Application Review: Program and Applications

application review: The program imposes criteria on the applications that go far beyond what Congress has authorized, including holding up some applications if the applicants donated to Muslim charities or travelled to Muslim-majority countries, the complaint alleges, according to Metro News. The program was not publicly discovered until 2012, when an immigration officer discussed it during testimony in a different lawsuit. The lawsuit claims the government since 2008 has used the Controlled Application Review and Resolution Program to blacklist thousands of applications for asylum, legal permanent residency or citizenship as national security concerns. Immigrant rights advocates then filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits to force U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to turn over more information about it, the lawsuit said. The agency doesn't have the authority to, one, impose its own requirements, and, two, impose them in a secret program on people who aren't even aware of them. Congress has laid out the requirements for these programs, Matt Adams, legal director of the Seattle-based Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, said Thursday. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.