Homeland Security says Adios to Tijuana

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced today that it will permanently shutter its field office in Tijuana, Mexico. Officials for the agency, part of the Homeland Security department, said the office is being closed as part of a larger effort to trim overseas costs and because the Tijuana office did not have “much of a workload.” The office will close on July 3, 2008. “Applicants should not be adversely affected by the office closures,” said Chris Rhatigan, an agency spokesman.

Rhatigan said the Tijuana office and another in Hong Kong are being closed as part of a broader Homeland Security evaluation of its overseas offices. Citizenship and Immigration Services has district offices in Rome, Mexico City and Bangkok that oversee 31 overseas field offices. Officials looked at activity levels in each one, examining current migration patterns, fraud trends, adoptions, where U.S. military are stationed, national security priorities, projected immigration workload and “fiscal sensibility.”

Homeland Security is coordinating with the State Department on handling case files from Hong Kong and Tijuana once those offices are closed. People with applications pending in the Tijuana office should soon get notice that the files are being transfered to either the Mexico City district office of the Ciudad Juarez field office.

--Nicole Gaouette in Washington