Naturalization Delay/Voting Rights Challenge Dismissed

The New York Law Journal reports that a federal court dismissed  a lawsuit seeking to force the FBI and immigration officials to clear a huge backlog of citizenship applications by legal residents in time for election day (for a previous report on this case, click here).   The court refused to grant a preliminary injunction sought by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund and the New York Legal Assistance Group. The action claimed the FBI takes far too long to process the name checks that are a prerequisite to full citizenship. Announcing his decision dismissing all claims from the bench, Judge McKenna said that Congress requires the FBI to conduct a full criminal background check for each applicant for citizenship but, “[i]t does not require it to do so in some specific period of time.”

KJ