Group of Green Card Holders Sues Federal Government Over Citizenship Delays

As reported by Boston-based GBH News, the plaintiffs argue the federal government committed procedural violations and engaged in discrimination by pausing immigration benefit applications from people from 39 countries, including Haiti, Venezuela and Côte d'Ivoire. They are asking a federal judge to order USCIS to rule on their applications and schedule oath ceremonies.

To qualify for U.S. citizenship, immigrants typically must have been lawful permanent residents for at least three years. Once an applicant meets this criteria and files an application, authorities launch investigations about their background as well as biometric checks that involve fingerprinting, interviews with agencies and civics, and English tests.

After that, USCIS either grants or denies the application within 120 days. If they grant it, immigrants who are naturalizing can either take the oath of citizenship at the USCIS office, or in a public ceremony.

According to Anna McDougall, a law student with the Harvard Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program at Harvard Law School, which is representing the immigrants, the plaintiffs had reached the end of the mandatory period for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to act on their applications but had not received the agency's decisions.

As noted by GBH News, last December several green card holders were denied the ability to proceed to their public oath ceremonies by USCIS officials due to their countries of origin.

"It creates a lot of stress and anxiety when you have people's oath ceremonies being canceled," McDougall told the outlet. "This is happening in conjunction with a lot of other things like upticks in enforcement. So not having the security of U.S. citizenship is incredibly stressful."

USCIS justified its actions in a recent memo, saying prior screening and vetting measures were "wholly inadequate." Officials wrote that applicants for naturalization and lawful permanent residence had not been "sufficiently vetted" and could pose a national security risk.

The lawsuit argues USCIS provided no explanation for the delays beyond citing "unforeseen circumstances."

Last December, the Trump administration directed USCIS to pause processing of immigration cases involving individuals from 19 countries, including Venezuela and Haiti, as part of a travel ban.

The directive also halted naturalization ceremonies for lawful permanent residents from those countries who were close to becoming U.S. citizens. According to USCIS documents, the suspension was intended as a temporary measure while the administration developed further guidance on enhanced vetting procedures for affected applicants.

For Gail Breslow, executive director of the Boston-based nonprofit Project Citizenship, the federal government's actions reflect a broader pattern

"It's hard not to look at it in any other way as a thinly veiled excuse for denying citizenship to people from certain countries based on their country of birth and not coincidentally based on the color of their skin or the religion that they practice," Breslow told GBH News.