By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff

Mario Zamora, who heads the country’s troubled General Immigration Administration, has announced significant changes designed to take the heat off of his organization as it undergoes an overhaul – and keep its users out of day-long lines.

Regional Immigration offices are soon to open outside San José, and early next year, Costa Ricans will be able to obtain or renew their passports at Banco de Costa Rica offices. As soon as July, foreigners seeking to renew their residency permits will be able to do so at the bank as well, eliminating lengthy trips to Immigration headquarters, Zamora told The Tico Times yesterday.

What’s more, an executive decree soon to be published in the official government daily La Gaceta will automatically renew, for one year, foreigners’ cédulas (id cards) that expired between Dec. 1 of this year and July 1, 2007. The decree also applies to foreigners whose cédulas expired before Dec. 1, but who are still waiting for a renewal appointment. Waits for such appointments can last up to 10 months (TT, Sept. 29).

This decree has already decreased the once-massive lines of foreigners at Immigration headquarters in La Uruca, in western San José – giving the institution’s personnel much-needed time to continue organizing the chaotic paper filing system, Zamora said. The next step will be computerizing the system so that nationals, then foreigners, can conduct most Immigration paperwork at Banco de Costa Rica. (The process will start with 29 Banco de Costa Rica sites in early 2007, then increase to 70 by year’s end and 180 in 2008, he said.)