By Luis De Jesus
Aug 31, 2024, 4:46 PM EDT
The United States government announced the opening of a new Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Quito, Ecuador, beginning September 10.
This office, which will be located in the US Embassy, will facilitate the reunification of people with their relatives who already reside in the United States.
The main objective of the Quito headquarters is to increase refugee processing capacity, in line with USCIS’s commitments within the Refugee Admissions Program.
Ur Jaddou, director of USCIS, stressed that the new office strengthens the agency’s international presence in a strategic location, within the framework of the Biden-Harris administration’s efforts to promote legal and safe immigration pathways, thus fulfilling its humanitarian mission.
In addition to its focus on refugee resettlement in Ecuador and other parts of the region, the Quito office will handle family reunification and other essential functions.
What will those functions be?
The information reported by Efe indicates interviews and processing of requests from relatives of refugees or asylum seekers, taking of fingerprints, supervision of the collection of DNA samples and fraud detection.
The new headquarters in Quito is the twelfth international office of Uscis, joining others in cities such as Guatemala City, Havana, Mexico City, San Salvador, Tegucigalpa, Nairobi, New Delhi, Ankara, Doha, Beijing and Guangzhou.
Care at this office will be available by appointment only through its official website.
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