Action from the DHS

By DHS, I do not mean the DHSS, the Department of Health and Social Security in the UK, which probably doesn't exist anymore, despite being memorialized as a back-up singer refrain in the Wham! song "Wham! Rap" - sample lyrics: " Wham, bam, I am a man/Job or no job, you can’t tell me that I'm not".

DHS these days means the Departm.ent of Ho.meland Secur.ity. Tagline: "Preserving Our Free.doms, Prote.cting America." (I'm not making this up - look at their web site.) And the DHS must determine if I can become a U.S. citizen or not. The first step is letting me know it's received the application, and the check for $400, that I mailed on July 17th.

I was getting worried this week: I'd heard nothing, my Green Card expires next April; if my application was lost and I had to start again, I'd probably have to apply for a new Green Card first and then try again for citizenship, paying the new higher fees for everything, etc. So I rang the 800-number and toured its extensive array of recorded messages. And that's how I learned the following.

Normally, it takes four weeks for the Departme.nt of Hom.eland Sec.urity to send a receipt of application notice - ie four weeks for them to bank your check and tell you you're in the system of neverendingness, to be scrutinized and assessed and fingerprinted and interviewed and tested. But for people who mailed in their application after June 1st, the average waiting time is fifteen weeks. Or, in normal language, three and a half months. This is just to get a receipt - not for any action on the application to take place.

I checked my bank account yesterday, and the check has just been deposited - nearly four months after I sent my application. At least I'm in the system, as Josef K probably said before he was led away ...

If only the IRS was this slow at banking checks. (I think it deposited the check for owed taxes of nearly $5000 two days after we mailed it.) I guess the IRS has more funding and more staff.

None of this is intended as a criticism IN ANY WAY of the DHS. Though just to be safe I'll insert some paranoid periods into its name, to avoid investigation-by-Google.

I better start studying for the test.

Comments

[TLB]

Our country would be a better place with you as a citizen, able to vote, etc. I will hope that things proceed smoothly and quickly. And let me know if they need a character witness.