News from AILA's National Office in Washington, D.C.
Fujie Ohata of the INS Immigration Services Division has confirmed to AILA that rampant tales of a halt to adjudications are not true. However, some naturalization and adjustment of status cases will encounter delays.
A memorandum to the field, described on InfoNet at Document No. 02112170, has instituted additional security check procedures. These include a requirement that, when an FBI name check results in an indication that a record may exist, INS must receive a definitive response from the FBI before it can approve an adjustment of status or naturalization application. To facilitate this process, some computer system enhancements are being installed. During the installation process, adjudications will continue but final determinations will not be issued until the upgrade is completed. This is expected to take 1-2 weeks.
Of course, those cases for which there has been a name "hit" at the FBI will not be adjudicated until the FBI determines if the individual and the record truly match. It is not known how long this process will take.
These delays do not affect ancillary benefits, such as work authorizations and advance paroles, nor do they affect nonimmigrant or immigrant petitions. On all such cases, the current IBIS check process will continue.
The additional measures were put in place in response to a recent incident in which an individual with suspected ties to Hezbollah was granted naturalization.
Fujie Ohata of the INS Immigration Services Division has confirmed to AILA that rampant tales of a halt to adjudications are not true. However, some naturalization and adjustment of status cases will encounter delays.
A memorandum to the field, described on InfoNet at Document No. 02112170, has instituted additional security check procedures. These include a requirement that, when an FBI name check results in an indication that a record may exist, INS must receive a definitive response from the FBI before it can approve an adjustment of status or naturalization application. To facilitate this process, some computer system enhancements are being installed. During the installation process, adjudications will continue but final determinations will not be issued until the upgrade is completed. This is expected to take 1-2 weeks.
Of course, those cases for which there has been a name "hit" at the FBI will not be adjudicated until the FBI determines if the individual and the record truly match. It is not known how long this process will take.
These delays do not affect ancillary benefits, such as work authorizations and advance paroles, nor do they affect nonimmigrant or immigrant petitions. On all such cases, the current IBIS check process will continue.
The additional measures were put in place in response to a recent incident in which an individual with suspected ties to Hezbollah was granted naturalization.