The Arizona Republic: A new federal office in Phoenix provides green cards and similar services without the presence of immigration-enforcement operations, eliminating what officials say had been an uncomfortable atmosphere for legal immigrants.
The Department of Homeland Security has been slowly opening such stand-alone immigration offices since 2003, when the former Immigration and Naturalization Service was dissolved. The services and enforcement duties of the former INS were divided into separate agencies, Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency now responsible for processing immigration applications for green cards and naturalization, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the agency responsible for arresting and deporting illegal immigrants.
Because of the divergent missions, housing the two agencies in the same building creates an awkward atmosphere and sends a "mixed message," said John Kramar, a CIS district director.
In Arizona and Nevada, CIS has opened offices in Reno and now Phoenix, said Kramar, who oversees the agency's operations in the two states. The agency also is in the process of opening new offices in Las Vegas and Tucson.
So far, Citizenship and Immigration Services has opened new or renovated offices in 27 of the 80 cities nationwide that have agency field or district offices, said Marie Sebrechts, a spokeswoman for the agency.
The agency plans to open seven more this fiscal year.
'No more confusion'
CIS had a $2.8 billion budget last year. Almost all of the agency's budget is generated from fees the agency charges for immigration benefits. In 2007, the agency significantly raised fees, including a 70 percent hike in the citizenship-application fees to $675. The fee increases, however, went to cover the rising cost of processing benefits, not the opening of new offices, Sebrechts said.
The Phoenix CIS office is in the former Smitty's grocery store on 16th Street south of downtown. The office officially opened this month after the building underwent a $13 million renovation.
Previously, the Phoenix CIS headquarters shared office space with Immigration and Customs Enforcement in a building on Central Avenue north of downtown.
The building housed CIS information counters on the second floor and ICE detention facilities in the basement. In the morning, people waiting for appointments with immigration officers often stood outside in the security line with people arriving to post bail for immigrants arrested by ICE agents. It was usually easy to tell the difference. Those meeting with CIS officers typically carried an appointment slip in hand, while those there to post bail clutched stacks of cash.
But those scenarios are a thing of the past.
"There will be no confusion in this location," said Kramar, standing outside the 50,000-square-foot immigration office.
The benefits of the new office go beyond separating immigration services from immigration enforcement. The new office also consolidates services in one location. Citizenship interviews, green-card interviews, and fingerprinting, photographs and electronic signatures known as biometrics are now all under one roof, said Charles Harrell, the branch chief in charge of the Phoenix CIS field office.
Convenient location
Kattia Luevano, 35, a Phoenix resident originally from Peru, recalled how difficult it was for her to apply for a green card and then citizenship. To have her fingerprints taken, Luevano had to drive to a CIS building on Thomas Road near 25th Street. Her green card interview was held at the office on Central Avenue. Five years later, when Luevano was eligible to apply for citizenship, her naturalization interview was held at another CIS office inside the Park Central Mall on Central Avenue and Earll.
The new office has a 180-seat waiting area and eight information counters, which serve people who have made appointments online to talk to an immigration officer about their case. The counters also will accept some walk-in appointments.
The building opened as Smitty's grocery store in 1961, said Lynn Newhall, a spokeswoman for DOXA Central, the Phoenix real-estate company that now owns the building.
The building later became a Southwest Supermarket, but it had been vacant for eight years after the supermarket closed, Newhall said.
DOXA Central, which specializes in developing office space for state and federal government agencies, spent $13 million rehabilitating the building into the new immigration office, Newhall said. The company has signed a 10-year lease with CIS.
CIS pays $1.7 million a year to lease the Phoenix building, according to the Government Services Administration.
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