Immigrants who are not citizens cannot vote, and a democracy that shuts out millions of people who want to participate is weakened. Our nation s future citizens and our representative form of government deserve better. Most observers instinctively blame the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and they certainly deserve their fair share. Their failure to safeguard the naturalization process allowed 369 criminals to receive citizenship, and their subsequent efforts to ensure the integrity of the process brought the process for law-abiding applicants to a virtual halt. What has largely escaped notice, however, but is accurately described in this report, is that some in Congress seized on this breakdown and made a bad situation worse.
Today there is both hope and fear on the horizon.
Meanwhile, the White House is missing in action. Let me also take issue with Rep. Lamar Smith who is claiming support from immigration advocates because he too supports a process with has integrity, efficiency and decreases the backlog. We are suspicious of his sudden interest in improving naturalization as his own bill would in fact increase the backlog. Nevertheless, we will seriously consider giving him our support on this issue as soon as he withdraws his citizenship legislation and signing on to the Kennedy-Gephardt bill which will make citizenship work. We salute the organizations who produced this report and want to mention that they have been joined by other organizations and individuals from across the country to form The Campaign for American Citizenship .