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WASHINGTON — The number of people who legally immigrated to the U.S. dropped 17 percent last year, largely because of administrative problems, according to a Homeland Security Department report.
A total of 1.05 million people became legal permanent residents in 2007, falling from 1.27 million a year earlier, according to the report by the department's Office of Immigration Statistics.
Citizenship and Immigration Services has been under fire after processing times grew because immigrants flooded the agency with applications filed last year in advance of a dramatic increases in filing fees. The delays will keep some people from becoming citizens in time to vote in November.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Veronica Nur Valdes said Friday comparing the 2007 legal resident numbers to the previous year is unfair. Citizenship and Immigration Services hit the height of a five-year effort to reduce backlogs in 2006 and the drop in green cards reflects that, she said.
The report made public Thursday said: "This decrease was due primarily to application processing issues" at Citizenship and Immigration Services, also a Homeland Security Department agency. It compared the past two years' numbers.
Willie Ramos, Washington director of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, said Citizenship and Immigration Services shifted workers from other duties last year to deal with the hundreds of thousands of applications it received.
"It is troubling that at a time when our immigration system should be running at its top notch because of the discussion running across the country, that people cannot move forward in the process to become legal permanent residents so they can work out their last step before becoming a legalized citizen," said Ramos, whose group works to improve the citizenship process.
Congress failed to pass a sweeping immigration bill last year aimed at curbing illegal immigration and fortifying the nation's borders. Without the immigration reform, the issue has been hotly debated in political elections while states and local communities have crafted their own crackdowns.
To become a citizen, most immigrants must be a legal permanent resident at least five years.
Foreigners living abroad can get green cards once they are granted visas to immigrate to the U.S. Also, people already living in the U.S. who are refugees, certain types of temporary workers, foreign students, family members, and some undocumented immigrants also can apply for green cards.
The majority of people who received green cards in 2007 were already living in the United States. Green cards are given to people granted legal permanent residency.
Two-thirds were granted permanent residency because they had family ties to a U.S. citizen or another legal permanent resident.
Most were living in California, followed by New York, Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Illinois, the DHS report said.
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On the Net:
Legal Permanent Residents 2007: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/LPR_FR_2007.pdf
