Mr. Speaker. I rise today in support of the passage of the administrative naturalization bill. the INS efficiency bill. the consular efficiency bill and a bill to deter marriage fraud. all of which are before us on the Suspension Calendar. These bills were passed quickly both in the Subcommittee on Immigration and Refugees and the full Judiciary Committee. The administrative naturalization bill. the first one before us. vests authority for naturalization in the Attorney General. Under this bill. immigration judges. in addition to Federal and State judges. would be allowed to conduct naturalization ceremonies. As the gentleman from Kentucky has mentioned. we have heavy backlogs in the naturalization process in some areas around the country. including my own home area of Los Angeles. CA. While I believe the INS has done a fairly good job in the last couple of years to bring those backlogs down. they are still extant in several areas of the country. While we have had the INS to improve their operations in some areas of the country. the difficulty arises from the fact of congestion of the Federal courts. This bill will allow an option. that is. whether one wants to go through an administrative naturalization ceremony as opposed to the court naturalization ceremony. This does not really change the substance of the applications. it does not change the judgment made about whether one can become naturalized. It rather goes to the question of the ceremony. One thing I might point out: As much as I support this legislation which would allow. as I say. at the option of the applicant. the administrative approach. we should bear in mind that State judges are allowed under the law to perform such ceremonies. In some areas of the country. there has existed for some period of time a custom where that is not done. That is. where State judges are not involved in naturalization proceedings. That is the case in my own area of southern California. While there may have been good and sufficient reason for that in the past.
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