Iraqi refugees in Idaho sue over wait for citizenship

BOISE — For six years, Ali Al-Lati has worked with the military, teaching soldiers simple Iraqi words and commands, telling them about the cultural mores of his native land and offering advice on how to deal with the extreme weather they'll face in Iraq.

He's a frequent visitor at the U.S. Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, La., and has passed the background checks necessary to work for the Department of Defense contractor SMI Global Mission Support.

But to the FBI, the Iraqi refugee living in Boise is just one of millions waiting years for his name to be cleared, a necessary step for U.S. citizenship.

Now, he's turning to the federal courts for help. He's one of dozens around the United States suing the government because the FBI has yet to complete a process called a name check.

"I came to this country because I want to live here. I work hard here. I love this country," said Al-Lati, who's learned English and passed the prerequisite citizenship test. He's even passed a background check by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"I've waited until now, when I am 35 years old. Am I going to have to wait for citizenship when I am 60 years old? I went to the courts because this is the only way to do it."

Both the FBI and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services acknowledge the delays are a problem. About 150,000 citizenship applications nationwide currently have a wait time longer than six months, said Maria Elena Upson, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Citizenship Immigration Service in Dallas.

"It's unacceptable, frankly, to have to wait this long. The agency understands that," said Upson, who said the agency is trying to find ways to expedite the process. "But you have to understand that USCIS receives millions of applications a year. One percent gets hung up on additional name checks."

The FBI completes about 62,000 name checks every week, said Trent Pedersen, a spokesman with the bureau's Salt Lake City office, with close to 27,000 new requests coming from USCIS alone on a weekly basis.

The initial name checks are done electronically — names are entered into a database to see if the FBI has gathered any information on them in the past.

But even information on similar names yield results, or "hits," and each hit has to be investigated so that information can be forwarded on to USCIS. Not all the information is stored electronically — there are paper files in many of the bureau's 265 offices nationwide — and tracking down the reason for each hit can take months, he said.