In the interest of reengineering the naturalization process, the Immigration and Naturalization Service announced Thursday that as of Sept. 1, it will end an initiative to partially privatize the citizenship testing of immigrants.
"We are motivated to make these changes both by a need to reduce fraud and to improve customer service and efficiency," INS Commissioner Doris Meissner said.
Currently, INS conducts 85 percent of the citizenship testing, and outside organizations conduct 15 percent of the testing. INS has traditionally conducted the oral exam, which tests proficiency in English, while outside organizations conducted the civics and American history written exam.
But problems arose when INS received reports of irregularities at test sites across the country.
At several test sites immigrants were asked to identify the colors on the American flag, or the number of stars on the flag, while a flag was hanging in the classroom, INS spokesman Andrew Lluberes said.
"These reports went from the sublime to the ridiculous," Lluberes said. "And it was extremely difficult to monitor the work of 1,000 sites nationwide."
Sen. Spencer Abraham, R-Mich., who chairs the Senate immigration subcommittee, said the policy change will raise "all sorts of management concerns."
Lluberes denied that claim and said the new testing procedures would not require the hiring of any additional staff.
The testing, he said, will be handled by 100 newly-established INS application support centers across the country. The centers were originally opened to handle INS fingerprinting for naturalization applications, but now will handle a range of immigration benefits.
Immigrant advocacy groups denounced the change, complaining that immigrants who currently can take the written English and civics test at some 1,000 locations will have only 100 such facilities after Sept. 1, they complained.
"Our concern is that it will just reduce access to a lot of legal immigrants who just feel more comfortable going to a community-based organization or community college to take their test there," Lillian Hirales of the National Council of La Raza told the Associated Press.
House and Senate immigration panels Thursday held hearings on the INS' handling of the naturalization program since 1996, when 180,000 foreigners became citizens without complete criminal background checks.
In January, 20 people were indicted in California on charges they collected more than $3 million for promising as many as 13,000 immigrants in 22 states that they would secure passing grades.
Last month, INS announced it was overhauling the naturalization process to reduce its huge backlog of citizenship applications and address criticism that criminals have been allowed to become U.S. citizens.
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