A "black hole" it is. My case was transferred, and eventually approved, but between the time it gets transferred and the time it gets approved, nobody can tell you anything about your case. They have no clue.... You just wait and wait and wait. Not even a Congress man can help you.
The processing date they tell you for the local office is often bogus. There are a few exceptions where the local offices are actually on top of things, and the date reflects reality. Each local office deals with their share of employment based I-485s in their own way it seems. Some will process them using your original receipt date (at the service center) on the same timeline as family based cases. This is actually the best scenario, but it seems very rare. Others local offices will go by the transfer date when they received your case at the local office. The Miami office for example, seems to have no rhyme or reason to their processing order. When I visited the local office, they told me there is NO PROCESSING DATE for employment based cases at the local office, since employment based cases are the jurisdiction of the service centers, and the local offices mainly handle family based cases. Nobody I spoke to wanted to take responsibility for having received my case.
I had my lawyer escalate it, and he met with the director of the local office, who told him that they process cases by the transfer date. BOGUS! I got my case approved in 6 months after the transfer date. There were people on this forum that had to wait 18 months in the same office, so that is either not true, or the director has no clue what his own people are doing. I believe the latter, since they are not required to track employment based cases there is no way for a director to know how many are remaining, much less when they will get processed.
Why did YOUR case get transferred, well, case transfers can happen for any number of reasons, and quite frankly they can even happen just at the discretion of the adjudicating officer, as a random check. Read this:
{Excerpt from the "I-485 Standard Operating Procedure", page 7-3.24}
Employment based Criteria
The adjudicating officer must determine whether the employment-based
I-485 meets waiver of interview criteria set forth below.
Employment-based:
• The principal applicant is employed by the same petitioner who submitted
the approved underlying employment-based visa petition.
• The principal applicant has been interviewed in the course of an
investigation or field examination, and the adjudicating examiner
determines that further interview of the applicant is unnecessary.
• The principal applicant has been approved as an alien of extraordinary
ability or alien of exceptional ability and is otherwise eligible for
adjustment of status.
• The principal applicant has been approved as an outstanding professor or
researcher, or a multinational executive/manager and has a continuing
offer of employment from the same petitioner who submitted the
underlying approved petition.
• Adjustment applicants who received national interest waivers based on
performing primary medical care to a medically under-served area must
demonstrate that they intend to continue according to the terms and
conditions of the underlying petition.
Deviation From Interview Waiver Criteria
The above interview waiver criteria may be modified by individual officers in
response to developing local circumstances and regional concerns, which
would dictate the need for further restrictions.
On a case by-case basis, an officer may choose to relocate an I-485 for
interview if he/she deems it necessary. Applications require a relocation if
the officer determines:
• a need for validation of identity
• a need for validation of legal status
• questionable admissibility and/or qualifications
• apparent fraud
• a second filing
• an applicant with fingerprint rejected twice
• an applicant with medical condition class A or B
• the A-file cannot be located at the time of adjudication
