Immigration bill's timeline hit

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The director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that would administer a new guest-worker program and rule on applications from millions of illegal aliens, says the pending Senate bill doesn't give his agency enough time to prepare for that giant task.

"Quite frankly, I don't think that's really practical. Ninety days to register 12 million people. Do the math," Emilio T. Gonzalez, who took over as director early this year, told The Washington Times.

In a wide-ranging interview, he said he is on track to make USCIS a true part of the nation's national security team, defended the agency against accusations of sloppy decisions and mismanagement by a former senior employee, and said that by this time next year the agency will look entirely different.

"There's a new sheriff in town, and three years [after USCIS was created], I want to know whether we're staffed properly, I want to know whether we're paying what we should be paying for contractors, and I want to know if there's a better way to do it," he said.

The retired Army colonel took over in January, right as the immigration debate was heating up in Congress. His agency is responsible for ruling on applications for legal permanent residence and citizenship, as well as some temporary visas and asylum petitions.

If Congress passes an immigration bill that includes a temporary-worker program, a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, or both, USCIS will be the agency that has to administer it.

Under the pending Senate bill, and under President Bush's new vision, illegal aliens would be divided into long-time and short-time residents, with most of the long-time residents being conferred an eventual right of citizenship. But given the prevalence of fraudulent documents, the problem will be determining who is a long-time resident.

From Mr. Gonzalez's standpoint, the burden of proof will be on the person seeking the new benefit.

"My expectation -- and remember, I manage an agency that gives immigration benefits -- if I'm offering you a benefit, my expectation is that you have to prove to me that you earned it," he said.

He acknowledged that fraud could be a huge problem under a plan that divides the illegal population by year, and said "it's a big 'depends'" as to whether there are documents that are secure enough to prove beyond a doubt that someone has earned the status.