USCIS Processing Times Get Even Slower Under Trump

By Walter A. Ewing, Ph.D. 

The Trump administration has slowed the processing of immigration benefit applications to a crawl, causing needless harm to immigrants, their families, and their employers. Under President Trump, the backlog of applications at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) doubled in the span of only one year. 

A recent analysis of USCIS data by the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) refers to these “crisis-level delays” as “bricks in the Trump administration’s ‘invisible wall’ curbing legal immigration in the United States.” 

The numbers bear this out. According to AILA’s analysis, the average case processing time for all application types has increased 46 percent since Fiscal Year (FY) 2016—the last full fiscal year of the Obama administration. These escalating delays have occurred even when the number of new applications has fallen. For instance, from FY 2017 to 2018, processing times increased by 19 percent even though receipts of new applications declined 17 percent. So the delays cannot be plausibly blamed on rising workload. 

In fact, this state of affairs is exactly the opposite of what USCIS was intended to do. When USCIS was created in 2002, elimination of application backlogs—and prevention of future backlogs—were explicit priorities of the new agency. USCIS was meant to be an agency that provided immigration benefits to customers; it was not intended to function like an enforcement agency. 

But the tables have turned in the Trump era, with the institution of new security protocols that needlessly drag out the processing of virtually every application. For instance, in-person interviews are now required for each and every employment-based green card applicant. The administration’s overhaul of the refugee program has also brought processing of many cases to a complete standstill. 

From FY 2017 to FY 2018, the processing time of an N-400 (Application for Naturalization) rose from 8 months to over 10. Processing an I-485 (Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status) went from 8 to 11 months. And the processing time of an I-765 (Application for Work Authorization) rose from 3 to 4 months. 

Delays of this magnitude have serious repercussions when people can’t get a job, join their families, or escape refugee camps. The report cautions: 

“Longer processing times mean families struggle to make ends meet, survivors of violence and torture face danger, and U.S. companies fall behind.” 

The report suggests USCIS should begin providing service to its customers again rather than approaching everyone as a security risk. It also urges Congress to exercise some oversight authority over the agency, which has been sorely lacking during the past two years. Finally, USCIS operations should be made more transparent to the public so it is clear why applications take so long to process. 

USCIS processing delays and application backlogs under the Trump administration are having a devastating impact on the legal immigration system. This, in turn, is having an unnecessarily negative effect on families and employers across the country. 

Source: www.immigrationimpact.com

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a4010-USCIS-Processing-Times-Get-Even-Slower.html

How Long Does It Take USCIS to Issue a Green Card?

Written by Tory Johnson

How long does it take to process an application for permanent residence in the United States, or a “green card?” You might be surprised by how difficult it is to find a reliable answer to this common question. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)—the agency that adjudicates applications for permanent residence and other immigration benefits—provides a range as a way to estimate the time needed to process an immigration application.

The agency introduced a pilot program in March that changed how USCIS estimates these time ranges for four of its most popular types of application. The change follows longstanding criticism about inaccurate processing times from federal oversight offices, elected officials, and stakeholders. Applicants and immigration practitioners have reported that USCIS’ posted processing times do not reflect the actual time it takes a case to reach completion.

Previously, USCIS published processing times for all types of applications and petitions as a single figure in months, a specific date, and even in relation to a goal processing time.

The agency now uses an automated methodology in an attempt to more accurately estimate how long it will take to process certain common immigration benefit filings. According to USCIS, an application for permanent residence (Form I-485) will take anywhere from 7 months to 33 months to process. The time range fluctuates depending on the office location, basis for the filing, and other factors.

The pilot program only applies to the following four immigration forms:

• N-400, Application for Naturalization
• I-90, Application to Replace Permanent Resident Card
• I-485, Application to Register Permanent Residence or Adjust Status
• I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence

Although the calculation method being piloted may improve accuracy in some ways, concerns remain. The pilot program includes only four of the many fee-based immigration forms USCIS adjudicates. Additionally, the ranges are still estimates, have broad variation, and do not reflect the complexity of many cases.

For example, “in the case of a foreign national applying for an employment-based green card, an employer must file an I-140 Immigration Petition for Alien Worker and the worker must also submit a Form I-485 to adjust status to permanent residence, when a visa number is immediately available.” USCIS will process these forms sequentially—meaning the time it takes to adjudicate each form and related steps must be added together to get an approximate estimate of processing time. USCIS processing time methodology does not account for such complexity. USCIS provides time ranges as processing time estimates for other immigration filings as well, however there is significantly less transparency about the agency’s calculation method.

Accessing this information is particularly important given the longstanding backlog of filings at USCIS. An application or petition that allows a person to work or travel internationally may be pending for several months to many years, leaving applicants—or employers petitioning for potential or current employees—in limbo for indeterminant times.

Accurate processing time estimates can significantly affect the lives of applicants, employers, and the local communities they support. USCIS should prioritize transparency in its methods while improving the accuracy of processing times. Doing so not only supports the agency’s mission but would support economic and social stability in the United States—a benefit for everyone. 

 

Source: www. immigrationimpact.com   

http://www.inmigracionyvisas.com/a3864-How-Long-Does-Take-to-Issue-a-Green-Card.html