ART HOVEY / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 7:00 pm
A bigger budget and heavy demand for immigration services are contributing to ambitious hiring plans at the regional service center for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in Lincoln.
The preliminary outlook calls for as many as 100 new employees after Oct. 1 at salaries as high as $55,000, center Director Jerry Heinauer said Wednesday.
Heinauer said he didn’t have a final commitment to a specific number yet from his bosses in Washington, D.C. But he’s expecting what he described as “a big increase” from current staffing of 430 at the new center headquarters near the Lincoln Airport and from authorized staffing of 474.
Marilu Cabrera, regional spokeswoman for the agency in Chicago, said the tentative outlook for the next fiscal year is about 570.
Some 25 years ago, the total immigration staff housed in the downtown Lincoln federal building was about 40, Heinauer said. As recently as January 2005, the federal agency’s Lincoln employment was 323.
Lincoln is the third largest of the four regional offices, in terms of total employees.
The other service centers are located in Vermont, Texas and California. They are also in line for a major hiring push.
A new schedule of higher fees, aimed at covering all of the agency’s costs, takes effect July 30.
That connects to a variety of new service goals, including reducing processing time for four major types of immigrant applications, including citizenship naturalizations, from six months to four months.
“Hiring new employees is part of that goal,” Cabrera said.
She expects applicants to try to act ahead of the new fees. “I think we will definitely see an increase before it goes up, an increase in people applying.”
Heinauer said job descriptions of “application adjudicator” and “adjudication officer” are likely to be among the most in need of candidates for a bigger staff.
Pay ranges on the civil service schedule are likely to be all the way from $25,000 to $55,000, he said.
Some of the jobs will be targeted at people who already work for the agency. Others are likely to carry a preference for military veterans.
Hirings “won’t happen all at once,” Cabrera said. “But, as part of our fee increase, those are some of our goals.”
Reach Art Hovey at 523-4949 or at ahovey@alltel.net.