Dealing With INS Paperwork

They call it the Immigration and Naturalization Service. I call it the Racket and Violation of Civil Rights Organization. I am a U.S. citizen and a California native. Last August I married a French citizen I had met while she was studying and working at Cal State Fullerton. After our wedding, we went through the process of filing for her permanent residency. We hired an attorney to help us with a preposterous amount of paperwork.

In order to have that paperwork processed, my wife and I had to spend the night outside of the INS office in Westminster. The office opens at 7:30 a.m., but even at this early hour there is already a line of people that goes from the office door to two blocks down the street. If you arrive after 4 a.m., you might not make it in that day. Luckily, we made it. And we paid $280 to have a stamp put on a document.

Last Christmas, we wanted to go to France so I could meet my wife’s family. The INS refused my wife the right to leave the country. If we did, my wife wouldn’t be allowed to come back. Of course, there may have been ways to go if we really wanted to, which meant spending another night in front of the office building and another $70 for processing fees. But we had no guarantee that it would work.

I am really disgusted by the system. As an American, I never had to deal with that organization. I had no idea of what was going on.

The INS personnel have no consideration for the people they work for, the very same people that provide them with a job.

DAVID J. FRENCH

Sherman Oaks

* I find it difficult to believe that the INS has streamlined procedures for naturalization (“INS Pledges to Reduce Long Wait for Citizenship,” Feb. 28).

My daughter and I applied for citizenship in April 1995. In July, our applications, including our $90 checks, were returned with instructions to send new checks for $95, the new fee effective in June.

In December, I received a new blank fingerprint chart with instructions to get fingerprinted again but no explanation as to why. In February, my daughter received the same request, with an information sheet marked “You must submit a properly filled out fingerprint chart.” Since the original chart was not enclosed, there was no way to know how the first one was improperly filled out.

This hardly seems like an efficient way to serve the public.

SUSAN SHIELDS

Santa Barbara