INS trying to reach the goal -(485 PRocessing time 20 Months )- ????

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delux007

Registered Users (C)
Based on the approvals in last 2 weeks,
INS is trying to reach the goal of 20 Months processing time..
.... by the end FY 2004.

Any comments ???
 
These all sound good but if INS wants to cut processing time to 20 months by end of Sept. 2004, they need to get all cases with RD before Feb 1, 2003 processed. We are talking about clearing up a year's back log in 3 months according current processing date of Feb 15, 2002. I am almost certain they can't do this based on their track record. We will see.
 
Murthy.com says INS is trying to achieve average 15 month processing time by end of FY2005. That means by end of Sept 2005, INS need to be processing cased with RD around July 1, 2004. Let's suppose INS can achieve 20 month processing time by end of FY2004, that means they will spend entire FY2005 on cased filed between Feb 2003 and July 2004, about 17 months.

Which one is more realistic? Processing 1 year backlog in 3 months or processing 17 months backlog in a year?
 
Mohan72 said:
Murthy.com says INS is trying to achieve average 15 month processing time by end of FY2005. That means by end of Sept 2005, INS need to be processing cased with RD around July 1, 2004. Let's suppose INS can achieve 20 month processing time by end of FY2004, that means they will spend entire FY2005 on cased filed between Feb 2003 and July 2004, about 17 months.

Which one is more realistic? Processing 1 year backlog in 3 months or processing 17 months backlog in a year?
Click to expand...
add this for comparison ... "or pigs flying"

:)

But, on a serious note.. the date on the JIT is perhaps the date (RD/ND) of the oldest "ready to adjudicate" case waiting to be processed ... It is quite likely (and we do know from our fellow forum members) that with RD's greater than the date on the JIT have been processed... so the "1 year backlog" may really be lesser than that ....

the other spin on this is...

USCIS considers an immigration benefit case (such as 485) to be on a backlog if it has been filed and not adjudicated for longer than 6 months... so a case that is 5 months and 29 days old is not a backlogged case... according to the backlog plan presented to the congress... and in all likeliness will get in the backlog queue only after passing 6 months

Thus... if by end of FY2004 (Sept 30, 2004), when the USCIS targets itself to have its processing down to 20 months of backlog ... what it really means is... the backlogged cases were filed 26 months ago .... (and NOT 20 months ago) ...

That makes me wonder if what they really mean is that they would process all cases filed until August 2002, by Sept 2004.

Thoughts (or brickbats) welcome :)
 
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I have to disagree... Given today is July 1, 2004, any cases filed before Feb 1, 2004 is a backlog case isn't it? Besides, INS says 20 month "processing time" not 20 months "processing time" plus "6 months to be considered backlog"... anyway, I truly wish they can achieve their goal, but odds are against us...
 
First of all, as per the backlog reduction plan, the target for FY2004 (by Sept'30) is 20 months average cycle time , not 20 months backlog time.
The average cycle time is defined as "Avearage time taken for processing an application over the last 12 month period". The fact that they have taken more than 24 months for most of the cases during the last 9 months is going to hurt their average. The current average, at the end of 9 months of FY2004 stands at 24 (as for official records it is 23 months as in April).
Now to bring this average to 20 months, they can do 2 things. Make a rapid improvement , may be 10 fold increase in the pace of approvals or approve a large number of newly filed cases so that they will bring down the average. They are following the second choice :( .
Here is the sample math that explains their strategy.

During first 9 months, they have approved 100 cases with average processing time of 24 months. Now let's say that they have not improved the pace of approvals at all. So if they approved 100 cases in 9 months, they will approve 33 cases in next 3 months (because they didn't improve their speed at all). Now comes a chance for them to still bring down the average to 20 months without making slightest extra effort. How ? Well, simply by approving newer cases in the next 3 months. By approving a lot of newly filed cases, they can make the average processing time for these 33 applications as 6 months.

Final average at the end of the FY2004 = (100*24 + 33*6 ) / 133 = 19.5

This is what they are going to do exactly and announce that they have exceeded the targets. President Bush will congratulate them and ask them to keep it up and they will keep their game going :mad: . That's why i have raised this question in the latest letter that we are planning to send to the congress men. Look at complaint number 3 in that letter :
http://boards.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=132067
 
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Average of 20 months by end of FY2004 is impossible.
Something else will come up in July 2004 and USCIS will focus on those special cases and forget about their backlog reduction plan.

In March/April of 2002, they said that they were going to achieve 6-month processing time for all I-485 cases by FY2002.

If you are lucky, you will get approved soon.

(My friend's statistics:
One of my friend got his I-485 approved within 4 months in CSC back in 1999/2000.
One of my other friend got his I-485 approved in 7 1/2 months in VSC back in 2002.
One of my other friend got his I-485 approved in 11 months in VSC last year after an RFE.
One of my other friend got his I-485 approved in 14 months in VSC this May 2004.
One of my other friend is still waiting for his approval after 3 FPs for the last 33 months.
And I am here still waiting for my approval after 2 FPs for the last 31 months.
)
AND OF COURSE, WE HAVE MORE STATISTICS THAN THIS FROM THIS FORUM.

Do you guys think anything will change ? Nobody else can change anything except USCIS. This is fact.

My biggest mistake in my life is applying for I-485.

(NOTE: I am NOT a pessimist).
 
Edison_NJ said:
Average of 20 months by end of FY2004 is impossible.
Something else will come up in July 2004 and USCIS will focus on those special cases and forget about their backlog reduction plan.

In March/April of 2002, they said that they were going to achieve 6-month processing time for all I-485 cases by FY2002.

If you are lucky, you will get approved soon.

(My friend's statistics:
One of my friend got his I-485 approved within 4 months in CSC back in 1999/2000.
One of my other friend got his I-485 approved in 7 1/2 months in VSC back in 2002.
One of my other friend got his I-485 approved in 11 months in VSC last year after an RFE.
One of my other friend got his I-485 approved in 14 months in VSC this May 2004.
One of my other friend is still waiting for his approval after 3 FPs for the last 33 months.
And I am here still waiting for my approval after 2 FPs for the last 31 months.
)
AND OF COURSE, WE HAVE MORE STATISTICS THAN THIS FROM THIS FORUM.

Do you guys think anything will change ? Nobody else can change anything except USCIS. This is fact.

My biggest mistake in my life is applying for I-485.

(NOTE: I am NOT a pessimist).
Click to expand...

With all due respect, once again, we read some things that might not be entirely true on this forum. Everyone fails to mention that one of the main issues at hand here are the security checks in the post 9/11 world. That is at the root of the problem. Another thing that certainly doesn't help things is that lack of resource allocation, since immigration is simply not at the top of anyone's list when it comes to dishing money. Finally, USCIS is simply an agency that has a lot of its policies dictated and determined by other governmental bodies of authority, for the lack of a better word.

Given a set of guidelines and rules that you need to follow, having other people at USCIS would not make any difference. It is not the lack of work effort on the part of these people, it is the process that is the main problem here.

The 4 month figure seems very nice from our perspective, but we need to come to grips with the facts, and that is that the immigration process in the US is getting adjusted to be more "air tight" in the light of the new security and geo-political, if you wish, considerations of today's reality.

Steps are being taken to remedy this and I believe that they are genuine, however, it would be foolish not to think that the lawsuit had everything to do with that... ;)
 
I agree with you on most of the things "Milko_Djurovski".

I spoke to IIO twice in October/November 2003.
First time, one IIO told me that it takes 5 years for EB categories and so you will have to wait for 3 more years.
Second time, another IIO (may be same person) said that it takes 4 years for EB categories and so you will have to wait for 2 more years.

So my point is: It is not only the process but also some IIO's attitude. If persons like this sit on your case and do nothing, what do you think will happen ?
 
Edison_NJ said:
I agree with you on most of the things "Milko_Djurovski".

I spoke to IIO twice in October/November 2003.
First time, one IIO told me that it takes 5 years for EB categories and so you will have to wait for 3 more years.
Second time, another IIO (may be same person) said that it takes 4 years for EB categories and so you will have to wait for 2 more years.

So my point is: It is not only the process but also some IIO's attitude. If persons like this sit on your case and do nothing, what do you think will happen ?
Click to expand...

True, but let me play the devil's advocate once again:

You have to understand what these people deal with on a daily basis and their approach to these conversations. I am not quite sure why someone would tell you that it takes 5 years to get a green card, perhaps he was trying to set an upper limit, so it wouldn't seem that the USCIS is getting pigeonholed into a tight timeframe (which they just did themselves :o ).
Anyhow, these people deal with applicants who are decidedly less patient and who might not know a whole lot about the process and they are probably sick of fielding questions, such as "why does it take so long"... Just from a sample of the people on this forum, I would imagine that IIOs would receive quite a few "urgent" phone calls from people that panic way too much...

If the IIO is sitting on your case, he is probably looking at another case or she/he should be. We also forget that even in businesses change is fairly slow when it comes to processes. This is even more true when it comes to governmental agencies, not neccessarily due to "anectodal" references to their work habits, but because they have to worry about more procedural and other red tape stuff at their work. My point is, these things are changing, but for better or worse, we have to keep applying pressure, but be patient at the same time. This will probably not benefit us anyhow, all that much, but future immigrants.
 
Did you mean I-485 takes 4 to 5 years as per IIO or is it the whole process?
Did you receive any RFE for 485? If INS web site is showing processing date of 2/15/2002 what is wrong with your case as per IIO. I am sure you would have contacted senator etc, what did they say?
What are the other options other than waiting?
 
Yes. IIO told me it takes 4 to 5 years for EB I-485.

My FBI Name Check was completed in Dec. 2002 (yes 2002).
Published date changed to 12/15/2001 sometime around June 2003.
I contacted Senator in July 2003 (end of July 2003) for the first time and contacted him 5 times totally so far (last time I contacted on May 27, 2004 and still waiting for their reply).
Did 2nd FP on 04/29/2004.
No RFE so far.
Still waiting.

(My friend who filed in October 2001 contacted Senator recently and got a reply saying that your case will be assigned to officer within 60 to 90 days. What are they doing for last 33 months without even assigning the case to an Officer ? If they cannot get to his case within 90 days, I am sure he will get similar response after 90 days).
 
Edison_NJ said:
Yes. IIO told me it takes 4 to 5 years for EB I-485.

My FBI Name Check was completed in Dec. 2002 (yes 2002).
Published date changed to 12/15/2001 sometime around June 2003.
I contacted Senator in July 2003 (end of July 2003) for the first time and contacted him 5 times totally so far (last time I contacted on May 27, 2004 and still waiting for their reply).
Did 2nd FP on 04/29/2004.
No RFE so far.
Still waiting.

(My friend who filed in October 2001 contacted Senator recently and got a reply saying that your case will be assigned to officer within 60 to 90 days. What are they doing for last 33 months without even assigning the case to an Officer ? If they cannot get to his case within 90 days, I am sure he will get similar response after 90 days).
Click to expand...

You have a lot of valid points, especially waiting for more than 30 months. I have been waiting to close for two years, if the I-485 RD is the indicating factor. To them is not off course, as they use again the trick they used before in 98, I believe when they had a CIA backlog; they simply took the new cases to eliminate the backlog. History repeats itself. If they wanted to be fair along with the concurrent adjudication they would consider the I-140 RD as the valid processing date for ALL.
The problem is that USCIS has no real mandate, no real saying, no policies. ICE does along with the FBI. How would somebody explain the fact that 1000 out of 4000 adjudicators are doing IBIS and other checks? Why not hire more detectives to do it? Or give it to the FBI with a 20000 manpower or the ICE with another 20000 strong manpower do it? That also explains the fact the director asked for no more money from Congress in spite of what the popular belief is. How about their FP policies and their ASCs? They cannot even schedule FPs in an efficient way.
 
Edison_NJ,
I know it is really frusturating...well there were some 2001 approvals recently, hopefully yours will be soon.

did your APs and EADs got approved in USCIS's "timeframe"...
 
From your response it seems very clear and I agree with you that there is no point in contacting senator(at least in NJ) or calling IIO.
Our Cases are backlogged and they are not going to look into them as long as they want.
Waiting for anything is no good and I can't even suggest waiting. All I can think about is to forget about it and do something else.
May be we can spend sometime to do something better that waiting for something that we have no control over.
 
Thanks guys.
My EADs/APs except for the 3rd AP got approved well within the normal processing times.
I am going to apply for 4th EAD/AP this month or beginning of next month
 
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