A man with vision disability has been denied US citizenship test after the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) refused to provide the reading portion to him in Braille.
Mr Delgado asked for braille in his application and got a vision test to confirm he is legally blind, but when he started the test, he realised it had not been provided to him in Braille.
Lucio Delgado, 23-year-old, was born blind, a legal permanent resident and uses a cane to get around. Lucio Delgado moved to the US from Mexico in 2014 and learnt English by listening to the radio.
On May 21, Delgado completed the English oral portion of the exam and spelled the words like Thanksgiving and president correctly, but failed the test after immigration agents couldn’t provide Delgado with a Braille copy of the exam, they only had large print, according to the Washington Post.
“Unfortunately, you were unable to read a sentence in the English language,” it said. “Regrettably, you were unable to achieve a passing score on the reading portion of the naturalization test.”
“They still didn’t believe I was blind,” Delgado told CBS Chicago.
For Delgado, the entire experience has been “astonishing.”
“I really wasn’t expecting not to be provided that very basic accommodation,” he told the Washington Post. “It was quite a shocker, honestly.”
Since the incident, Darcy Kriha, pro bono attorney, who handles cases involving Americans with Disabilities Act has taken on the case.
Kriha told the Washigton Post the USCIS has contacted her client after a CBS Chicago first reported his story last week and has set up another appointment with him on March 13, hoping his needs will then be accommodated.
