Hi, everyone. I wanted to bring you some updates as it relates to contacting USCIS. We've received
a lot of questions from people about, "How do I talk to a human being? How do I get past the robot
on the USCIS call line?" That's exactly what I want to talk to you about today. Some movement
we're seeing on that front to improve that situation. Before I dive into the information
about contacting USCIS, I'd like to quickly introduce myself. I'm Attorney Megan Pastrana
and my law firm's dedicated to assisting couples in navigating the immigration process. If you are
new to our channel, please subscribe. We regularly post important weekly updates
about what's happening in the world of immigration. Please also like this video so YouTube will share
it with other couples and individuals who can benefit from the information. As I mentioned,
I wanted to talk with all of you about updates we're seeing with regards to contacting USCIS.
USCIS was created in 2002 by congress to more efficiently move cases through the immigration
process and to provide customer service so individuals could receive updates
and just for the system to work efficiently. But as many of you know, those of you who
are going through an immigration process and here at our firm, as I mentioned, we're
dedicated exclusively to assisting couples, we know the pain of trying to contact USCIS
and get past the robots and talk to a human being. Get help, get updates, and get information. It's been
very difficult. It's been an invisible wall that seems to be constructed over these past years
between individuals going through the immigration process and their ability to contact USCIS
and we know it's extremely stressful for all of you especially with the extremely long processing
timelines and delays that we're seeing. It's in a critical state and something needs to
get it right. We always try to bring you as much good news as we
possibly can because we know it's very important for everybody to be optimistic and have faith
through their immigration journey. The good news that I wanted to share with all of you is
that American Immigration Lawyers Association, our attorneys are part of that organization,
we contacted American Immigration Lawyers Association. Many attorneys across the country
have contacted the ombudsman which is basically an investigative body that can look into issues,
critical issues like we're seeing with USCIS and our inability to be able to get in contact
with representatives at USCIS. To get information in case statuses, AILA has gotten
the ombudsman to pay attention to this issue and have provided them with information about the
changes that we want to see. Our firm and our attorneys have also provided information
about the crisis level delays that we're seeing. The issues we're seeing with being unable to contact
immigration and presented solutions and things that we want to see changed. Some of the things
that we were asking to have changed is the ability for individuals to be able to contact USCIS and
talk to an actual person to get updates about your case. Many of you have had long delays in receiving
receipt notices and it was impossible to get ahold of anybody to find out what was going on with
your receipt notices or your case. And so, we're asking that USCIS have a customer service line
again. A real functioning customer service line where people are available to answer questions.
We're also asking for them to allow for info pass appointments to be more easily scheduled. Info pass
appointments, walk-in appointments, those used to occur more regularly. You used to be able to make
those appointments online. You could go to a local USCIS office and get information about your case.
We did that frequently for individuals who were having issues or special circumstances
in their case and a lot of those tools have been removed. Now the process to schedule an
info pass appointment for any of you who have had to do that on your specific case,
it's a very cumbersome process to even get through to a service representative and then
have to wait for a phone call back and not everybody can be scheduled for an info pass.
That's another thing that we're asking the ombudsman that we've brought to their attention.
We really want to see these info pass appointments started again. Just more transparency
on USCIS' part and a better ability for individuals to be able to communicate with USCIS and for it to
be a customer service-based organization as it was intended to be. To more efficiently
move cases through. We are also asking the ombudsman to look at these crisis level delays and
processing times that we are seeing across the board in all cases. We'll keep you updated
on the progress of those conversations that AILA is having with the ombudsman.
We'll definitely keep you up to date on how everything is going on
that front. We'll be optimistic and hope that the fact that they're listening to all of
these issues that we're seeing. That they'll listen to these changes that we want to have made.
Hopefully, things can start moving more smoothly for everyone in the immigration process. But again,
we'll definitely provide you with updates as we have more information.