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?”

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 for the system to work efficiently. We know the pain of trying to contact USCIS and get past the robots and talk to a human being. Individuals want to get help, get updates, and get information from USCIS.

It’s been very difficult. It’s like 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. It’s extremely stressful for all of you especially with the extremely long processing timelines and delays that we’re seeing.

We contacted American Immigration Lawyers Association, where our attorneys are also a part of. Many attorneys across the country have contacted the ombudsman, an investigative body that can look into 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 and presented solutions and things that we want to see changed.

Some of the things that we asked to change 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 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 is a very cumbersome process. It’s difficult to get through to a service representative and then wait for a phone call back. Not everybody can be scheduled for an info pass.

That’s another thing that we’re asking the ombudsman and 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.