It may be anticipation that makes you wait in the song (and ketchup commercial), but in real life it is USCIS that makes you wait. A trip to the Asylum Office in Anaheim, California, can mean reporting for a 6:30 a.m. interview and being called into the interview at 10 a.m. — or later, which is a long time to sit in a waiting room after setting out for the appointment at 4:30 a.m. It made me wonder whether we could apply…

I recently posted about an ordeal I faced trying to correct a mispelled name on a client’s Form  I-751 receipt. Two pieces of news to report. First USCIS  announced it is changing the hours one can call the National Customer Service Center eliminating Saturday hours but lengthening weekday hours. Saturday hours were a bit misleading as attorneys could not call for clients on Saturdays, so, from an attorney perspective, good riddance. Hours are now 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday in all time…

  It used to be that if you had a problem with a case with USCIS, you had no real options other than wait and wait years and years. Talking to an information officer was nearly impossible, as lines wrapped around city blocks to talk to one. Then, USCIS instituted a system where customers made appointments to speak with an officer, Infopass. Lines dropped precipitously, either because people caught on that changes in the law in the 1990’s made getting…

Senator Joseph Lieberman’s great legacy, besides giving Jon Stewart years of material, is his efforts to create the gargantuan Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and split the former Immigration and Naturalization Service into three separate agencies, Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The breakdown in the agencies’ missions, simply put, is USCIS adjudicates benefits like temporary and permanent residence statuses and citizenship determinations, CBP polices the borders and internal checkpoints,…