May 31, 2006 @ 08:29
Done With the INS
[NEW HOST MARKER]I spent the first part of the day yesterday at my friendly neighbourhood INS office in Calexico. I had to hand in my current permanent resident card and apply for the new (unconditional) one. In the past you would have to get there early and queue up to get seen, now an appointment is mandatory; mine was for 8am and I was second in line at 7.40. The appointment letter said you will be denied entry if you show up later than 15 minutes before the appointment time: the doors opened at 8.05.
I believe no trip to the INS is without trouble, no matter how good your paperwork is. In my case, after watching the officer speak on the phone for 20 minutes without dealing with anybody she finally announced that the computer system was broken and so she couldn’t help anybody. We were welcome to stay but she didn’t know if it would be 5 minutes or 5 hours. There’s a plush INS office in San Diego so I asked the lady if I could go there instead, and not have to skip work to visit Calexico. She said I could but then, to my amazement, she said she would try to work my case without the computer. She took my passport and card away, came back 10 minutes later to take my fingerprints, and then about 20 minutes later she was done (and by then the computer was working again).
So now I have a stamp in my passport saying I am a permanent resident waiting for my card, and the card when it comes should be valid for 7 years or so, maybe even the full 10. Unless I decide to go for citizenship, it means I am finally free of the INS for a while. And that’s a good thing.
Posted by Brian
May 31, 2006 @ 12:25
CONGRATS!!
You are so lucky. I am abut to do the same thing and have my “conditional” removed from my Greencard. However, I have moved home and state since submitting my application and despite filling in all three forms to change my address and making the mandatory call to “actually” change my addres (the forms are a legal requirement but do not update any pending cases!?!) I still was asked to visit my local INS/USCIS branch at my old address.
I called the national service center to ask if I could go to my local office instead to take care of this and they said it differs from office to office and I’d have to call my local office to find out. When I call my local office they tell me that I HAVE to call the national number to confirm that I can go to a different office [confused? I am]
So I’ve also made my InfoPass appointment like you did, for my local office and I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that they don’t send me packing once I explain my situation. I wonder how U.S. citizens would feel if they were treated this way..?
Posted by guapacha
May 31, 2006 @ 12:35
Good luck! Like I said you can have everything in order but I always feel likes its a crapshoot when you go in to get something done.
In my case, the Calexico office is my local office but is also a sub-branch of San Diego so I am confident that I could have done my final processing there. However, I wasn’t confident that the Calexico people could handle the “inter-branch” transfer.
I have a trip to Mexico coming in August and hope the card comes before then. Its a real pain using the passport stamp, last time I had to go into secondary…