FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Maryland, April 3rd 2008: The Pakistani-American Public Affairs Committee is concerned about the resignation of Mr. Emilio T. Gonzalez, Director of United States Citizen & Immigration Services who had promised to bring an ethos of corporate efficiency to the immigration bureaucracy. His announcement that he would resign on April 18th is of great concern to us. As the backlog in the immigration processes is worse than ever, his resignation highlighted the gap between his ambitious goals to speed the agencies work and performance with waiting time up to 18 months for citizenship application, which is more than triple the five months that he had promise in January of 2007.

PAKPAC strongly feels that the United States Citizen & Immigration Services needs a person with excellent management skills to take over reevaluate and rapidly take care of the backlog that has been at historical levels and is impacting not only multiple different communities, but is also having a detrimental affect of the US economy.

The Pakistani American Public Affairs Committee (PAKPAC) is a nationwide, membership based, non-profit lobbying organization registered with the United States Federal Government. PAKPAC’s mission includes advancement and strengthening of U.S.-Pakistan relations. It is organized to be a unified voice on issues and concerns common to the Pakistani American community. PAKPAC’s focus includes an active environment to foster greater political and civic engagement amongst the Pakistani Americans. PAKPAC is also focused on collaborating with other regional and national Pakistani American organizations to ensue increased efficacy and reduced duplication of the stated goals. PAKPAC along with our affiliates is working to serve as a watch dog for inaccuracies and bias in media coverage about Pakistan and Pakistani Americans. We are also involved in educating media groups, journalists, politicians, academicians and members of think tanks about views of concern and importance to the Pakistani American community.