Another DMV-esque Tale

I was looking forward to reading E.D. Maytum’s essay on the antics at the DMV, and it was a good piece (“Descent Into Mayhem,” Aug. 26). But the whole transaction took 95 minutes? Pish posh. If he wants real meat for a story, look at the INS. I spent the better part of four days in June dealing with the Immigration and Naturalization “Service” to renew a green card that had disappeared at LAX. Three days of line-waiting, talking to indifferent or misinformed agents and generally wasting a lot of time culminated on the fourth day with a 4 a.m. wait in the dark in a line downtown with hundreds of other sleep-deprived taxpayers. At the end of this adventure, the agent who processed my renewal managed to misspell my name and misstate the citizenship on my new green card. It would probably be easier for me to legally change my name to conform with their misspelling than to have the INS correct their mistake.

Fiona Cameron

Pasadena