Clarke

NEW YORK (CMC):

Caribbean-American congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke says she has proposed legislation in the United States House of Representatives to deal with the backlog of applications for citizenship and green cards from Caribbean and other immigrants.

Clarke, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, who represents the 11th Congressional District in Brooklyn, told the Caribbean Media Corporation Saturday that it was important that immigration authorities do all in their power, as soon as possible, to ease the huge backlog of applications.

"Caribbean and other immigrants are stuck in the process of getting their status adjusted because of this nightmare," she said. "Their quality of life is impacted significantly because of this."

Clarke, who was elected to Congress last November, said her bill, the Citizen and Immigrant Backlog Immigrant Act, would clean up the bureaucratic logjam.

"This legislation would put the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), the Department of Homeland Security, the Immigration Service and other agencies on the spot for erasing the backlog within 18 months," she said.

Bill Wright, a spokesman for the Federal Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the agency received 2.5 million applications, including petitions for naturalisation, as well as for the entire range of immigrant visas, in July and August alone.

He said that was more than double the total applications the agency received in the same two months in 2006.

Wright said in the 2007 fiscal year, which ended September 30, the agency received 1.4 million petitions from legal immigrants to become United States citizens, about double the number of naturalisation petitions in the 2006 fiscal year.