Feds Preparing For “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”

By Eunice Moscoso |

Friday, November 7, 2008

The acting director of U.S. Immigration and Citizenship Services (USCIS), said this week that the agency has made great strides in clearing backlogs of citizenship applications.

The improvements will help the agency show that it can handle new legalization efforts if Congress and the upcoming Obama administration tackle the issue next year, federal officials said.

“Comprehensive immigration reform is obviously a goal that we believe is unfinished business,” said Jonathan “Jock” Scharfen, acting director of USCIS.

Scharfen was referring to a sweeping immigration bill that failed last year which would have given illegal immigrants a path to citizenship and created a guest worker program.

President-elect Barack Obama favors such a measure.

USCIS reported that it has completed more than 1.1 million naturalization applications this year, a 50 percent increase from 2007.

The agency has also interviewed more than 100,000 refugee applicants and completed more than 47,000 asylum applications this year.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/immigration/entries/2008/11/07/feds_preparing_for_comprehensi.html