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You go, CIS. Shine on, you crazy...
Jun. 14th, 2006 01:12 pmfucked up, useless, diamonds....
Short version: The US government passed a very sensible law, to protect foreign brides from the "if I only had a nice, non-uppity, non-Western woman, I wouldn't have to beat my wife" crowd. One of its requirements was two questions, be added to a form (specifically the I-129F, Petition for Alien Fiance). One question asked whether the relationship had been arranged by a marriage broker, the second whether the (US citizen) applicant had been ever been accused of a violent crime or convicted of three or more alcohol- or drug-related crimes.
However, despite this very good law being passed and signed into law on January 5, to take effect on March 6, the forms have not been updated. They've been drafted, but not approved by the Office of Management and Budget. In fact, if you follow that link to the I-129F, you'll see that it says they're accepting not only the current out-of-date one, but also the 4/16/04 version. Neither of which have the relevant questions.
So what's happened since March 6? The CIS has just sat on the forms. They're not processing them, because they don't contain all the information now neccessary to approve a fiance petition. CIS says they're going to send out a supplementary form to all of the 10 000 applicants who have applied since March 6 (and presumably any who apply from today on, too, though one imagines that the intellegent thing to do would be to place that form on the website so an applicant can send both in together).
Possibly my favourite part of this story is the weasily words of the CIS PR wonk that the AP reporter spoke to, a Chris Bentley:
"They did not have all of the information needed to determine whether someone qualified or not," said Bentley, who works for the department's Citizenship and Immigration Services.
He added: "It's certainly an inconvenience brought about by the new requirements of the law."
Or, perhaps, an inconvenience brought about CIS and the OMB not bothering to give a shit about actually doing their jobs, since they know that very few voters who are not directly affected really give a shit about the problems of people trying to immigrate to this country, legally or otherwise.
Short version: The US government passed a very sensible law, to protect foreign brides from the "if I only had a nice, non-uppity, non-Western woman, I wouldn't have to beat my wife" crowd. One of its requirements was two questions, be added to a form (specifically the I-129F, Petition for Alien Fiance). One question asked whether the relationship had been arranged by a marriage broker, the second whether the (US citizen) applicant had been ever been accused of a violent crime or convicted of three or more alcohol- or drug-related crimes.
However, despite this very good law being passed and signed into law on January 5, to take effect on March 6, the forms have not been updated. They've been drafted, but not approved by the Office of Management and Budget. In fact, if you follow that link to the I-129F, you'll see that it says they're accepting not only the current out-of-date one, but also the 4/16/04 version. Neither of which have the relevant questions.
So what's happened since March 6? The CIS has just sat on the forms. They're not processing them, because they don't contain all the information now neccessary to approve a fiance petition. CIS says they're going to send out a supplementary form to all of the 10 000 applicants who have applied since March 6 (and presumably any who apply from today on, too, though one imagines that the intellegent thing to do would be to place that form on the website so an applicant can send both in together).
Possibly my favourite part of this story is the weasily words of the CIS PR wonk that the AP reporter spoke to, a Chris Bentley:
"They did not have all of the information needed to determine whether someone qualified or not," said Bentley, who works for the department's Citizenship and Immigration Services.
He added: "It's certainly an inconvenience brought about by the new requirements of the law."
Or, perhaps, an inconvenience brought about CIS and the OMB not bothering to give a shit about actually doing their jobs, since they know that very few voters who are not directly affected really give a shit about the problems of people trying to immigrate to this country, legally or otherwise.
