Immigrants who waited for years for their citizenship applications to be processed due to extraordinary backlogs will finally have the chance to become Americans and enjoy the privileges of citizenship, under the terms of a settlement announced today between the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the National Immigration Law Center, the ACLU of Southern California, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson.

The settlement puts an end to indefinite delays in processing naturalization applications caused by routine FBI background checks, and requires USCIS to adjudicate hundreds of citizenship applications from the Los Angeles, Santa Ana, and San Bernardino areas within six months. It also requires the federal government to provide naturalization data from the Los Angeles area to the legal groups who filed the lawsuit, in order to ensure that lengthy processing delays do not recur.

“The backlog fundamentally altered the lives of tens of thousands of permanent residents whose citizenship applications disappeared into an administrative black-hole,” said Linton Joaquin, general counsel for the National Immigration Law Center. “Thousands of individuals were kept in the dark for years about the reason for the delay and were unable to push their applications through to adjudication. Through this litigation and settlement, the government can no longer sit indefinitely on these applications, but must finally resolve whether they can become Americans.”

The legal groups filed a class action lawsuit in 2007 to address years-long bottlenecks in processing citizenship applications caused by routine FBI background checks, known as “FBI name checks.” The checks, mandated by USCIS in 2002, clogged the system despite federal laws that require the agency to process applications within six months of submission. As a result of the lawsuit, the FBI, under court supervision, finally ran the background checks on thousands of people who were endlessly stuck in the backlog.

“The naturalization process has been a bureaucratic nightmare for so many permanent residents who did everything right to become citizens of this country,” said Jennie Pasquarella, staff attorney with the ACLU/SC. “Many spent thousands of their hard-earned dollars and pored over endless documents, only to be met with red tape at every corner. This restores the dream of citizenship and ensures that the government will be accountable.”

Plaintiff Sonali Kolhatkar, a United Arab Emirates-born investigative journalist and radio host for KPFK in Los Angeles who waited more than three years for her citizenship application to be processed, is among the hundreds who were affected by the FBI name checks and resulting delays. Kolhatkar, who came to the United States on a student visa in 1991, has been married to a U.S. citizen for ten years, with whom she has a U.S. citizen son. While Kolhatkar waited for her application to be processed, her supervisors would not allow her to cover events where there was police presence, such as peaceful protests, fearing that she might get arrested and endanger her citizenship application. She also was unable to vote in the historic 2008 presidential election. As a result of the lawsuit, Kolhatkar’s application was finally adjudicated and she was sworn in as a U.S. citizen.

“The bureaucratic delays that keep people from becoming citizens not only violate federal law, but significantly harm people’s lives,” said Mark Yoshida, co-counsel and staff attorney with the Asian Pacific American Legal Center. “The USCIS had noted that it needs a tremendous amount of manpower to process the applications of future citizens. This settlement holds the government accountable to its obligation to review the citizenship requests of future Americans in a timely fashion.”

Added Jacob Kreilkamp, attorney for Munger, Tolles & Olson, “These people will finally get a chance to restart their lives with a secure immigration status. This change will be felt not only by the hundreds of people whose applications were in limbo, but by all of their friends and loved ones as well.”

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A U.S. citizen tortured and imprisoned for more than a year in the United Arab Emirates at the apparent behest of the United States government has been released and deported to Lebanon, where he will be reunited with his family.

Naji Hamdan’s release came after a more than 13-month-long campaign by the ACLU/SC and his family to have him freed. During that time, he was arrested, blindfolded, held in a secret prison for months and ultimately charged on evidence obtained under torture.

“Mr. Hamdan’s harrowing ordeal is a troubling example of what can and is likely to continue to occur unless the Obama administration renounces Bush-era policies of proxy detention,” said Ahilan Arulanantham director of immigrant rights and national security at the ACLU/SC. “Turning over suspects to foreign governments with grim human-rights records and little transparency will not make Americans safer. It certainly did not in the case of Mr. Hamdan. Instead, proxy detention undermines the American system of due process and rips apart the lives of innocent people.”

After a trial riddled with problems -- including closed door-hearings, a “confession” obtained under torture, and charges that dealt with events that occurred outside the U.A.E. -- a U.A.E. judge earlier this month found Hamdan guilty of terrorism-related charges and sentenced him to 18 months’ time served.

“I am grateful to everyone that has stood by my side during this difficult time. I can’t tell you how horrific the conditions were and the immense personal and physical toll I have suffered,” Hamdan said from his home in Lebanon. “But just because I am safe now does not mean that others are. My story is destined to repeat itself if the Obama administration does not put an end to this practice.”

Hamdan, who raised his family in Southern California before moving to the U.A.E., was arrested in that country last year by state security forces in a move that appears to have been orchestrated by the former administration of President George W. Bush. For three months, Hamdan was held in a secret U.A.E. prison where security forces interrogated and tortured him until he confessed to whatever the officials wanted. Hamdan believes that at least one American official was present during one of those torture sessions, when the interrogator spoke to him in American English while he himself remained blindfolded.

Shortly after he was imprisoned, the ACLU/SC filed a lawsuit against the U.S. government, alleging its involvement. It was only then that Hamdan was transferred from a secret location to criminal custody where he was able to contact his family. Our lawsuit stated that because the U.S. government did not have enough evidence to arrest Hamdan under U.S. laws, it asked the U.A.E. to detain him instead, a practice known as “proxy detention.” We subsequently delivered a petition with hundreds of signatures to incoming Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to look into Hamdan’s case, and lobbied other U.S. government officials. In addition, the ACLU/SC closely monitored Hamdan’s trial, corresponding with him and at times attending court hearings in the U.A.E.

Hamdan lived for two decades in the Los Angeles area, where he ran an auto-parts business and helped manage the Islamic Center of Hawthorne, a mosque and community center. His nightmare began in 2006 when he relocated his family and business to the U.A.E. As the Hamdans tried to board a flight at Los Angeles International Airport, FBI agents separated him from his wife and children, detained him and questioned him for hours. He was eventually released and allowed to travel, but when he returned to Los Angeles in early 2007 to check on his business, he was subjected to further intensive FBI surveillance.

In the summer of 2008, FBI agents traveled from Los Angeles to the U.A.E. to question Hamdan further. Shortly thereafter he was detained incommunicado by U.A.E. state security agents. Since Hamdan’s arrest, both U.S. and U.A.E. officials have refused to deny that the United States was responsible for his detention.

The following statement is from Ramona Ripston, executive director of the ACLU of Southern California:

The Pasadena Police Department today released the report of the Los Angeles Office of Independent Review examining the shooting of Leroy Barnes by two officers of the Pasadena Police Department on February 19, 2009.

The ACLU of Southern California and its Pasadena/Foothills Chapter had called for an independent review of the PPD’s own investigation of the Barnes shooting, and we believe the OIR’s final report proves the value of this additional inquiry. We applaud PPD Chief Bernard Melekian for his recognition of the importance of this review in providing both policy recommendations to the department and reassurance to the community of an outside review, and we urge Pasadena City Council to adopt it.

The report by the OIR gives the PPD positive marks in many aspects of its handling of the investigation, including, importantly, the overall effort to provide transparency to the community about the shooting and subsequent investigation. However, the OIR also identifies serious concerns about some aspects of the PPD’s conduct, including the tactics used by officers in approaching the car that Barnes was in; the use of leading questions by investigators questioning the officers involved; and the lack of attention by the department’s investigators to prior shooting incidents involving the same officers. Addressing these and other concerns raised in the OIR’s report will improve PPD tactics and also the safety of officers, suspects and members of the community.

We are gratified that Chief Melekian has said that his department accepts these recommendations, and that he will provide the City Council’s public safety committee with specific steps that the department will undertake to address them. Chief Melekian has also indicated that the department and the Pasadena city manager will recommend to the council that an analysis be conducted by the Office of Independent Review in all future officer-involved shootings resulting in injury or death. The ACLU/SC continues to likewise recommend such a policy.