Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the 1.9 million member Service Employees International Union (SEIU), spoke to CandidatoUSA about the dramatic backlog in processing a little over one million naturalization applications. The topic was the subject of a Congressional subcommittee hearing this morning and of executive action earlier this month. The federal Office of Personnel Management recently issued expedited authority to the United States Citizenship Immigration Services Agency to re-hire 700 agency retirees to process the backlog of applications.
The SEIU participates in a coalition working to boost the number of Latino citizens and increase Latino voter turnout.
Are you frustrated by these delays?
Yes. It is absolutely shocking and unforgivable that we have an agency increase their fees claiming they were going to provide better service and then we wind up with worse service. It is totally unforgivable that all this kind of bureaucratic bungling could end up denying people the right to vote.
