Screeners Want Citizenship

About 800 San Francisco International airport baggage screeners are intensifying their push to get U-S citizenship so that they can keep their jobs. Under legislation passed after last fall´s terrorist attacks, non-citizens are barred from joining the new Transportation security Administration´s screener force.

For workers at S-F-O, the deadline comes as early as June, when the new jobs are posted.

Airport officials are asking the federal government to delay that deployment of new screeners.

And the non-citizen screeners are petitioning the Immigration and Naturalization Service to expedite their citizenship applications.

But an I-N-S spokeswoman says there will be no rush job for these screeners.

Eighty percent of the 800 screeners at S-F-O are foreign citizens.

Airport officials say that replacing them wholesale will hurt security, not help.