Life
Immigration Applications Deluge
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| Millions of immigrants who applied for naturalization ahead of a fee increase will have to wait for months because the Citizenship and Immigration Services was caught off guard by the volume of applications. Immigrant advocates say the agency was inundated with 3.5 million applications in a two month period, against a projected workload of 3.2 million for 2008 and 2009. “Were we caught off guard by the volume? Let’s just say it was anticipated it would increase. It was not anticipated it would increase by that much,” said Emilio Gonzalez, director of Citizenship and Immigration Services. |