Surge Brings New Immigration Backlog

Immigration authorities are swamped in new bureaucratic backlogs resulting from an unanticipated flood last summer of applications for citizenship and for residence visas, officials said.

In July and August alone, the federal Citizenship and Immigration Services agency received 2.5 million applications, including petitions for naturalization as well as for the entire range of immigrant visas. That was more than double the total applications it received in the same two months in 2006, said a spokesman, Bill
Wright.

In the 2007 fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30, the agency received 1.4 million petitions from legal immigrants to become United States citizens, about double the number of naturalization petitions in the 2006 fiscal year, Mr. Wright said.

Much of the rush for naturalization came from legal Latino immigrants. Hispanic organizations, including the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials Educational Fund, and Univision, the Spanish-language television Network, led a nationwide naturalization campaign this year in which hundreds
of thousands of longtime legal immigrants signed up to become citizens.

Immigration officials said they would work to complete naturalization petitions in time for new citizens to vote in the elections next November. They strongly denied that the delays had any partisan political motivation.