Suing for citizenship

By Timothy Pratt

Friday, Nov. 30, 2007 | 2 a.m.

Even before you meet her, she cries on the phone.

Dagmar Adiba Schiefer is one of at least 330,000 people across the nation who are standing in the proverbial line to become residents or citizens, but can't because the FBI hasn't completed its name checks.

Actually, Schiefer belongs in the third of that group who have been waiting longer than a year - and among a growing number who have sued the federal government. But the letter never came. Her life is now hobbled in a way Schiefer, a permanent resident for decades, never would have imagined while growing up in Las Vegas.

She now is in the third year of a long-distance relationship with her husband, Kanwaljeet Singh, a native of India. Petitioning for him to join her before she becomes a citizen could take five years, whereas the move would be a matter of weeks once she gets sworn in.

Instead, they talk on the phone daily, see each other on webcams.

And the 43-year-old medical billing supervisor cries on the phone to strangers. As Schiefer's case poignantly illustrates, the backlog "interferes highly in people's lives," said Nadine Wettstein, legal director of the American Immigration Law Foundation.

Wettstein estimates there are thousands of lawsuits filling courts on the issue, which she said has become "a problem nationwide."

Local immigration attorney Peter Ashman, who represents Schiefer, said his caseload on the issue has tripled in the past six months to about 30. Wettstein's organization notes on its Web site that two class-action lawsuits have been filed since July, one in Washington and the other in California.

The problem can only worsen in the coming months - immigration authorities received twice as many citizenship applications last spring as in the previous year, in advance of announced price increases.

"If we have these numbers not clearing now, what hope can we have if the numbers increase?" Ashman said.

The federal government has changed its tactics in dealing with the lawsuits, he said.

Earlier this year, Ashman said, "you would file a lawsuit and they would mysteriously clear the name check and ... (clients) would receive a date to be sworn in."

Then in February the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it would no longer expedite the name checks based on lawsuits.

Since then, Ashman said, "they're digging in and going to court."

Judges in federal courts are taking diverse positions on the cases, experts said. Most send them back to immigration authorities, requesting resolution within varying amounts of time. Some grant citizenship on the spot. The judge remanded Schiefer's case to the Citizenship and Immigration Services, ordering the agency to resolve it within six months.

Ashman has filed an objection, arguing that there is no incentive for immigration authorities to resolve Schiefer's case given that once it leaves the court's jurisdiction, he would have to file another lawsuit if the order were not met. Ashman wants the court to tell the FBI to complete Schiefer's name check within 60 days.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter said his agency's priority "remains to protect the United States from terrorists." At the same time, he said, "we are very sensitive to the impact of delays ... and are working diligently toward the common goal of improving expediency."

Marie Sebrechts, spokeswoman for the Citizenship and Immigration Services, said her agency's position has not changed. "We will not approve cases without approved name checks," she said, adding that $15.5 million will go from her agency to the FBI during the next year to help clear the backlog.

This year the Citizenship and Immigration Services' ombudsman in his annual report questioned the value of the name checks - intended to verify that there are no investigations involving the would-be citizen - for national security.

"The FBI name checks process has limited value to public safety or national security, especially because in almost every case the applicant is in the United States during the name check process, living or working without restriction," the report said.

The report adds that the ombudsman was "unable to ascertain from USCIS the total number of actual problem cases that the agency discovered exclusively as a result of the FBI name check."

Carter and Sebrechts would not comment on the report.

Meanwhile, Schiefer tries to be patient. She wonders whether the delay in her case stems from her being born in Iraq, where her father was an international representative for a German company.

"Personally, I believe that's the reason," said Schiefer, whose father died when she was a child. Her mother met and married a U.S. citizen and the family moved in 1978 from South America to Las Vegas.

She never felt held back by not being a citizen as she grew up in Las Vegas. But she changed her mind as an adult, when she developed an interest in politics and voting. Then she met her husband on a 2003 business trip to New Delhi. That sealed the decision.

She remembers the test and interview as being easy. The test, she said, included a prompt like, "Write the following phrase: 'The shoes are in the box.' " The interviewer never looked her in the eyes. Afterward, "I felt relieved," she recalled.

Her situation gets more difficult around this time of year. The tears appear again. She explains that her wedding anniversary is in December. Then there's Christmas, when she sees her brothers and their families together. And her birthday follows in January. She falls back on the webcam. When the subject of her citizenship comes up, she has trouble explaining her situation to people.

"I feel funny," she said. "I don't know if I'm paranoid, but I feel like people look at me funny ... What did I do?"