MIDLAND, Texas — The path to citizenship in the United States can already be a long process.
Paperwork problems can easily create setbacks, but not all paperwork setbacks are at the fault of individuals applying.
Dr. Shamsuddin Pepermintwala is trying to help out an elderly patient with dementia and her family fill out the N-648 form to get a disability exemption from the civic and English test for citizenship.
Legally he can fill it out for her because his patient is disabled.
But it's confusing to have to fill out a form that's already expired.
“So I’m going to fly out to Houston and redo this form just because they would not accept a form that on the face of it looks like it's valid. But how was I to know that this form has been invalid seven months before its expiration date?” Dr. Pepermintwala said.
The process to set up an interview with US immigration services for his patient took 18 months, and by that point the form was invalid.
“Funny thing is when I filled this form it seemed like I was doing the right thing. And now I’m going to fill out a form that's been expired for over 10 months. And they'll accept that one, but they wouldn't accept the one that was on paper as valid. How was I supposed to know they expired it?” said Pepermintwala
While immigration services could update the expiration date on the form on their website, but based on what the doctor has experienced while trying to help his patient, it's going to take more than that to fix these issues.