The parliamentary Ombudsman has decided to investigate waiting times at the Immigration Service Citizen Centre following reports of up to 10 hours waiting for service.

Journalist Ralf Christensen described in an OPED article in Politiken earlier this month how he and his Turkish wife had to battle in order to achieve family reunion, criticising, among other issues, how the couple had to wait more than 10 hours for service.

The head of the Immigration Service Citizen Centre Bjørn Hørning responded shortly afterwards saying that there had been “exorbitantly long waiting times” during summer 2012 and that some visitors had been served as late as 9.30 p.m. The Citizen Centre normally closes at 5.30 p.m.

The Service writes that the citizen centre now has fewer visitors, and that initiatives are now being taken to improve waiting times.

The Ombudsman is asking the centre to expand on the concrete initiatives being taken and to give an indication of the current status of waiting times.

The Immigration Service says that long waiting times have been the result of an unusually large influx of visitors to the ofice. On June 7, for example, the Citizen Centre had 1,003 visitors, while on February 16 there were 322.

One of the improvements that the Citizen Centre is planning, is to introduce queue numbers on its nyidanmark.dk website so that visitors can do other errands as they wait for their turn.

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