Even though the U.S. Congress hasn’t pushed through the new immigration law, there are already concerns regarding processing of the permanent residency forms, which would be sent in by eligible immigrants after the new law has been approved.

The 1986 Amnesty allowed nearly three million people to legalize their stay in the United States. In some cases, reuniting families took over ten years. As the Senates proposed immigration law foresees the United States “adopt” ten million illegal immigrants, concerns regarding possible delays are even more justified.

“It will be a complete disaster,” Peggy Gleason of Catholic Legal Immigration Center said.

According to Demetrios G. Papademetriou, president of Migration Policy Institute, if the Senate’s new immigration law project passes, 10 to 12 million illegal immigrants will become eligible to apply for permanent residency. This may overwhelm the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which last year granted permanent residency to 1.1 million people, and temporary work permits to an additional 200,000.

In 1986 when there were much fewer illegal immigrants than today, federal agencies had a lot of trouble handling their workload. Backlogs and delays were caused by the fact that the families of illegal immigrants, living outside of the United States, also had to be granted appropriate documents. The Washington Post quotes Arturo Zavala, who spoke about long lines and chaos in the immigration office located in Lima, Pennsylvania [back then].

The Senate’s new immigration law proposal allows up to six-years to meet the requirements if the new law becomes effective, though eligible immigrants have to send in their permanent residency applications within 90 days. Emilio T. Gonzales of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services believes that the registration of all applications alone may take from six to nine months.

George W. Bush’s administration has allocated $560 million – to be spent over the period of five years – to limit the delays in processing of [immigration] cases. In 2003 there were 3.8 million people waiting. In June 2006 the number went down to 267,000, excluding the million cases kept on hold that required additional formalities to be completed by either the immigrants themselves or other federal offices. Authorities are promising that the implementation of new technologies will expedite the processing of the new cases.