The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service has extended its office closings due to the advance of the coronavirus pandemic, this has left many people with proceedings in process in uncertainty
With more than 1 million 100 thousand infected and around 65,000 dead, the United States is the epicenter of the pandemic of the new coronavirus that the world suffers. Faced with this terrible reality, with a view to preventing further spread of the virus, many institutions paralyzed their attention to the public. One of them is the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), which closed its doors on March 18 until Sunday, May 03. This leaves many immigrants in uncertainty.
Tens of thousands of immigration procedures have been stalled with this closure. In this way, those who had to renew or apply for work permits, green cards and US citizenship, among others, have apparently been left in limbo.
«The USCIS work team will continue with essential organizational tasks that do not entail contact with the public,» he details in a statement published on his website. Therefore, we can infer that the procedures in progress have not stopped, but will present a delay.
In addition, the USCIS in the same statement states that «it will provide emergency services in limited situations.» For example, this applies to extensions of status for those who arrived with a tourist visa and cannot return to their country. are in an emergency situation can see their case, they can contact the USCIS Contact Center .
Applicants who have a pending appointment or naturalization ceremony will receive a notification from USCIS with the rescheduling of the process. The same will happen with the asylum offices, which will initially send notifications of cancellation of their interviews and then automatically reschedule the interviews with a date after reopening (until now May 4).
However, those who had pending appointments with InfoPass must reschedule their dates. For this they have to do it, after the 03 of major, through the web page of the Contact Center of USCIS . It is recommended that you check to see if the local USCIS office in your area is serving before contacting the USCIS Contact Center.
On the other hand, despite the closure due to the coronavirus pandemic, the USCIS announced that it will continue processing applications for extension of employment authorization despite the closure of assistance centers. To do this, it will reuse the biometric data previously presented to this entity.