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U.S. Visa News Headlines
www.usvisanews.com
Flood of Petitions Creates Delays at Vermont Service Center
By Orlando Sanchez Date: 6/12/2001
Even as heavy rains inundate the Southern lowlands of the U.S., another flood of sorts is underway at the INS Vermont Service Center (VSC). A crew of 70 INS employees is working around the clock to fight the downpour at the VSC mailroom. But the problem in Vermont is not too much water. It\'s too much paper.
As of June 6, the VSC mailroom had a frontlog of close to 200,000 pieces of correspondence awaiting sorting and filing. The dormant correspondence includes thousands of new petition filings, responses to RFEs, and letters sending in LCAs which have yet to reach examiners\' desks. Accordingly, petitioners who filed any of these cases after early April may still be waiting for their receipts.
The mailroom flood is due largely to an increase in filings under Section 245(i) of the Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act of 2000 (LIFE Act), which allowed out-of-status individuals to apply for permanent residency before April 30, 2001, without leaving the U.S., VSC representatives said. Additionally, the INS is currently in the process of switching its mailroom contractor by June 15.
In addition to the 70 employees assigned to deal with the deluge in filings, VSC is allocating almost all of its staff overtime to opening and sorting the mail and preparing the files for adjudication. Currently, only TSP applications and I-129s are processed with the overtime hours and some staff members formerly assigned to I-140 cases have now switched their focus to these petitions.
While the other INS Service Centers may also be experiencing similar delays, information from those Centers regarding the mailroom frontlogs is not yet available. We will post updates on the situation as we obtain them.
U.S. Visa News Headlines
www.usvisanews.com
Flood of Petitions Creates Delays at Vermont Service Center
By Orlando Sanchez Date: 6/12/2001
Even as heavy rains inundate the Southern lowlands of the U.S., another flood of sorts is underway at the INS Vermont Service Center (VSC). A crew of 70 INS employees is working around the clock to fight the downpour at the VSC mailroom. But the problem in Vermont is not too much water. It\'s too much paper.
As of June 6, the VSC mailroom had a frontlog of close to 200,000 pieces of correspondence awaiting sorting and filing. The dormant correspondence includes thousands of new petition filings, responses to RFEs, and letters sending in LCAs which have yet to reach examiners\' desks. Accordingly, petitioners who filed any of these cases after early April may still be waiting for their receipts.
The mailroom flood is due largely to an increase in filings under Section 245(i) of the Legal Immigration and Family Equity Act of 2000 (LIFE Act), which allowed out-of-status individuals to apply for permanent residency before April 30, 2001, without leaving the U.S., VSC representatives said. Additionally, the INS is currently in the process of switching its mailroom contractor by June 15.
In addition to the 70 employees assigned to deal with the deluge in filings, VSC is allocating almost all of its staff overtime to opening and sorting the mail and preparing the files for adjudication. Currently, only TSP applications and I-129s are processed with the overtime hours and some staff members formerly assigned to I-140 cases have now switched their focus to these petitions.
While the other INS Service Centers may also be experiencing similar delays, information from those Centers regarding the mailroom frontlogs is not yet available. We will post updates on the situation as we obtain them.