Memphis immigration lawyer Ari Sauer provides news and information on US immigration law.
The USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas held a meeting today with immigration bloggers to discuss the newly redesigned USCIS website.
The new website contains a more interactive format. The home page contains a list of links to information contained in the site that is listed by topic to make navigating through the site more user-friendly.
The home page also includes a “Where to Start” drop-down menu, that will direct users to the information they want by choosing their citizenship or immigration status and then choosing the application or process they want to find information about. There are currently a few bugs in this system, but the Director has said that they expect to have these bugs fixed by tomorrow.
USCIS has also launched a Spanish version of the website, which is located at www.uscis.gov/espanol. The Spanish site currently does not contain all the information contained in the main website, but USCIS is working to expand that site and expects that it will soon have all information from the main website available on the Spanish website.
USCIS has added a feature that now allows users to receive text messages with updates on their case status.
The new system makes it easier for users to find out the expected processing times for their application and the new case status display makes it easier for users to see where their application is in the process.
Finally, USCIS is working on adding a feature that will allow users to send inquiry requests on their applications directly to the Service Centers, as an alternative to calling the USCIS National Customer Service Center 1-800 number. This feature is expected to be available by May of 2010.
We applaud the Service for making the website more user-friendly and adding these additional features.