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“CONCERNING RECENT NATURALIZATION DEVELOPMENTS” mentioning the U.S. Dept. of Justice was published in the Senate section on pages S505-S506 on Feb. 9, 1998.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
CONCERNING RECENT NATURALIZATION DEVELOPMENTS
Mr. ABRAHAM. Mr. President, I come to the floor today in my capacity as chairman of the Immigration Subcommittee to call my colleagues' attention to some recent developments in the naturalization area, some of which are extremely serious.
As many of you may have read in today's Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times, Coopers & Lybrand today unveiled its recommendations to the Justice Department for reengineering the naturalization process. After a year-long review, Coopers & Lybrand has developed what it is calling a ``blueprint for a new naturalization process,'' which would involve a complete overhaul of that process. Given what we have seen in the past in this area--particularly in the area of criminal background checks--a reworking of the entire process is certainly needed and Congress should be involved in any redesign. Coopers & Lybrand has prepared us with what is essentially a solid outline for a streamlined, more automated and more centralized naturalization system. Of course, many details remain to be worked out, but I am genuinely pleased with many aspects of the Coopers & Lybrand recommendations for redesigning the process. I hope the administration will take those recommendations seriously. For far too long, the naturalization process has been characterized by intolerable backlogs, very poor customer service, and, of course, unfortunate examples of outright fraud and mismanagement.
Unfortunately, just today we also learned the results of a separate review of the current naturalization process. That review was conducted by the Department of Justice and by KPMG Peat Marwick. In a review of roughly 5,500 naturalization files selected at random over a 1-year period, it was determined that 90.8 percent of the files contained at least one significant processing error, and a total of 87.7 percent of the files had insufficient documentation in the file to support a proper naturalization decision.
The bottom line is that we can be confident that naturalization was proper in only 8.6 percent of the 1,049,867 cases naturalized between August 1995 and September 1996. Mr. President, clearly these statistics are alarming and appalling. I don't doubt that most of the cases involved were, in fact, properly naturalized. But because of the system that is currently in place, we not only have enormous backlogs in the naturalization process but we cannot determine on a case-by-case basis whether naturalization decisions have been made correctly.
In my judgment, any redesign of the naturalization process must ensure a 100 percent level of compliance. So, in the coming weeks, I plan to hold hearings at which the Senate Immigration Subcommittee can explore the Coopers & Lybrand proposal--which at this point is simply a blueprint--in more detail and so that we can get to the bottom of the complete breakdown of the process I have described here today.
In particular, we need to examine some open issues in the redesign proposal, such as who would conduct the tests that are given with respect to English proficiency and civics and what those tests should contain. Given the recent indictments in California for fraud in citizenship testing, in which 20 defendants have been indicted for nationwide fraud in this area, we must take a close look at the extent of the fraud in the testing process and we must reform the system to eradicate any future wrongdoing in connection with citizenship testing.
As a proponent of legal immigration and the value of naturalization, I do not come at this in any way trying to undercut the naturalization system. Yet recent information suggests such a complete breakdown that the process has to be redesigned to eradicate the fraud and the mismanagement that has characterized this system.
What we need to do is strike the right balance, Mr. President, so that the people who deserve and have the right to be naturalized and become citizens have the opportunity to do so in a timely manner, and so that everyone, both the people who are waiting in those lines who ultimately will become naturalized and those who are already citizens, will have confidence that the people who are becoming citizens have met the standards and the criteria which the Congress has established for doing so. That means, Mr. President, close scrutiny of the current system, close scrutiny of the proposed recommendations by Coopers & Lybrand, and action, I believe, ultimately by the INS and Congress to move us in the right direction.
I am very disturbed by the report we received today, but I hope that will form the basis for all of us to work together to find the right solutions.
I yield the floor.
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