long times are here to stay
It is pretty hopeless.
First of all, the published processing times are a joke. NSC is supposedly processing 485s in 9 months. TSC in 6 months. If you believe that, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you. Furthermore, each time CIS has proposed a fee hike, they've used the efficiency and timeliness as motivation and nothing ever improves.
They count on people (entire families, in fact) filing for EADs and AP documents year after year for their revenue. This is not speculation on my part, it is fact. This is from the 2006 annual report from the CIS Ombudsman to congress: (I just posted a little snippet here, for some truly fascinating reading, you should get the whole enchilada here:
http://www.dhs.gov/xabout/structure/editorial_0890.shtm
it's a real eye opener into the f*%ing mess we've gotten ourselves into with these people at CIS)
As a fee-funded agency, USCIS is almost entirely dependent on application fees to pay for operating expenses. USCIS also operates some programs for which it collects no fees and that are not funded by appropriations or other means, such as the asylum and refugee programs and military naturalizations. USCIS recovers the costs for these important programs with surcharges added to fees paid by applicants for other USCIS services.
In addition, the premium processing program guarantees a 15-day processing time for certain immigration benefits applications upon payment of an additional $1,000 fee. Customers demand and USCIS provides premium processing because of the slow processing caused by workload backlogs and general USCIS inefficiencies. This program is a major revenue source – in FY 04 the program generated $202 million and in FY 05 $139 million.
Similarly, due to slow processing, the green card application process requires the issuance of interim employment authorization documents (EADs) while the green card application is pending. EADs for green card applicants are also a major revenue source – in FY 04 EADs generated $135 million and in FY 05 $187 million. Additionally, USCIS generated $51 million in FY 04 and $43 million in FY 05 for advance parole applications from these same green card applicants.
Efficient and timely processing would reduce the need to file applications for EADs or to use premium processing. However, by improving efficiency, USCIS could suffer a significant funding shortfall, estimated to be approximately $350 million or more based on FY 05 revenue. The revenue is built into the USCIS annual budget and, according to its counsel(7) the loss of this revenue would make it deficient in violation of the Antideficiency Act.(8)
I've omitted Footnotes 7 and 8 referenced above but they are basically an email from CIS Chief Counsel to the CIS Ombudsman saying that without that money they'd have to spend their congressional appropriation quickly and thus face administrative and even criminal penalties for being "deficient"
If that's not enough, check out the following quote I took from the Federal Register, Vol. 72, Number 21, where CIS is laying out their case for the new fees. This is truly amazing:
...USCIS has long authorized certain customers, particularly applicants for
adjustment of status, to apply for certain benefits while the initial application is pending, referred to generally as ‘‘interim benefits.’’ These include, most
importantly, employment authorization and permission to travel abroad and
return to the United States to pursue the pending application...
Through the provisions proposed in this rule, USCIS would eliminate its
reliance on interim benefits as a significant funding source for base operations and address the problem that aliens are required to pay for services
they would not need if the underlying petition were timely processed,
Can you believe this sh#t? RELIANCE ON INTERIM BENEFITS AS A FUNDING SOURCE?!! There it is folks! They're admitting it. They rely on 485 taking a long time, so we file for EADs and AP in the meantime so they can function!!!!!
So yeah, every once in a while somebody gets approved quickly but make no mistake, most of us are in it for the long haul. And I feel for my Chinese and Indian friends here who are subject to even more shady practices with that retrogression scam. I have no facts to claim that's a scam but man, you can't say it's not suspicious.