SAN DIEGO — Schools in Yakima, Wash., are taking nearly a month to deliver transcripts to former students. The Mexican consulate in Denver introduced Saturday hours last month after passport applications spiked by one-third. San Diego public schools added five employees in a new office to handle records requests.
Schools and consulates have been flooded with requests for documents after President Barack Obama announced a new program allowing young people living in the country illegally to apply for two-year renewable work permits.
In the East Valley, Mesa and Tempe districts report that they too are seeing an uptick in requests for transcripts and records.
“When it first came out, we experienced a large number of calls,” said Linda Littel, Tempe Union High School District spokeswoman. “Particularly for high schools in the north,” she added.
In addition, Littel said there has also been a sharp increase in interest in adult GED courses.
Mesa Unified School District also has seen a large increase in the number of requests for transcripts this year, said spokesman Paul Boyer.
“But,” Boyer added, “it’s hard to differentiate between how many are trying to transfer out of district.”
That being said, Mesa had 2,441 requests for transcripts from Aug. 1 to Sept. 25, Boyer said. That’s more than the district had in a five-month span between February and July this year, when it received 2,161 requests.
Nationwide, up to 1.7 million people may qualify, which would be the broadest stroke to bring illegal immigrants out of the shadows in more than 25 years. Applicants — some eager to get in line before November's presidential elections — are finding they may have to wait a few weeks longer for a prize that has eluded them for years.
The clamor for documents is an early sign that the policy is highly popular. The Obama administration said this month that it approved the first 29 applications among more than 82,000 received since it began accepting requests Aug. 15.
The Mexican consulate in Los Angeles issued 17,444 passports and consular identification cards in August, up 63 percent from the same period last year, said Consul General David Figueroa, who attributes the entire increase to the new policy. The wait for a passport appointment at the largest Mexican consulate grew from one or two days to 40 days last month, then fell to 30 days after the consulate hired five employees to handle the increased workload, opened its main office on Saturdays and extended hours at satellite offices to seven days a week from five.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services recently clarified expectations, relieving applicants who worried they would need exhaustive proof of their whereabouts. Eligible applicants must have come to the U.S. before they turned 16, be 30 or younger, be high school graduates or in college, or have served in the military, and they cannot have serious criminal records. They also must have lived in the country since June 2007.
The new guidelines, issued Sept. 14, say applicants should provide as much evidence "as reasonably possible" that they stayed in the U.S. — ideally for every year — but that they don't have to account for every day of the last five years.
The government also reassured employers who were nervous about providing evidence that they hired an illegal immigrant. Documents will not be used against employers unless they committed "egregious violations of criminal statues or widespread abuses."
Laura Lichter, a Denver attorney and president of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said the new guidelines alleviated many concerns for applicants.
"I have to compliment (the government) for doing an excellent job of getting good, solid information out there," said Lichter, adding that she rarely praises the authorities.
Rep. Lamar Smith, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and a critic of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, called the latest changes an example of how the Obama administration "routinely puts illegal immigrants first at the expense of the American people."
"Administration officials intentionally made these guidelines vague enough so that potentially millions of illegal immigrants can qualify. And now the administration has revised their guidelines to be specific enough to protect unscrupulous employers from facing legal action for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants that have applied for the amnesty program," he said.
Since July, transcript requests at Aurora Public Schools in suburban Denver jumped to 1,500, up by more than two-thirds compared to the same period last year. More than half of this year's requests are tied to the new immigration policy.
The Yakima School District in central Washington state is taking nearly a month to produce transcripts, though college applicants go to the top of the pile and have to wait only two days, said Roy Knox, director of central registration, who planned to bring in a substitute teacher to help. Before the new immigration policy, transcripts were generally a same-day service.
Some campuses in Los Angeles Unified School District battled backlogs of 200 to 300 applicants, prompting administrators to create an online form this month that funnels applications to a central location, said Lydia Ramos, a special assistant to the superintendent. The district, which put workers on overtime to catch up, anticipates spending about $200,000 on the requests, including $15,000 for postage.
The Los Angeles school board, facing a backlog of 2,300 requests, ordered administrators this month to develop a plan that cuts waiting times from up to 45 days to seven days. It estimates 50,000 requests over the next few months.
San Diego Unified School District set up a temporary office and anticipates spending $45,000 on the effort through Dec. 14, said Linda Zintz, communications director. Between 80 and 100 people call or visit daily, but the office can only handle about 30 requests daily, creating waits of more than two weeks for an appointment with generally same-day service.
Abel Oregel, 29, called after attorneys for an advocacy group offered free advice on getting a permit. The opportunity comes 26 years after his parents took him across the border illegally on a mountain trek. The two-week wait for an appointment meant he wouldn't have his documents for his next meeting with the attorneys.
"They told me they were really short on staff," said Oregel, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, who has lived in Southern California since he was 3.
Tribune writer Stacie Spring contributed to this report.
Bodacious posted at 5:41 pm on Tue, Sep 25, 2012.
Why even have a legislature when Obama has declared himself King and can make whatever laws he wants?
Now we have his "Amnesty for Votes" program. Heaven knows we need 2 million more workers in the job market since there are more jobs than people to fill them.
Katydid52 posted at 5:59 pm on Tue, Sep 25, 2012.
So, are the feds going to reimburse everyone for the extra expense to process all these applications?
Masterrogue666 posted at 9:35 pm on Mon, Oct 1, 2012.
More costs that the US taxpayer has to pay. Meanwhile, CRIMINALS are rewarded!!!
Jesus Christo de Nogales posted at 12:43 pm on Fri, Oct 5, 2012.
Owebama is a true racist. Why does the US President hate the advancement of the standard of living for Mexico’s poor? Barrack Hussein Obama; how dare you deprive Mexico these young educated and motivated people? These US educated and motivated illegal alien occupiers (brought to the US as babies) now in the US are the only hope for Mexico and you want to keep them here in the US. They could start businesses, create jobs, and improve the standard of living for the poor people of Mexico. Yet you want to be selfish and deprive Mexico of these talented youth who could make life better for all the people of Mexico. SHAME ON YOU! Have you no compassion for the poor now living in Mexico? Gustavo Arellano, Steve Gallardo, Nicky Diaz Santillan, and La Raza need to insist that all these young educated and talented Mexicans be sent back to Mexico to help improve the standard of living for the poor Mexicans. Are you with us for the good of Mexico and its people?
coachss posted at 1:47 am on Wed, Oct 31, 2012.
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Yu Geng told the Guangdong people consonance, no need to lay bare, with the horizon self less Meet mention the deja vu.
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