NY Tops US in Green Card Wait

The Daily News today has one of those stories that is not particularly surprising but sad nonetheless. Basically, getting a green card in New York is harder and takes longer than anywhere else in the country. By next year the backlog of old cases and applications could go as high as 144,000 with people having waited years just to get an interview. To hammer in the point the News manages to find the saddest stories to give as examples, like the woman who has been waiting for 15 years for a green card so that she can legally go back to Bolivia to see the grandfather who raised her until she was six and who is now going blind ("'He wants to see me before he goes blind' said the part-time City College student, housekeeper and waitress"). And what is the government doing about all of this? Upping quotas and then sending in more immigration officers so as to at least keep up the current, very slow, pace. In the meantime if you or someone you know are waiting for a green card, the News recommends moving to Jersey where the wait is noticeably shorter.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Garth Johnston in News on October 2, 2005 11:57 AM

Comments [rss]

Wei Ting Tan

I would like to know why my Green Card isn't here yet ready for me because right now I am going to school in America and my mother got her Green Card already and before that she got married with an American citizen.

susan

Does anyone know how long it takes to actually get the green card once an application has been approved?

Brightliner

"When she got there, she said the immigration officer told her that her file, which was being stored at a national records keeping center in Missouri, had not arrived...

However, he added that the agency's workers, at times, accidently schedule interviews before a file can arrive."

This agency still relies on shipping paper records around the country? Helloooo! Anyone ever heard of electronic records? What can sheets of paper do that data files can't? Yeah, it was a "brilliant" idea to integrate Citizenship and Immigration into Homeland Security.

hohohaha

The wait would be considerably shorter if they would move back - permanantly. Listen to yourself apologizing for our stringent immigration policies!?!