On August 1, 2006, the ACLU of Southern California, the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project and the Counsel on American-Islamic Relations, California Chapter, filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, seeking citizenship for ten legal permanent residents who had satisfied all the criteria for citizenship, but whose applications had not been acted upon by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for two years or more. Plaintiffs alleged that their applications were unreasonably delayed due to the performance of a background check known as a "name check" by the FBI, for which no completion deadlines were set. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief to force the government to adjudicate Plaintiffs' naturalization applications within 120 of their naturalization examinations.

Shortly thereafter, the parties settled the case. On January 8, 2007, the Court entered a stipulation and order, whereby the plaintiffs withdrew their class action allegations and their requests for class wide relief and the court dismissed the case. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agreed to adjudicate the named plaintiffs' naturalization applications within 10 or 30 days from the order. The parties subsequently resolved plaintiffs' claim for attorneys' fees.

Dan Dalton - 10/22/2007


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