Standing In Line For A Green Card: Problems, Why You Should Not Have To, And How To Speed It Up
A green card is a piece of paper that allows you to stay in the United States longer than your passport or visa does. If you want to stay because you plan to apply for U.S. citizenship, or because there is some other pressing reason for remaining in this country, you need a green card. However, there are often issues with getting a green card, the biggest of which is standing in line to get the paperwork filled out and turned into the appropriate office. Here are some common problems, why you should not have to stand in line, and how to speed up the process.
Common Problems
Getting in line and waiting for hours just to get into the building for your green card is the first problem. On particularly heavy foot traffic days, the line can wrap around the building and you could be standing in it from dawn to dusk. Sometimes, you stand in line all day, only to have the doors of the federal immigration building close in your face just as you are minutes away from entering. That is extremely frustrating, since it puts you in a position of getting deported while you attempt to get your green card!
You could go very early in the day, get in line sooner, and stand there with everyone else. The problem is, everyone else has the same idea. It could take more than a week to finally set foot inside the building when green card applications are the core reason for the influx of foreigners standing in the same line.
Why You Should Not Have to Stand in Line
Like most government agencies, the immigration department operates on the "first come, first served" basis. Unfortunately that means that everyone in line ahead of you will probably get their paperwork and application in on time, regardless of whether or not they were in line before. In reality, those that have been there for several days should be allowed to go to the head of the line, but that is not how it works. You need a way to get ahead of the others.
How to Speed up the Process
Standing in line for your green card is the very old-fashioned way of doing things. What you need to do is hire an immigration lawyer. The lawyer actually has copies of the paperwork you need, and knows exactly how to file the paperwork for you, too. People who use the services of an immigration lawyer get their paperwork much faster, and reduce the amount of time typically used to get a green card.
Contact a firm, like David Borts Law Office, for more help.