On Nov. 16, 2004, the Mayor’s International Cabinet, the Latin American Chamber of Commerce of Charlotte and the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce hosted a reception at the Levine Museum of the New South to recognize a local hero.
Eduardo Aguirre Jr., the current US ambassador in Spain, was acknowledged for his accomplishments as the first director of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) of the Department of Homeland Security.
Aguirre, a Cuban exile who arrived to the country in 1961 through Operation Peter Pan when he was a teenager, had worked for First Union Bank here in Charlotte from October 1972 to February 1977.
During the cocktail party in his honor, Aguirre talked graciously about his memories of Charlotte and focused his remarks on the delivery of services by the immigration system.
Then Aguirre said the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the defunct federal agency, “had been the target of serious criticism for its slow responses to immigrant applications for benefits such as work authorization, permanent residency and naturalization.”
In June 2003, at the nomination hearing of Aguirre, senator Orrin Hatch said BCIS “inherited the legacy of its predecessor, such as an enormous backlog of applications waiting to be adjudicated.”
Previously, in July 2001, George W. Bush had set a six-month goal for processing legal immigration petitions from start to finish.
That’s why, Aguirre was proud to inform the audience gathered at the Levine Museum, during 2004 BCIS had reduced its case backlog from 4 million to 2.3 million.
I was very happy to hear those figures. Personally, I experienced the INS inefficiency. My citizenship process took several years in the mid-1990s.
Aguirre was fulfilling his promise, clearing up the red tape. Our local hero was a real hero, and BCIS had turned to the path of a first-rate customer service oriented institution.
Now the so-called USCIS is an agency demonized by anti-immigrant detractors.
Rafael Prieto Zartha is the editor of the Charlotte-based Spanish-language newspaper Mi Gente.
Editor’s Note: CL elected to shorten this week’s version of “My People,” rather than run what we felt was incomplete and/or inaccurate information. Here is Mr. Zartha’s take on the matter. His entire original column can be found — both in English and Spanish — in the latest issue of Mi Gente and on the Web site www.migenteweb.com.
The unedited column can also be found here. For Tara Servatius’ detailed response, click here.
This article appears in Aug 16-22, 2006.
