The Milwaukee (Wisconsin) Journal Sentinel 31 October 1997 Delays mar road to citizenship By Georgia Pabst of the Journal Sentinel staff Sitting in one of the folding chairs that snaked along the walls outside the packed Immigration and Naturalization Service office, Daniel Neng Xiong patiently read a book Thursday while he waited, and waited, for his number to be called. An American history and civics teacher at Grand Avenue School, Xiong, 27, came to the U.S. from Laos when he was eight years old. He's grown up here and considers himself American, but he's learning a frustrating, firsthand lesson in the tangled and bureaucratic process of how to become a citizen. Two years ago he applied for citizenship. Since then he's made four other trips to the INS and spent hours and hours sitting waiting for an answer on his status, but there's no response in sight. As he waited, a total of 148 people from around the world sailed by on their way to the 15-minute naturalization ceremonies Thursday, the first swearing in of new citizens in the Milwaukee area since June. "It's very important to me to become a citizen," Xiong said Thursday, after whiling away hours in line. "It just takes too long. It's ridiculous," he said. Xiong isn't alone in his growing frustration with Milwaukee's INS office. The office has among the worst records in the country for processing INS applications, according to recent report cards on processing times conducted by the American Immigration Lawyers Association in Washington, D.C. The association issues its monthly "report card" on the amount of time it takes to processes INS applications in 44 cities across the country. Consistently, the Milwaukee INS office falls in the top four or five when it comes to the length of time it takes to process permanent resident applications and applications for naturalization. San Jose, Calif., Houston, Charlotte, N.C., and Atlanta are other cities with similar processing times, according to the report card. But immigration offices all over the country are swamped, because of recent changes in immigration and welfare legislation, said Gail Montenegro, a spokeswoman for the INS district office in Chicago. Additionally, new procedures that require fingerprints and background checks have added to the processing time, Montenegro said. The INS in Washington said naturalization applications are up 51% this year over last year. And last year's applications were up 33% from the previous year. U.S. Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) said he's aware of the lawyers' report that rates the Milwaukee INS office low, and he has also expressed his concern about the backlog and time lags in Milwaukee. He called the response to his concerns "frustrating and inexcusable." He said he's heard "countless cases of frustrating and inexcusable delays in processing Wisconsin INS applications. "Response times for document requests can take a year or more, and it's difficult to verify many of the delays or the causes," he added. He said he expects to meet with the agency's top officials in the next several weeks to discuss the operations and staffing levels in the Milwaukee office. "I will be demanding not only answers but action," said Kohl. "We're doing the best we can with the resources we have to process applications as quickly as we can," said Roger Lindo, officer in charge of the Milwaukee INS office. He referred further questions to his superiors in the district office in Chicago. Montenegro said Milwaukee's office, in addition to the flood of applications, has been hit hard by staff vacancies created by turnover, transfers and retirements. At full strength the office should have 30 people, but there are six vacancies, she said. Two of those vacancies have been filled, but the employees have not yet started, she said. Further, Milwaukee's office is not fully automated and computerized, she said. And the new INS budget has not been approved by Congress, she added. According to an INS report recently issued on efforts to improve the naturalization process, the INS intends for each office to reduce the application backlog by Dec. 31. There are plans to improve customer service and to fully automate and standardize the naturalization procedures across the country. And the INS says it hopes to spell out the services an applicant should expect and receive from the agency by using the Internet and other technology. Right now, that's not much consolation to Xiong and the others who sit in line and wait for the day they can call themselves citizens of the United States. The Nation (BKK) / 6 November 1997 World Bank funds power project in Laos THE World Bank has given the green light for the controversial Nam Theun 2 hydro-power project in Laos and will prepare a package of loans and guarantees for the scheme, according to the International Rivers Network. The US-based non-governmental agency said in a statement the green light was given despite the economic crisis in Thailand which will be the sole purchaser of the dam's electricity. Reduced power demand projections in Thailand make it extremely uncertain that the Thai electricity utility will buy Nam Theun 2 power at an attractive price. "In the the midst of Southeast Asia's economic crisis it is foolish for the bank to push ahead with this highly- risky project," Aviva Imhof, Mekong programme coordinator for International Rivers Network, said. "It is very likely that it will not produce its expected benefits. The main risks are that the government of Laos will be further indebted and the livelihoods of thousands of local people destroyed." The consortium which hopes to build and operate the 681 megawatt dam is led by Australian construction company Transfield and Electricite de France. They have stated that they will withdraw if the World Bank does not guarantee their investments against actions which may be taken by the Laos government. The proposed financing package for the dam is expected to be submitted for approval by the bank's board in mid-1998. Predictions of the economic benefits of the dam have been steadily decreasing since the bank first recommended it be built in 1991. At that time, it was estimated the dam would bring in annual revenue to Laos of US$176 million. The latest bank-commissioned economic impact study, however, puts the benefit to Laos at under $33 million annually. Independent experts believe even this figure is likely to be highly optimistic. Egat has not yet agreed to buy power from Nam Theun 2. The Thailand Load Forecast Committee last month sharply cut its power demand projections for the period between 1997 and 2O11. According to Thailand's National Energy Policy Office, Nam Theun 2 is not Egat's latest power development plan. Nam Theun 2 could be left without a buyer for its power or be forced to sell it at a price too low to repay its huge construction costs. "Nam Theun 2 has sucked in a huge amount of human and financial resources, depleting the Laos government's already weak capacity to deal with its development needs. The bank should surely understand by now that promoting mega-projects in poor and indebted countries is a recipe for economic and environmental disaster," Imhof said.