Passport Stamping Experience at SF

[michael young]

We had our passports stamped at INS San Franciso Office today (8/20/2001). Following the advice from Mishonio, Caone, LSMK, and Kevin Park on Ciba\'s web site, we didn\'t encounter any surprise. Everything (well, almost everything) went smoothly. We entered SF INS Office from the door on 630 Sansome Street at about 10:10pm, passed the security check point, went upstairs to Room 200B, and dropped our approval notices into the a slot on the door of Room 200B. Since it was Monday, there were many people waiting around Room 200B. Nearly all the seats were taken. We thought we had to wait for a long time. Not so. In about 10 minuts, an INS officer called us to Counter 19. He asked for our passports, photos, and EAD or AP if any. He was polite but he didn\'t like our photos, saying our photos were small. I told him that the size was the exact match for INS sample photo (he should have faith in digital imaging technology). He literally measured our photos against the INS offical sample photo. Yes, our photos were the exact match. Nonetheless, he advised us to get bigger photos at the photo shop at the corner of Sansome Street and Washington Street. He said that if we insisted on our photos being the right size, he could accept the photos, but INS headquarters might reject them, resulting in delaying the mailing of green cards. Not wanting to take the risk, we went to the small photo shop on Sansome and Washington. Actually, it was very quick. We each paid $13 for the two required photos. In less than 15 minutes, we were back to Room 200B. We didn\'t have to wait. The same INS officer at Counter 19 examined our photos and, with a smile, he took our fingerprints and collected our passports and EAD cards. We waited for what seemed to be 20 minutes. Then, another INS officer called us to the leftmost counter and gave us our stamped passports. All he said was "your passports have been stemped. Here they are.". He didn\'t ask if we had any questions or explained the benefits of becoming permanent residents. We gladly took our stamped passports and left INS SF Office at 11:20AM. The whole process took about 1 hour and 10 minutes.
   Some suggestions:
   Parking. We learned our parking lesson from our EAD experience. For obtaining the interim EAD on August 8, I paid $25 through my nose to park at a commercial parking lot. So, today, we found a meter parking spot on the street near Broadway and Sansome. It was much easier to find street parking spots on this side of the street. We paid only two dollars (8 quarters) instead of $25 at a commercial parking lot. Even when we finished our passport stamping, there was still some 40 minutes left in the parking meter.
   Photos. Make sure your photos are the right size and meet INS requirements. If you haven\'t had your photos taken, take them at the photo shop on Sansome and Washington Street. The INS officer commented that they had sent quite a few folks to this photo shop to have their photos re-taken, because the photos these folks brought with them were not up to INS standards. It seems that INS SF Office trusts the photos from this shop.
   Hope this helps...
   Michael Young

 

[ciba]

No Title

Great post, Michael! I am going to upload this message to
the webpage in a day or two. Thanks for posting.

By the way, do you think SFO might have some kind of deal
with the photo shops nearby? The shop might bribe SFO
regulary. That\'s why the officer insisted you take photo
again even though the photos you had were in the right
size.

Just kidding. Don\'t take it too seriously.

ciba

 

[Leo485]

One question, michael...

Can we go to either San Jose office or SFO to have the passport stamped or we have to go to the designated one? Thanks

Leo

 

[michael young]

Not sure

Some earlier messages on this discussion board reported that some folks were successful in stamping their passports at SF Office, even though they were assigned to SJ Office. The INS officer on duty said they\'d process passports assgined to any other office. Ciba advised that we should use this resource as the last resort so that folks have some means of getting their passports stamped in emergency situations. A few days ago, I read a message on this board that SF Office refused to stamp passports for someone assgined to INS San Jose Office.
  As for us, although we are closer to Sacramento (4 hours of drive), we were assigned to SF Office(5 hours of drive) for passport stamping by CSC. We thought it would be safer to follow CSC direction and go to SF for stamping. Besides, information on Ciba\'s web site indicates that it takes longer time to wait at INS Sacramento Office(no special treat of speedup processing for passport stamping).