Foot powder evacuates building
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Building at 16th and Callowhill streets in Center City was evacuated this morning, after a white, powdery substance was found in a third-floor office, police said.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Building at 16th and Callowhill streets in Center City was evacuated this morning, after a white, powdery substance was found in a third-floor office, police said.
The substance, police said, turned out to be foot powder.
Two employees complained of feeling ill and were treated by medics at the scene.
As evacuated employees stood on one street corner, hopeful immigrants unwilling to walk away from their dreams huddled together on another.
"I would be willing to wait for hours, we are all willing to wait for hours," said Raziel Badillo, a Mexican immigrant waiting to take his citizenship exam.
The building was evacuated around 9:30 a.m., and about a dozen response units quickly swarmed the streets as voices of various tongues provided cadence to the siren cries.
Tessa Nguyen, 23, a University of North Carolina graduate student home for spring break, had left Harrisburg around 5:30 a.m. with her mother, Mary, and grandmother, Chuyen, to arrive at the immigration offices by 9:20 a.m.
Chuyen, 80, moved to America 12 years ago and wants to obtain her U.S. citizenship so she is able to travel freely between her family in Vietnam and her family in Harrisburg, Tessa said.
The women were in a sixth-floor waiting room when an employee told them to evacuate using the stairwell. Tessa did so, but had to leave her relatives behind because her grandmother can't use stairs. Chuyen and Mary eventually were evacuated by a fireman who took them down in an elevator, Tessa said.
Outside, Tessa held tight to her tiny grandmother's arm, and the three generations of women spoke in English and Vietnamese.
"Hopefully, they won't reschedule us," Tessa said.
Badillo, 54, a Reading resident who immigrated to the U.S. 15 years ago from Mexico, had the same fears.
"Myself, I have an 11 o'clock exam," he said. "Well, I'm supposed to have an 11 o'clock exam."
Badillo, an interpreter who works with immigrants to help them obtain citizenship, was finally at the immigration offices to take his own citizenship exam yesterday.
"I want to be, in the full sense, a citizen," he said. "I want the right to vote and I want to comply with the requirements of this country."
With the powder mystery solved before noon, Badillo may just have gotten his chance.
