Thanks to a new service, many residents wanting to file for
immigrant status now can bypass long lines at immigration offices,
but some still might have to wait.
Thanks to a new service, many residents wanting to file for immigrant status now can bypass long lines at immigration offices, but some still might have to wait.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently launched InfoPass, an Internet-based system that allows residents to schedule an appointment ahead of time with an immigration information officer.
Then, when applicants arrive at the office for their appointment, they won’t have to wait in the sometimes five-hour-long lines just to see an officer, said USCIS spokeswoman Sharon Rummery.
“Some people live a great distance from the closest office to them, so this will save them a considerable amount of time,” Rummery said. “We’re just wild about it.”
The service is free and available in 12 languages including Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Arabic, Rummery said.
The closest USCIS offices to Hollister, 1887 Monterey Road in San Jose, serves residents in Santa Clara, San Benito, Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. Wait times are between three and five hours on average, Rummery said, and the office sees about 200 customers per month.
While it’s difficult to estimate how much wait times have diminished since the implementation of InfoPass earlier this month, Rummery said, she expects that once the service becomes more widely used, it will eliminate lines altogether.
And time is not the only thing InfoPass will save, Rummery said.
“In some cases, it takes the whole day for people to come down to an office and meet with an officer. The difference is literally being able to say, ‘Boss, I need the day off tomorrow,’ and ‘I need to come in an hour late,'” Rummery said. “For people who get paid by the hour, when they have to take an entire day off, that’s money out of their pocket.”
But beginning Oct. 1, officers will only see customers if they have made an InfoPass appointment, Rummery said. That might pose problems for some residents who don’t have access to a computer, said Heidi Turley, director of Gilroy’s Economic and Social Opportunities Inc.
“There are so many Spanish-speaking people here in our community in Gilroy who simply can’t get to a computer,” she said. “And not all people know how to use a computer to begin with.”
Turley said many residents seek help with their applications at the ESO office and don’t even need to trek to the San Jose USCIS office.
“We usually don’t have very long lines here,” Turley said.
Rummery said computers are available at a number of places including churches, community-based organizations, libraries and homes of neighbors and friends.
“Chances are there’s a computer somewhere near you,” Rummery said.
Gilroy community librarian Lani Yoshimura said that for some patrons, the library is the only place people have access to the Internet.
“That’s one of the most critical needs we’ve discovered here,” she said.
Only about half of the facility’s 28 computers have Internet access, and all computers have a 30-minute time limit, said community librarian Lani Yoshimura.
“If people are working on those documents here at the library but aren’t able to finish them, they’d have to save them and continue working another time, so that might be a concern,” Yoshimura said.
Yoshimura said she doesn’t know how many people use the library’s computers for immigration purposes, but she wouldn’t be surprised if the number was high.
The USCIS Web site also supports electronic filing of the eight most frequently used forms for immigration applications, Rummery said. Customers can check the status of their pending applications and sign up to receive e-mail updates when the status of their case changes.
By the end of 2006, Rummery said the site will support 12 forms which will account for more than 90 percent of the applications filed each year.
Although they might not know it, Rummery said, many applicants don’t even need an appointment but can access and print all necessary paperwork from the Web site, then mail it into an office and keep a copy on file.
Development of InfoPass began in November 2002 in the Miami USCIS office, Rummery said. It debuted in that city last year and became available Sept. 8 in all 33 USCIS district offices throughout the country.
