USCIS processing times

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is a subdivision of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that adjudicates petitions and processes forms related to citizenship, residency, and various kinds of authorization to live and work in the United States. Many of the forms it processes are prerequisites for people outside the United States who are not United States citizens or permanent residents to obtaining visas to enter the United States in the specified status. Many of the USCIS immigration forms have long processing times. The USCIS offers some guidance regarding expected processing times through its website and through reports.[1] This page describes the USCIS policies, the guidance they offer, and the courses of action in case of higher processing times.

Note that these processing times do not include the processing times for U.S. Department of Labor forms (such as Labor Condition Application and labor certification) that are prerequisites for some USCIS petitions and forms, nor do they include the National Visa Center wait times for immigrant visa numbers, the wait time for getting visas from a U.S. consulate abroad, or border wait times.

Various kinds of USCIS processing

The USCIS offers processing time information for many different kinds of processing:[1][2]

The USCIS processing queue

Each form or petition the USCIS receives is put in a queue for processing once it is received by the part of the USCIS (typically a service center or field office) that will process it. The queue that a form is put in depends on two aspects:[1]

The queue operates in a standard first in, first out fashion: a form that is put in the queue at a later date will start being reviewed or adjudicated at a later date (there is an exception for those who use the Premium Processing Service discussed later, that can be used for Form I-129 and Form I-140).

The time between the date of receipt of the form by the service center or field office and the date it is reviewed is called the "processing time" of the form. Due to the way the queue operates, the processing times for forms processed close by in time will be similar. Therefore, to estimate processing times for forms that are currently being reviewed, it suffices to know the date of receipt.

Processing time goals and backlogs

For each form, USCIS has a processing time goal.[1] These processing time goals are set by the USCIS Office of Performance and Quality (OPQ)[4] that was established in January 2010.

If, at a given time for a particular service center and form is significantly higher than the processing time, USCIS may either increase allocation of resources within the Service Center to process that form, or (in some extreme cases) reallocate some of the caseload to a different service center.

Typical reasons for increased backlog include significant additional demands on USCIS resources due to the introduction of new categories of forms or an increase in usage of existing forms. For instance, in the aftermath of Barack Obama's executive action on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals in June 2012, the USCIS faced increased workloads, and this was one of the factors in significantly increased wait times for Form I-130 petitions.[5]

Courses of action for delayed processing

For Form I-765 applications for an employment authorization document, there is a promised 90-day processing time. If a Form I-765 application is close to or beyond the 90-day processing timeframe, the applicant may take the following actions:[4]

For Forms I-129 and I-140, the petitioner may use the Premium Processing Service to get an initial review within 15 calendar days. The petitioner can obtain the Premium Processing Service for an already submitted application and can in fact obtain it electronically. The 15 calendar day clock begins from the time the petitioner's Premium Processing Service application is received by the USCIS.

In general, if a petition or application has not received a response even though the USCIS is showing a later date of applications currently being processed, the petitioner or applicant can raise the issue with the USCIS National Customer Service Center.

Reporting of processing times

On the 15th of every month, the USCIS publishes information, for each of its processing queues (i.e., for every combination of service center/field office/other subdivision and form type) the processing time as observed 45 days ago. For instance, on January 15, 2016, the USCIS published this information for forms being processed as of November 30, 2015. The 45-day gap is to allow the USCIS to verify the data for quality.[1][2][4] Due to the 45-day delay in reporting, the information published by USCIS may not be very helpful to applicants for some forms whose processing times fluctuate wildly.[4]

The USCIS reports processing times in two formats. For the categories where the USCIS is meeting its processing time goal, it simply reports the processing time goal in months. For other forms, the USCIS reports the average date of receipt for the forms being processed on the date the processing times were observed. For instance, in the data released on January 15, the USCIS reported the dates of forms being processed (for each combination of service center/field office/other subdivision and form category) as of November 30.[1][5]

A few other caveats need to be noted when interpreting reported processing times:

Additional statistics

The USCIS also publishes quarterly reports (i.e., once every three months) for each form giving detailed statistics (by field office/service center location) of the number of applications received, accepted, denied, and pending.[6]

Premium Processing Service

Further information: Premium Processing Service

The USCIS offers a Premium Processing Service at an additional fee of $1225 for Form I-129 (non-immigrant worker) and Form I-140 (immigrant worker) petitions. The Premium Processing Service has a fee of $1225 and promises an initial review from the USCIS within 15 calendar days of receipt of the form, after which time it may approve, deny, or issue a Request For Evidence or Notice of Intent to Deny.[7] For the special case of cap-subject H-1B visas where the applications are concentrated in the beginning of April, the start date for the 15-day countdown is generally delayed due to the huge influx of applications.[7]

The Premium Processing Service was introduced in 2001 for Form I-129[8] and extended to Form I-140 in 2006.[9]

The USCIS has been asked to extend the Premium Processing Service to Form I-526 (for EB-5 investors) and has also formulated proposals to do so, but as of January 2016, still uses the Premium Processing Service only for Forms I-129 and I-140.[10][11]

See also

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, February 03, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.