The INS is mind-paralyzingly bureaucratic. The clerk staff are like zombies. (I prefer to call INS Pinche Migra
http://members.tripod.com/~outsidetl/language/spanish.html )
I went to a Pinche Migra regional service center that I needed to get some documents to. They told me I had to mail them in. They refused to accept them at the service counter.
Their hours of operation are 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM.
When the Pinche Migra needs to send information to a foreign embassy about a foreign national seeking a visa to enter the U.S., the Pinche Migra only sends ONE NAME despite other names (previous marriage etc.) being listed on the Pinche Migra form. This results in the embassy staff having to do multiple background checks on an individual (each check takes 15 working days minimum).
When you go to a Pinche Migra feild office, the contracted service firm staff do not know how to operate the optical finger printing machines resulting in an average three hour wait. (After spending 10 - 15 minutes with the optical machine, they just do it the old fashion way). The staff also does not know how to type, using slow hunt and peck.
A visit to the local Pinche Migra at the nearest Federal building takes four hours.
Pinche Migra has top notch management:
" Officials said that when the backlog of documents in the INS center's file room reached 90,000, Randall ordered Salazar and other supervisors to begin shredding unprocessed documents to reduce the backlog. "
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/01/31/ins.documents.shred/On the up side, after experiencing Pinche Migra first had, a line of 15 people at the back _is_nothing_.
