Reforming Immigration Online

President Obama, who has been promising to open up government with technology, has now announced that the federal government will let people waiting for word on their immigration status to receive updates via Web, email, or text message from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service.

Obama said that the service–a first for the notoriously byzantine department–will start within 90 days. While it’s not immigration reform, he added that “anybody who’s dealt with families who are trying to deal with–navigate the immigration system, this is going to save them huge amounts of time standing in line, waiting around, making phone calls, being put on hold. It’s an example of some things that we can do administratively even as we’re working through difficult issues surrounding comprehensive immigration.”