Posted on 12/14/2002 7:32:32 AM PST by FITZ
Maria Teresa Villalva was not able to fulfill her lifelong dream of becoming a U.S. citizen Friday.
Villalva was one of more than 300 immigrants who had planned to be naturalized at a ceremony at Bowie High School, but the event was postponed.
"I got a phone call Thursday saying it was canceled, but the person could not tell me why," Villalva said. "I thought it was someone playing a cruel joke."
The Immigration and Naturalization Service is faced with new operational requirements that call for additional security checks on immigrants, INS spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said.
"It's recent and I can't go into much detail as to the nature of the security checks, but granting an individual citizenship is the most important benefit that the service offers, so the need to make sure that we comply with every security check is essential," she said.
Zamarripa said that the letter informing people of the ceremony date was mailed before INS was notified of the new security requirements, but could not specify when the INS received notice of the new stipulations.
"All this time the applications were being processed and it got to the point where we realized that not everyone would clear security checks," Zamarripa said. "We rescheduled so that the entire group could participate."
INS officials are expecting to conduct the event in January but no date has been set. People from 23 countries, ranging from Mexico to Zimbabwe, will need to await a formal letter informing them of their new naturalization date.
Zamarripa said INS made every effort to notify those affected but many immigrants said they were unsure why the ceremony was postponed.
"I asked the lady who called me but she said she didn't know," 41-year-old Rudy Rivera said. "She told me that is was nothing personal and that nothing was wrong with my application. I was lucky that I gave my phone number here at work, but I wonder what happened to those people who were not at home."
Bowie High School secretary Grace Hernandez said that she received several inquiries about the ceremony.
"We got some calls from people wanting to see if it was true and we got some calls from people who didn't know and were just calling to see what time it was at," Hernandez said. "So we were able to tell them that it was canceled."
Villalva said she was disappointed when she realized the information she received was accurate.
"I think we were all excited," Villalva said. "We had studied so hard and passed all the exams. We thought we were finally going to be able to complete our commitment to this country."
INS did naturalize one person who flew in from Chicago, Zamarripa said.
For more information call the Naturalization Ceremony Team at 225-1765.
Paperwork delay snarls immigrants' oaths
By Rebeca Rodriguez
San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted : 11/24/2002 12:00 AM
Hundreds of immigrants hoping to become naturalized citizens at a Friday ceremony have been told their cases are delayed until immigration officials can properly document their background checks, a federal official said Saturday.
The delay, which affected about 306 people out of the original group of 802 immigrants, can be traced to missing paperwork.
"It has to do with documentation of a background check," said Denton Lankford, spokesman with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. "The security checks have all been done, but it all has to be documented and it has to be in the folder."
None of the people failed the security checks, Lankford said; the delay is simply in getting the paperwork into the proper folders.
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