A Long Road to Citizenship

2008-06-13T15:36:02Z

It costs thousands of dollars for legal residents in the US, eligible for citizenship, to begin the process. On April 19th in Colorado, a Naturalization drive brought volunteers and legal residents together to file for citizenship.

www.theuptake.org

Watch the video

Naturalization Ain't Easy

2008-07-22T07:00:19Z

It costs thousands of dollars for legal residents in the US, eligible to become citizens, to begin the process. On April 19th in Colorado, a Naturalization drive brought volunteers and legal residents together to file for citizenship.

Watch the video

Citizenship...denied?

2008-02-27T21:44:13Z

"Why did you come here illegally?"
"How else can I?"
--A conversation in the desert between the man with the gun and the man without

The line that a person must stand in to immigrate to the United States is popular image. Undocumented immigrants are told to get to the back of it, restrictionists say to close the door on it, and hypocrites claim to be defending those who are waiting in it while focusing solely on deporting those who never got the chance to stand in it. Most undocumented immigrants bypass this line because there's no place in it for them--even if they arrived at the door, they would find it locked. No skills, no money, no service.

Even for those who do have a place in the line, though, the immigration system isn't kind. Many undocumented migrants got that title from abandoning their place in line, with years of waiting ahead of them, to come reunite with family or look for a job. And the line doesn't end once you get in the door--even with a green card, there's another line for citizenship.

This line has been in the news a lot recently, due to the fact that there is a backlog on applicants who applied in time to have their citizenship before the election, but won't be getting it until well after. Many of these people have had their green cards for years, while others have had them for just long enough to be eligible for citizenship. The longer they have to wait, the longer they are denied the representation a citizen has, and the longer they are vulnerable to deportation.

Now, a group of citizenship applicants are suing to get the process going.

One of the main reasons that applications take so long is because of the name check process, which checks the names of applicants against terror watch lists and the like. The problem is, it does a very bad job of it. Many people, like Mohammad Barikbin from the article, wait years for their name checks to go through--meanwhile, if they were actually terrorists, they could have destroyed several national landmarks while waiting.

Considering that the overwhelming majority of applicants make it through, it makes no sense to deny these people the right to security from deportation and the right to vote based on the tiny chance that they could be a terrorist, considering that there will be no difference in the results if they are passed through anyhow.

green card at Brave New Films

A Long Road to Citizenship

Naturalization Ain't Easy

Citizenship...denied?