And I don't understand one simple thing. If the backlog is so huge and they are so understaffed, that they can't handle the applications in time, why they don't stop accepting new applications until the backlog is cleared out. If they announce, that they are experiencing huge backlogs and the waiting times became months and years instead of weeks, I am sure that too many people will not apply and will wait until the backlog is cleared out. Or they can just announce, that the backlog is catastrophic and they can't accept new application for a few months for example... But they don't do anything, they just go ahead receiving new applications and giving them much more priority then to the ones pending for a while (and they don't issue the EAD's to those as well )... This is something so simple, that i don't think they must be professors to understand this!!! DEAR USCIS!!!! Please temporary stop accepting new applications for a few months and start clearing the backlog out. Or if you can't stop receiving them, just change the scheduling priorities from Last in First out to First in First out.... It is unfair that new applicants are getting much more priority then the ones who are waiting for a while!!! IT IS UNFAIR!!!!
Calm Down.
First thing first,
I had been applying for asylum since April 2013, so I am NOT a newbie applicant,
but to suggest that USCIS should stop accepting asylum application,
well that is not correct either.
You got to understand the REAL purpose of asylum !
That is it give you protection from harm that you could experience at your country !
You (and me and all of us) are here now in US,
although just like you,
I am also stressed at waiting for my interview and my EAD, (and I think I had been waiting longer than you)
but at least I am out of harms way.
Waiting for interview/EAD is better then getting killed at your own country.
Having said that, the new asylum applicant also had the right for protection just like you and me.
Things go bad each day in many countries,
just because you experience bad things first do not mean you had the right to deny other the protection of asylum
Remember there is a LAW saying that if you apply your asylum after you had been here for 1 year,
you got to explain why, and most likely it will be a problem for you.
That law is logical and make sense, that is to prevent people from abusing asylum law.
If you start to rejecting new asylum applicant, that mean USA no longer give protection to people in need of protection.
Remember, this country were started when immigrant from all over the world came to USA looking for better life hundreds of years ago, and some of those immigrant descendant are now so ANTI IMMIGRANT !!!
They forget that once their great great great grandfather are immigrant too.
I don't want to be like those people, just because I am lucky to arrive here first
and get my asylum application processed then I will try to stop other from getting their asylum ON TIME !
The current system is NOT perfect, but we just had to deal with it.
Waiting is NOT that bad compare to being killed.
I know some times you feel better getting rejected and kick out from this country than waiting forever in uncertainty,
but think about it,
do you really prefer to be rejected and kick out, or you would rather wait patiently ?
any moment spent living is better than dying !
(unless you are lying about your asylum that is being rejected out of USA will NOT kill you,
then yeah, you don't care much, but if your life are really in danger, then waiting is the least problem you had)
Now,
again, remember it is your choice to apply at California center with all this long wait,
you can always apply to some other state which might have shorter wait,
but you got to realize, those other state have much LOWER APPROVAL RATE than California !
I would rather be here and wait longer but had higher chance of approval,
then go to some other state where the wait is short but high chance of rejection !
Life is NOT FAIR, everywhere you go, everywhere on earth, Life is NOT FAIR,
but at least we are still living in a FREE COUNTRY !