This used to be common in Brazil: a guy in a VW van with a typewriter to help you with bureaucracy. I see the fact that these characters are gone as a sign of progress, so it's funny that this has shown up in the US.
Most passport photo places were terrible at this single requirement, but the chaps that ran the parking lot beside the INS office in Detroit certainly had it figured out.
Tangentially related, as the state of H1-B visas seems to come up a lot lately; I just checked Google Maps to make sure my memory wasn't fooling me (check out the crosswalk at 339 Mount Elliot Street, Detroit), and I noticed the INS office there is now marked "US Detention & Deportation". This shift speaks volumes about problems most skilled workers have getting into the US now. The INS under the DoJ, was "the letting people department, under the justice umbrella". USCIS under the DHS is now the "keeping people out department, under the fatherland umbrella".
While picking at the naming is exceptionally petty, the nuance will sound very familiar to anyone who's delt with the INS/USCIS in the last 10 years.