Rude Behavior is Just One of Many BCIS Issues

Join the Discussion 'Notice and Procedures' TONYJOVE     Related Resources • Green Cards/Visas • Education & Jobs • Daily Immi News    From Other Guides • Affirmative Action  Elsewhere on the Web • Student Visas

Foreigners applying for visa or immigration benefits face long lines and rude behavior. The BCIS has a few changes planned, but there's a long way to go.

Like many foreigners in the United States, Peggy Strause, a Colombian immigrant, was used to standing on long lines to handle immigration paperwork. Waiting long hours on the sidewalk, in whatever weather came her way, was no surprise when it came time to renew her green card in the state of Washington. It's the same in most every state. She put up with it because she cherishes working and living here, so this is just the price to be paid.

But when a security guard decided to insult and get forceful with her, Strause was sure this wasn't supposed to part of the American way. After all, this is the US government's Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Service (BCIS, former INS), not the Gestapo.

"I felt discriminated against, humiliated," Strause complained to the Seattle-Post Intelligencer. The 32-year-old had to ask, "Who was this guy to screw up my day?" Federal police officers had to agree when she took her story to them. They escorted her back into the building to file her paperwork and had a few words with the guard in question.

The BCIS has recommended that the man, a contracted employee through Federal Protective Services, be reassigned, but they are also responding to the broader issues of how BCIS customers are treated. The agency acknowledges that immigrants are subjected to poor conditions and inconveniences. People must wait in line without appointments, unable to eat, drink or sit down for hours, or to feed their children. Going to the bathroom could mean losing a place they have been holding on to for a long time. And all the while, government employees are shouting and herding and guarding people. Indeed, it's a humbling experience. Your About Guides have been there, and so have many of you.

In Strause's case, the encounter had become cantankerous when she and her brother got to a metal detector at the door of the BCIS. There, after a many-hour wait, with 47 people ahead of her in line, the screener, noticing that Strause's brother had a Colombian accent and a wad of cash, suggested that he might be a drug dealer. The guard then dumped the plastic dish containing the man's belongings right onto the floor. Strause was naturally upset and told them there was no need to be rude, to which the guard replied that she should shut up and that he could have her removed. When, in shock, she told him he couldn't treat people like that, the guard took her number from her hand and told her she wouldn't be served that day, yelling in her face. He threatened to call the police, but it was Strause who went to the police.

Immigration bureau district director Bob Okin admitted that guards need to learn to balance their enforcement duties-making sure 300 people a day entering the BCIS are not armed-with customer service. Being nasty is not necessary, but things can get out of hand when everyone is tired and frustrated, he explained. "One of the things we are doing with all the employees," Orkin told the Post, "is we are putting them through a (16-hour) professional communication-training program. It teaches them how to put themselves in the person's place and empathize with them."

The agency claims that scheduling of appointments will become more common for various types of services, so that the current problems can be kept to a minimum. Filing green-card and work-permit forms online can also help ease congestion and keep people from the dreaded sidewalk lines.

These are definitely moves in the right direction, but most immigrants, attorneys and sponsors agree: there is still much improvement to be made with the BCIS processes. It could be argued that this level of chaos not only hurts applicants who may be disabled, missing work, paying for daycare, hungry, tired and so on, but it can also lead to the kind of sloppiness and oversight that enables immigration fraud and security breaches.

Current Features

Back to the front page


Grab an immigration chat buddy!

  See What's Going on in Our Help/Support Forum:

© Peter and Jennifer Wipf 1999-2003. All rights reserved. No duplication without explicit written permission.