Wrong name, a long wait?

If Abdullah Hassan were a U.S. citizen, he says he'd have likely voted for the GOP in Tuesday's election.

"I like Republicans because they removed Saddam from power," said Hassan, a Kurdish asylee from Iraq.

However, more than a year after he's met all the requirements for citizenship, Hassan is still waiting to be naturalized.

Hassan completed his citizenship interview Aug. 12, 2005, and that's normally the last step before naturalization.

However, Hassan's name apparently hasn't been cleared from an FBI name list, which is part of the background check for citizenship applicants.

A person may be singled out if his name has surfaced in an investigation, either as a target of the investigation, associate or witness, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said.

Fewer than 1 percent of the names submitted take longer to clear than the normal six-month processing time between a citizenship application and interview, said Sharon Rummery, spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"We regret people have to wait, but the American public demands a thorough background check," Rummery said. "That's what the FBI does."

However, Margaret Plane of the ACLU of Utah said it seems inconsistent with security concerns to take years to determine whether or not a person is a security risk.

"It's such a wide net, it's certainly catching a lot of people," she said. "It does seem a disproportionate number of people have Muslim-sounding names."

Federal law allows those who don't receive an answer within 120 days after completing a citizenship interview to take their cases to court to seek resolution either in favor of or against their application.

Class-action lawsuits representing those who have waited longer are popping up in other states, and in Utah some individual cases are being filed.

Attorney Sean Foster has recently filed cases for six clients, all originally from Iraq. Two clients have since been naturalized, and a third is scheduled for a Dec. 1 ceremony.

"My clients have waited 2, 3, 4 years," he said. "They have relatives at home. They've jumped through all the hoops, and the government has dropped the ball."

Catholic Community Services is also working with about 20 applicants, mostly men from Muslim countries, said Aden Batar, director of refugee resettlement and immigration.

"They are still waiting for the FBI name check," Batar said. "That's very much what's holding up these cases. ... The FBI needs to speed up the process."

Some of the cases across the nation include:

• The New York Legal Assistance Group has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of Russian-speaking refugees and immigrants, some of whom face losing federal benefits unless they're naturalized.