Visit to the Chicago INS Office

[ChuckRM]

My wife and I have been dealing with the Chicago INS office, which has to be one of the worst.  They don't allow people to file for AOS or work authorization on a walk-in basis.  You have to file by mail and wait for them to schedule appointments for you.  They don't have any sort of help line that you can call for information. They have a large backlog for AOS - we were told it was 26 months when my wife applied.

Last Tuesday my wife finally had her appointment to get her employment authorization card.  They are supposed to issue the EAD within 90 days of receipt of the application.  Her card was approximately 3 1/2 months late.  The appointment letter was addressed to me, but they mis-spelled my name and sent the letter to our old address.  Somebody at the postal service figured it out and wrote my name correctly on the envelope. The letter addresses me as her attorney.  I’m insulted!  It also was marked “second notice.”  

We moved last November and promptly sent them a change of address.  I got an acknowledgement (form letter) from them, but apparently they didn’t enter the new address into their database.  It seems that the Chicago office has their own change of address form.  It’s cheesy looking mimeographed thing (like everything else that comes out of that office).   It has the same information as the official form (AR-11) on the INS web site in a slightly different order.  

My wife got her card without any problem.  She needed to show them her passport and the receipt that she received last summer for the application fee.   They had her sign the card and finger printed her.  The card was done in a few minutes. What really pissed me off is that they back dated her card to last November (when it should have been issued).  Since it expires in one year, they cheated her out of nearly 4 months.  This would not be a problem if they turned the AOS around promptly, but they are saying that it will be another 18 months before her AOS interview is scheduled.  So the work authorization card will expire long before she gets her green card.  

My wife's teen age son applied for his EAD a month after her.  His card is now 2 1/2 months late.  I asked if we could get his document, too, but was told that they wouldn’t do anything without an appointment letter. So, this means a second trip for us.  We live "downstate" and it is a 5 hour trip (one way) for us.  

The EAD unit at the Chicago office has a big waiting area.  We got there 20 minutes early. There were five other people waiting when we arrived and only two people when we left.  Only two clerks were working behind the counter.  There were other people in offices behind the waiting area.  It didn’t seem that this branch of the INS was trying very hard to reduce their backlog.  My impression about Chicago INS is the same as other people who have posted about other INS offices:  lots off goofing off going on at the taxpayer's expense and not much work happening.  No justification here for the $100 fee for the EAD or for the increase that went into effect in February.  
 

[apk]

... in response to Visit to the Chicago INS Office, posted by ChuckRM on Mar 20, 2002

My wife and I were told the San Francisco INS office that we were required to go to was very busy, and it is first come/first served with a cut off sometime when they run out of numbers they issue when you first come through the doors. We were in line at 6 am, an already at that time there were about 300 people in front of us. As we are standing there(outside) wondering if it would rain on us we met another woman from Russia with her US husband. They have been there twice before after waiting for hours with no success to even get there packet submitted and pay the fees. They told us we had a good chance of getting served today because it was not quite so busy that day. We finally went through security about 7:45 and were issued an appointment number and told to sit in the chairs and wait for our number to be called. At 11am they called our number, and I thought this would go fast...only to be given a free pass card for a 12:30pm return. So we left the building and found a restaurant a few blocks away and waited to return at noon..only to be told by the door security to wait in a different line outside till she waved us through at 12:30.
We finally saw the clerk and droped off our packet at 2pm and told they would call my wifes name....and they finally did at 3:30pm. We were told to get in the cashier line to pay our fees, and told to proceed upstairs with receipt to get fingerprinted and her EAD card photo. We finally walked out of there at 4:30 with the card and receipt and we were told we were the last proccessed for the day..and there must have been at least 400 people still sitting in chairs when we left the building, only to be told to return another day.

I would prefer the appointment process any day to the first come first serve method, for me it was a 2 hour drive to get there( left at 4 am ) and the return trip was twice as long due to getting stuck in work hour bay area traffic.
I can not imagine people having to go back 2 or even three times just to stand in line in the early dawn and sit in chairs for 4 hours...it is a time consuming and frustrating experience.