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Blind man seeking citizenship wins suit

Jordanian says officials taking too long on bid

Lou Kilzer, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 30, 2007 at midnight

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A blind Jordanian with an American green card has convinced a Denver federal judge that authorities have waited too long to approve or reject his bid for U.S. citizenship.

Zuhair Mahd, a 33-year-old computer expert and industrious blogger, took his case to federal court last May, saying that U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services took longer than the allotted time to process his application.

He was not shy. In his suit, in which he acted as his own lawyer, Mahd named Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff and FBI Director Robert Mueller as defendants.

While many armchair lawyers get their cases quickly kicked out of court, Mahd triumphed. On March 21, U.S. District Judge Walker Miller said Mahd had proved his case.

Miller ordered the FBI to complete a background investigation within 45 days, after which immigration authorities will have up to 45 more days to make up their minds.

The judge's ruling applies only to those citizenship seekers who have been interviewed by Citizenship and Immigration Services. Federal regulations require a decision be made within 120 days after such an interview, the judge said.

Miller said the government must now act on Mahd's request. But he did not order the USCIS to approve Mahd for citizenship.

To prevent the 120-day clock from starting, the USCIS has recently stopped interviewing applicants until the FBI completes its background work, said Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, an agency spokeswoman.

How many applicants could be affected by Miller's ruling isn't clear.

But about 30 similar suits were under way in the Colorado district at the beginning of the year, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.

The government has not decided if it will appeal Judge Miller's ruling, said Jeff Dorschner, Denver U.S. Attorney spokesman.

The FBI does background checks on millions of names each year, or about 67,000 a week, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson said.

But the process can become complicated when dealing with names with multiple spellings or that come from different alphabets, he said.

Mahd, also known as Mah'd, lives an apparently open life. He posts his life's story on a Web page, along with his thoughts on politics, religion, poetry and writing.

It is clear that he has reservations about the current occupant of the White House, but he says that most Americans aren't too fond of George Bush, either.

However, most of the writings reflect a man coming to terms with life and the country he has adopted.

He says he was born blind in Amman, Jordan. His parents were shattered after learning that he had no sight, but Mahd didn't let it stop him.

He says he learned early not to appear weak.

In 1990, at the age of 17, he came to the U.S.

He was poor, eating on a weekly budget of $20.

But he attended college and eventually moved to Colorado, working for IBM and other companies.

He now has his own consulting company.

"It's pretty exciting," Mahd said of Judge Miller's decision. He said he hopes it will help other Muslims like himself.

"Since 9-11, we've had the finger pointed at us," he said. "You lose your innocence."

With the ruling, he said, he hopes he has won some of that back.

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