Can things get any worse at immigration? The short answer is yes.

The department is afflicted by long lines, slow computers and systems that don’t work, not to mention missing files.

But now the air conditioning in the section that houses the computer servers has broken.

The department, formally the Dirección General de Migración y Extranerjía says it will have to suspend appointments for foreigners today and Thursday.
Only foreigners who need services in the Área de Extranjería are involved, a release said. The passport section for Costa Ricans will continue to operate normally.

“We regret this very much,” said Mario Zamora, immigration director. “This is something out of our hands and for which we already have taken appropriate steps so that it does not occur again, and it will be solved as soon as possible.”

Technicians report that the air conditioning will be fixed by Friday, officials said. Those who had appointments for today or Thursday will be able to visit immigration June 29 and 30, the release said. Only those who have appointments will be able to conduct business those days, even though Thursday and Friday are days when persons normally can visit without an appointment, according to the release.

Zamora has just taken over the director’s job, and he is faced with a department that does not function well. Lines are long. Expats complain of long waits in order to renew cédulas de residencia or to apply for residency.

Ticos face long lines to obtain or renew passports. That line begins to form shortly after midnight. Police raided the waiting area in the agency’s parking lot last month to remove persons who sold spaces in lines.

A previous director combined the departments that service rentistas and pensionados with that serving other forms of residency, eliminating the quick service North American expats enjoyed.

In early March shelving collapsed in the archive area of the agency and thousands of files were dumped in disarray. It took workers a month to straighten out the mess.