam on U.S. government and history that are the steps to citizenship.

During that time, he said, she will take English classes after work.

Jay said his mother finally applied for citizenship because the price was going up and a U.S. passport would make travel easier.

Others cited similar motivations for making the move.

Peter Ashman, a local immigration attorney and board member of the American Immigration Law Federation, a Washington-based immigration policy think tank, said people mention their wallets, travel and other personal reasons for becoming citizens.

However, Ashman added, "regardless of motivations, typically , new citizens vote at higher rates." Having about 1 million people becoming citizens before the 2008 presidential elections may be the biggest effect of the push playing out at the Culinary Union and elsewhere, he said.

Rigoberto Cabrera had scheduled a 5 p.m. appointment at the union for help with his application. A truck driver for a marble and granite company , Cabrera has been in the United States 27 of his 47 years .

"I'm a resident for all these years, but now I want more rights," he said.

He had heard the cost for citizenship had increased and the process could become more difficult. He also said he was the only one in his family here - his parents were in Cuba - and "maybe (now) I could bring my mother and father."

Ashman said "the future flow of family members, or what is known as chain migration," will be another outcome of the surge in new citizens.

The meeting hall was reopened Wednesday morning for another four-hour event because the demand was so great.

"I'm looking across the room and I see Haitians, Ethiopians, Mexicans and Nicaraguans," Weiss said. She was frayed, as Tuesday night's four hours had turned into six. She estimated that more than 200 citizenship applications would come from the two days.

Weiss said the different backgrounds of all those new citizens make Las Vegas a richer place to live.

But they may well have one thing in common, an intangible that Cabrera came up with after a few minutes of searching for the right words.

"I feel like I'm another American, that's what it is."