Getting out the immigrant vote

According to a report in today’s Boston Globe, applications for citizenship in Boston are up 71 percent from a year ago.

Increased fees, up from $400 to $675, concern that immigrants legally in the country may get caught up in changes to the law affecting those here illegally and a desire to vote in the 2008 elections are cited as part of a perfect storm.

An unstated concern may be that the Patriot’s Act of 2001 denies habeas corpus to legal resident aliens.

The net result is increased processing time up from the seven months currently quoted to an unspecified duration.

Even before the fee increase, announced in February 2007 and put in place in July the same year, I waited more than eight months for an interview. Add another month’s wait for the oath ceremony and the lead-time was at least nine months, and that was before the number of work visas that the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services also process increased by 800,000 this year.

That’s not the end of the story, either.

Without an alien registration card, more commonly know as a green card, it is impossible to travel outside the country unless you have a passport. During the swearing in ceremony, immigration officials exchange the green card for a naturalization certificate. To obtain a passport the original certificate has to be sent in for processing.

The wait time for a passport recently was as high as three months, unless additional payment was made for expediting. The increased wait time was due to changes that require a passport for travel between the US to Canada or Mexico, instead of other government issued ID.

Speaking of ID, not only is the wait time long, but during that time, the now naturalized citizen retains no evidence that they are a citizen or have any right to be in the country or is able to travel, say for a family emergency, outside of the country. Habeas what my newly minted Patriotic friend?

So is the current 12 months too long to wait for the privilege of being a fully documented US citizen?

Of course not.

But don’t forget that the majority of immigrants wait at least five years from when they receive a green card and may wait longer than the 14 months I did for my green card, whilst in my case, here on a three-year work visa.

It’s an arduous, expensive, time consuming and often confusing process. So if you’re newly arrived, legally that is, you should start getting to know the candidates and planning to vote in the presidential election.

The one that’s due up in 2016, that is.