S.J. immigration office lifts itself from `hell'
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/
The San Jose immigration office opened seven years ago with high hopes of becoming a national model of good service. Instead, it quickly came to symbolize all that is wrong with the beleaguered federal agency: immigrants camping overnight in long lines, producing a flood of complaints and precipitating a scathing congressional hearing.
It took four difficult years, but the Citizenship and Immigration Services office once derided by a congresswoman as ``the agency from hell'' has transformed itself from one of the poorest performing in the nation to one of the most efficient. It has cut processing times for citizenship and green-card applications by more than half and dramatically reduced, to less than 4,000 cases, a backlog that at one point topped 47,000.
And it has done so despite cuts in its workforce and the complex new layers of review required since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
``It's an amazing feat,'' said San Jose immigration attorney Carole Mesrobian, one of the agency's former critics.
Focus on service
The improvements can be attributed to several factors, said San Jose CIS director Warren Janssen: fewer applications, employee training, new technology and the national restructuring of the agency. The former Immigration and Naturalization Service, once charged with enforcement, split into three agencies in the wake of Sept. 11. CIS now focuses solely on service.
In San Jose, it shows. More immigrants and their attorneys now describe immigration officers as respectful and efficient. Signs throughout the building on Monterey Road are better displayed. A play area with toys for children now greets those in the waiting room for green-card applicants. There is a well-marked kiosk for immigration forms.
What's more, applications that once took the local agency up to two years to process now take less than 10 months.
``I tell people that they're lucky if they're filing in San Jose,'' said San Francisco attorney Randall Caudle. He and many Bay Area lawyers praised the agency for directly addressing problems.
Cecilia Fagotti, 40, a businesswoman from Brazil, said she was prepared to wait a year when Caudle filed her application for a green card. Her husband, a biotechnologist, is a permanent resident.
``I have friends who have been waiting for years, so I was really surprised when my application was approved within six months,'' Fagotti said.
Janssen now proudly keeps a bright yellow folder in his office containing letters addressed to him and his employees. They are unsolicited words of praise.
``To be honest, we were thinking we would be dealing with unfriendly people and that it would take quite a long time,'' wrote a mother who adopted a baby girl from China. ``I am happy to say we experienced the opposite!''
It was a long road of hard work to that yellow folder of goodwill.
Sweeping immigration reforms in 1996 took effect just as the San Jose office opened, resulting in a rush of immigrants applying for green cards and citizenship.
The modest office in a building shared with a gym wasn't prepared to handle the crush of applicants. So the office began to distribute numbers for appointments. Soon immigrants camped out, waiting in the wee hours of the morning to receive the precious few numbers.
History of waiting
``The long lines haunted this office for years,'' said Janssen, who came to San Jose last year.
By 2000, the San Jose immigration office had amassed a backlog of almost 50,000 cases, and complaints about poor customer service and long delays were rampant. In February of that year, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Santa Rosa, called a hearing in San Jose to push for changes. It was then that Woolsey dubbed San Jose ``the agency from hell,'' a label that has been difficult to shed.
As part of that hearing, Lofgren pushed for new technology to help the agency manage cases. CIS offices nationwide now allow immigrants to check the status of their pending cases online.
In addition, immigrants used to stand in line for hours to pick up forms. Now they go to the kiosk. Nationwide, the agency also began allowing people to file green card applications by mail. Later this month, the San Jose office plans to launch a Web-based interview appointment system, similar to California's Department of Motor Vehicles.
By the end of September, Janssen said, he expects San Jose to be backlog-free, allowing federal workers to process green cards and citizenship applications even faster.
Mariano Sepulveda, 26, who immigrated from Jalisco, Mexico, in 1994, can attest to the strides the office has already made. For 10 years, he waited unsuccessfully to get legal, permanent status through his father, who has a green card.
`A positive experience'
Last year, he married a U.S. citizen and reapplied in March for a green card. He secured a work permit in a month and a green card three months later.
``It has been a positive experience,'' Sepulveda said. ``They worked very fast.''
But even the most ardent fans of the new and improved CIS acknowledge that problems persist: long delays resolving simple problems such as rescheduling interviews, misplaced or lost files, and lines, albeit shorter ones.
Some immigrants recount experiences reminiscent of the old INS.
``I think if this was a for-profit organization, they would treat you with much more respect, like they're earning what you pay them,'' said Srikantan Ramabadran, a resident of Milpitas, who waited 13 months to learn of the status of his citizenship application.
He suspected that the office lost his file, so he reapplied. He now has an interview Sept. 21.
At Lofgren's San Jose office, four staffers devote many hours to resolving problem immigration cases. There have been no complaints about the lines lately, but there are scores of immigration cases to sort out, said JoAnn Yamani, a congressional assistant.
In some instances, new layers of security reviews are holding up applications, Yamani said.
``It goes into this immigration black hole, and it's just frustrating,'' Yamani said.
Janssen concedes that tougher security measures have slowed progress. Before the terrorist attacks, immigration officers in San Jose handled 20 to 30 cases a day. Now they average about 12.
Lofgren said she's encouraged by the faster processing times but said the agency can continue to improve with updated technology.
Janssen agrees.
``Can we be perfect? No,'' he said. ``We can try to minimize the errors and problems, and when we're confronted with a problem, we'll fix it.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Jessie Mangaliman at jmangaliman@ mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5794
By Jessie Mangaliman
Mercury News http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/
The San Jose immigration office opened seven years ago with high hopes of becoming a national model of good service. Instead, it quickly came to symbolize all that is wrong with the beleaguered federal agency: immigrants camping overnight in long lines, producing a flood of complaints and precipitating a scathing congressional hearing.
It took four difficult years, but the Citizenship and Immigration Services office once derided by a congresswoman as ``the agency from hell'' has transformed itself from one of the poorest performing in the nation to one of the most efficient. It has cut processing times for citizenship and green-card applications by more than half and dramatically reduced, to less than 4,000 cases, a backlog that at one point topped 47,000.
And it has done so despite cuts in its workforce and the complex new layers of review required since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
``It's an amazing feat,'' said San Jose immigration attorney Carole Mesrobian, one of the agency's former critics.
Focus on service
The improvements can be attributed to several factors, said San Jose CIS director Warren Janssen: fewer applications, employee training, new technology and the national restructuring of the agency. The former Immigration and Naturalization Service, once charged with enforcement, split into three agencies in the wake of Sept. 11. CIS now focuses solely on service.
In San Jose, it shows. More immigrants and their attorneys now describe immigration officers as respectful and efficient. Signs throughout the building on Monterey Road are better displayed. A play area with toys for children now greets those in the waiting room for green-card applicants. There is a well-marked kiosk for immigration forms.
What's more, applications that once took the local agency up to two years to process now take less than 10 months.
``I tell people that they're lucky if they're filing in San Jose,'' said San Francisco attorney Randall Caudle. He and many Bay Area lawyers praised the agency for directly addressing problems.
Cecilia Fagotti, 40, a businesswoman from Brazil, said she was prepared to wait a year when Caudle filed her application for a green card. Her husband, a biotechnologist, is a permanent resident.
``I have friends who have been waiting for years, so I was really surprised when my application was approved within six months,'' Fagotti said.
Janssen now proudly keeps a bright yellow folder in his office containing letters addressed to him and his employees. They are unsolicited words of praise.
``To be honest, we were thinking we would be dealing with unfriendly people and that it would take quite a long time,'' wrote a mother who adopted a baby girl from China. ``I am happy to say we experienced the opposite!''
It was a long road of hard work to that yellow folder of goodwill.
Sweeping immigration reforms in 1996 took effect just as the San Jose office opened, resulting in a rush of immigrants applying for green cards and citizenship.
The modest office in a building shared with a gym wasn't prepared to handle the crush of applicants. So the office began to distribute numbers for appointments. Soon immigrants camped out, waiting in the wee hours of the morning to receive the precious few numbers.
History of waiting
``The long lines haunted this office for years,'' said Janssen, who came to San Jose last year.
By 2000, the San Jose immigration office had amassed a backlog of almost 50,000 cases, and complaints about poor customer service and long delays were rampant. In February of that year, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, and Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Santa Rosa, called a hearing in San Jose to push for changes. It was then that Woolsey dubbed San Jose ``the agency from hell,'' a label that has been difficult to shed.
As part of that hearing, Lofgren pushed for new technology to help the agency manage cases. CIS offices nationwide now allow immigrants to check the status of their pending cases online.
In addition, immigrants used to stand in line for hours to pick up forms. Now they go to the kiosk. Nationwide, the agency also began allowing people to file green card applications by mail. Later this month, the San Jose office plans to launch a Web-based interview appointment system, similar to California's Department of Motor Vehicles.
By the end of September, Janssen said, he expects San Jose to be backlog-free, allowing federal workers to process green cards and citizenship applications even faster.
Mariano Sepulveda, 26, who immigrated from Jalisco, Mexico, in 1994, can attest to the strides the office has already made. For 10 years, he waited unsuccessfully to get legal, permanent status through his father, who has a green card.
`A positive experience'
Last year, he married a U.S. citizen and reapplied in March for a green card. He secured a work permit in a month and a green card three months later.
``It has been a positive experience,'' Sepulveda said. ``They worked very fast.''
But even the most ardent fans of the new and improved CIS acknowledge that problems persist: long delays resolving simple problems such as rescheduling interviews, misplaced or lost files, and lines, albeit shorter ones.
Some immigrants recount experiences reminiscent of the old INS.
``I think if this was a for-profit organization, they would treat you with much more respect, like they're earning what you pay them,'' said Srikantan Ramabadran, a resident of Milpitas, who waited 13 months to learn of the status of his citizenship application.
He suspected that the office lost his file, so he reapplied. He now has an interview Sept. 21.
At Lofgren's San Jose office, four staffers devote many hours to resolving problem immigration cases. There have been no complaints about the lines lately, but there are scores of immigration cases to sort out, said JoAnn Yamani, a congressional assistant.
In some instances, new layers of security reviews are holding up applications, Yamani said.
``It goes into this immigration black hole, and it's just frustrating,'' Yamani said.
Janssen concedes that tougher security measures have slowed progress. Before the terrorist attacks, immigration officers in San Jose handled 20 to 30 cases a day. Now they average about 12.
Lofgren said she's encouraged by the faster processing times but said the agency can continue to improve with updated technology.
Janssen agrees.
``Can we be perfect? No,'' he said. ``We can try to minimize the errors and problems, and when we're confronted with a problem, we'll fix it.''
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contact Jessie Mangaliman at jmangaliman@ mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5794
