U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the upcoming opening of international field offices in Doha, Qatar, and Ankara, Turkey.

Key Points:

• The new field offices are designed to increase capacity for refugee processing, strengthen strategic partnerships and facilitate interagency cooperation.
• The new Doha field office will open on May 7 and be located in the U.S. Embassy facility at Camp As Sayliyah.
• The Ankara field office will open on May 9 and be located in the U.S. Embassy Ankara.

Additional Information: Both new offices will bolster existing processing hubs and serve as critical locations. USCIS stated that Doha staff will also have appointment availability for the public at the U.S. Embassy in Qatar. USCIS staff will assume responsibility for processing Form I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition, from State Department consular staff. They will also assist with certain fraud detection-related activities and provide other limited services.

BAL Analysis: Services at both locations will be available only by appointment. USCIS will now have 11 international field offices and advised that they will update their international immigration offices webpage soon with more information about the new field offices, services and appointments.