Here is the proposed letter
To,
xxxxx
Congress member
Arizona 6th Dist
Subject: High randomized processing of USCIS despite appreciable efforts for backlogs
Dear Sir,
We appreciate your support to the immigrant community through your letter on DATE(TBA) to USCIS (formerly known as INS) to reduce the immigration backlogs. Your support on behalf of immigrants gives us a sense of hope and sense of belonging to this great land of opportunities.
ImmigrationPortal.org is a non-profit organization to voice their concerns and help contribute towards legal immigration reform in the United States of America.
Off late, USCIS is sincerely displaying great efforts to reduce the backlog. California Service Center (CSC) moved the processing date to Jan.2004 from Jan.2002 in a span of 4 months. Similarly, Vermont Service Center has moved the processing date to June 2003 from Feb 15, 2002 in a span of four months. More or less the other two centers are showing the same statistics. It is indeed a laudable effort considering the fact that these Service Centers moved processing date by only four to five months in two years prior to this. Some people think that the published dates does not reflect the real processing dates.
However, we would like to bring to your attention the randomization that has crept into the System. USCIS has yet to process cases dating back to Oct’ 2001. Please see the following site for a sample list of unadjudicated cases.
http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?p=965689#post965689
Prior to this, the gap between the non-adjudicated cases to the published processing dates use to be two to three months. For ex: if the published date is say December 2002, this means for all the cases which was filed in October 2002 use to be adjudicated except a case here and there and that unadjudicated cases uses to be minority . This used to help a lot in tracking the cases. Now this gap has increased to two years creating lot of confusion and the published date cannot be used as a barometer.
Along with the above, we want to bring other facts which are relevant in this regard
i) USCIS indicated numerous times that it need to conduct multiple security levels. However, its senior officers in their disposition to a court case (please see the appendix A) and also before Congress sometime back indicated that for more than 90% of the cases it takes couple of minutes. Even the highest security check with FBI should complete within 45 days.
ii) In some cases, USCIS may require additional documentation and issues Request for Further Evidence (RFE) which might take 87 days more. Please refer to Appendix B for additional info)
iii) The productivity of the adjudicating officer is measured in terms of adjudications/hour. (Please see appendix C)
Considering the above three facts, we believe that the reasonable time frame for a non-adjudicated case beyond the published date should be within 90 days. However, now that time frame looks like two years.
iv) Finger Printing (FP) lapses every 15 months. USCIS has this rule for administrative convenience as it is expected that USCIS adjudicates the case within 15 months and storage of FP for longer period might cost extra computer resources. Now, some people are waiting for third fingerprinting. Their two FP’s lapsed resulting in further delays.
Against the above four facts, the whole process is reducing into a Kafkaesque trial. We are submitting to you some letters from the candidates who cases has not been adjudicated for long explaining their stories. How the delay is affecting their day-to-day life and their American dreams.
We laud your efforts and also USCIS efforts in reducing the backlogs. With this confidence in your sense of fairness and with extreme faith in American System, we appeal you to intervene and ensure that all the cases get fair treatment.
Regards,
General Secretary,