Philadelphia Backlog Elimination Center Tracking

[StarSpangledGC]

Decency

I have been a silent observer of the CA-LCA thread and the Philly-BEC for over 2 years now.
Now, I undestand everyone's frustration with an obviously flawed system as this whole BEC mess is. The completely illogic and unfair situation we are in makes life a little more complicated. I agree that, although unlikely, anyone's intervention in Congress on our behalf is our best shot.
But, please, people...let's keep in mind who took the decision to immigrate to this country. Let's remember who decided that this was a grand enough opportunity to leave behind friends and family! My heart aches when I read posts ranting about us being white collar slaves, or miserable insects at the mercy of the big, bad DOL. It seems to me a lot of you have lost your basic sense of perspective...
Be honest...if you were still in your native country, would you feel for a bunch of educated, sometime barely speaking the language folks that alone make 2 to 3 times the average income of a family of 3?
All because they are not getting unlimited residence and work authorizations for the wifes even though they are enjoying everything else?
I am in the same situation you guys are in but I think keeping an eye on our objective should not prevent us from showing some decency.

Just my opinion...

CA - RIR
PD: 05/2002
RD: 05/2003
45-day letter: 02/2005
Case reopened: 07/2005

 

[Days_go_by]

hi

Hi,
You are right, we could have just lived in our home countries, we cannot demand green cards here.
But do we not deserve to know what's happening with our cases?
Wait times for over 4 years for labor while other with similar qualifications get in a few months. There is no fairness, there is in transperency.
That is what we are asking for,
Do u not agree that something is wrong here?
WE just want to escalate it to lawmakers, bring it to their attention.
Remember there was PR release by BECs long time back urging prople not to involve lawmakers to query about cases? why ? what are they afraid of?
Mismanagement? poor or lack of planning? They knew that this is going to be a huge mess and they didn't want anyone to know about it, just wanted it to somehow keep it in the wraps.
They said they will finish data entry by sep, where is that now? not even close to doing data entry, now they say few more months?
They said FIFO? do they even understand what it means?
They said 2 years to process all the cases? where is that promise?
Another 2 months and then we hit the holidays, so no work that time.
If they had told us it would take another 5 years to do labor and another 10 to get 485, wecould make alternate plans.
But it ain't happening, they keep misguiding us, they misguided lawmakers.
Someone out there is doing a very poor job of managing this and we need to find out who and why.

 

[StressTestInUSA]

I. It seems to me a lot of you have lost your basic sense of perspective...
Be honest...if you were still in your native country, would you feel for a bunch of educated, sometime barely speaking the language folks that alone make 2 to 3 times the average income of a family of 3?
All because they are not getting unlimited residence and work authorizations for the wifes even though they are enjoying everything else?

Couldnt really understand what you posted...

"All because they are not getting unlimited residence and work authorizations for the wifes even though they are enjoying everything else? "

What does this mean..?

Be simple boss...as it is everyone are stressed out, not knowing in which direction we are heading ..!!

 

[chinglun]

I agree on this..

Before BECs, at least, there is udpated info on DOL website every month .

We need to plan our life.

I think we need to first define what we want. We keep saying "I want my case to be processed", but that's way too vague.

What we should demand is HONEST INFORMATION and TRANSPARENCY, so we can plan our lives accordingly. It is what it is. If they say "we'll process 2004 in 10 years", then the 2004 applicants could make informed decisions about their lives, families, careers, etc. That's what's killing us, it's the LACK OF INFORMATION, not knowing what to expect.

This is a government agency that depends on federal funding, and the fact is they
can only do so much with whatever resources they have, and another fact is they DO HAVE 350,000 cases to review.

We can't change the reality that, for example, if a case takes 3 hours average to be adjudicated, and if we have 150,000 cases in PBEC, it WILL TAKE 450,000 MAN/HOURS to clear the backlog. If we have 80 people working, and if they work 6 hours/day, IT WILL TAKE OVER 900 days, or near FOUR YEARS to clear the backlog.

What if it’s 10 hours ? or 30 minutes ? we DON’T KNOW ! that’s the problem.

The bottomline is: there's NO MAGIC to solve the problem. In IT, when we have a big project, the only way to complete it faster is to:

- ADD MORE RESOURCES (depends on budget/funding) or
- WORK HARDER (it won't happen) or
- CHANGE THE SCOPE (in our case, they could do mass approvals instead of case-by-case review, or they could apply the PERM processing rules to our cases, making them faster)

I think the only effective strategy is:

1. define an agenda with what we need. That includes items such as:

a) meaningful progress reports. We want them to post on their website how many cases have been entered, how many adjudicated, how many resources, queue status.

b) creation of an automated status check via email. It's a very simple email response application that we could even help them with.

c) any others ?

2. create a website with our requirements, including an online petition so everybody could sign. We can give the campaign/website a name, like "becbehonest.com", or something.

3. start campaigning for our agenda. We should write the DOL about it, involve AILA, meet with senators, etc. We can deliver the petition PERSONALLY to the BEC's director.

4. once they finally release actual information, it will become evident what the REAL time will be. When it gets obvious that instead of 2 years, it will be in fact 4 or 5 or 10 years, THEN we can campaign for more resources or for a procedure change that would do mass approvals.

I'm not a web developer, so I can't develop it, but I could help with content, ideas, or even pay for the site hosting.

Any volunteers to develop the website ?

 

[rest_2004_free]

Sorry to upset you....

Do not know about BEC, since everything is random. 485 might take you upto 10 years. If you have the patience then BEC should be worth the wait.

That is the truth. Depends how you want to take it.

Hi,
You are right, we could have just lived in our home countries, we cannot demand green cards here.
But do we not deserve to know what's happening with our cases?
Wait times for over 4 years for labor while other with similar qualifications get in a few months. There is no fairness, there is in transperency.
That is what we are asking for,
Do u not agree that something is wrong here?
WE just want to escalate it to lawmakers, bring it to their attention.
Remember there was PR release by BECs long time back urging prople not to involve lawmakers to query about cases? why ? what are they afraid of?
Mismanagement? poor or lack of planning? They knew that this is going to be a huge mess and they didn't want anyone to know about it, just wanted it to somehow keep it in the wraps.
They said they will finish data entry by sep, where is that now? not even close to doing data entry, now they say few more months?
They said FIFO? do they even understand what it means?
They said 2 years to process all the cases? where is that promise?
Another 2 months and then we hit the holidays, so no work that time.
If they had told us it would take another 5 years to do labor and another 10 to get 485, wecould make alternate plans.
But it ain't happening, they keep misguiding us, they misguided lawmakers.
Someone out there is doing a very poor job of managing this and we need to find out who and why.

 

[rollingstone]

PD of substituted labor

I read in murthy.com ( and someone posted a link in this forum sometime ago ) that INS was giving labor substitution original PD, not 140, even though this was against the rules.

I personally know of one guy who joined a well known company because he got a substituted labor.

For LC substitute, PD is the day filing 140, eg 2005, unless INS make mistake, such as in some cases.

Second, usually big company isn't likely to give LC subsitute. I don't see that a big concern.

 

[jiangnan]

No response so far

I tried to send a 7th year extension request on Wednesday but have got no response so far. Although my HR told me last month that my LC was sent for final review, I have never tried to confirm it with PBEC by requesting a screen shot over the past one month. Who knows why things look slowing down again there, maybe they are experiencing a pending holiday season mood now, yeah, holiday season is coming!

My husband filed his 140 and 485 a couple of months ago with NIW, I am now thinking maybe he would be way earlier than me to get any response. Well, maybe it is the time for me to forget about the sick LC from now on, just let it be, que sera, sera.

 

[whatheheck]

Look at Dallas BEC thread,
So many members got their LC today. So many "Certified" posts today. Most of them have PD of 04-2003.

Look at us. We are the most unfortunate people sitting and waiting to hear something from PBEC. I couldn't control my anger and frustration.

I dont know what those bastards at Philly are doing? Bunch of MFs purposely screwing our life.

*********************************************************
Other side of my story
*********************************************************

Besides complaining and waiting for this LC shit, i diligently worked on enhancing my career and life. I started my MS degree once i applied for LC in 2002. Also bougth a house recently after waiting for several years.

Now i have MS degree(Employer sponsored, Free) and today i took out 150K of Home Equity. I should say i am well prepared to face anything. Thanks to GOD, Almighty. Ready to go back home.

 

[Rajal]

Shame on PBEC

Now looking at the DBEC, I started feeling even my 10 years old son will have children by the time they decide on our labor? PBEC does not even feel ashamed of what their counterparts in Dallas doing?

Look at Dallas BEC thread,
So many members got their LC today. So many "Certified" posts today. Most of them have PD of 04-2003.

Look at us. We are the most unfortunate people sitting and waiting to hear something from PBEC. I couldn't control my anger and frustration.

I dont know what those bastards at Philly are doing? Bunch of MFs purposely screwing our life.

*********************************************************
Other side of my story
*********************************************************

Besides complaining and waiting for this LC shit, i diligently worked on enhancing my career and life. I started my MS degree once i applied for LC in 2002. Also bougth a house recently after waiting for several years.

Now i have MS degree(Employer sponsored, Free) and today i took out 150K of Home Equity. I should say i am well prepared to face anything. Thanks to GOD, Almighty. Ready to go back home.

 

[cantstandit]

Look at Dallas BEC thread,
So many members got their LC today. So many "Certified" posts today. Most of them have PD of 04-2003.

Look at us. We are the most unfortunate people sitting and waiting to hear something from PBEC. I couldn't control my anger and frustration.

I dont know what those bastards at Philly are doing? Bunch of MFs purposely screwing our life.

If we look carefully at the cases approved by Dallas, we'll see that they're all Regional cases.

We have to understand that Regional cases had ALREADY been approved at the state level, therefore making them simple to approve at the BEC. The certifying officer probably has to take a quick look and approve it, it could be that simple.

In my opinion, when they split the states between Dallas and Philly, we ended up with states that had a lot of UNOPEN cases, and when they realized that, they decided to focus on data entry at Philly, as opposed to Dallas. Talk about bad luck.

Another detail we're missing is that in the old system, when a state approved a case, it transferred the case to regional ELECTRONICALLY, and most likely, those were the first ones to have been transferred to the BEC's, via some sort of data transfer, I doubt those cases have been re-entered manually.

Meanwhile, we're totally stuck waiting for the 1,000's of cases waiting for manual data entry ...

a quick figure: how many pages did the old ETA 750 form have ? 5 pages with some 40 fields ... how long to enter that ?! Suppose 10 minutes per form.

We know there are some 220,000 temporary cases. Let's assume 60% in Philly: 130,000 cases. If we have 80 people entering cases, working some 6 hours/day, we'll have 45 days' worth of work

Rounding up, we got 3 months, which, starting in October, would take us to beginning of January. Only THEN they'd start working on the cases ...

just hope I'm totally wrong and they could start approving this Monday ... but that's more like a dream.

have a nice weekend everyone.

 

[saknia]

Hi Any one did Status Check today. Any Final Review or Approvals

Look at Dallas BEC thread,
So many members got their LC today. So many "Certified" posts today. Most of them have PD of 04-2003.

Look at us. We are the most unfortunate people sitting and waiting to hear something from PBEC. I couldn't control my anger and frustration.

I dont know what those bastards at Philly are doing? Bunch of MFs purposely screwing our life.

*********************************************************
Other side of my story
*********************************************************

Besides complaining and waiting for this LC shit, i diligently worked on enhancing my career and life. I started my MS degree once i applied for LC in 2002. Also bougth a house recently after waiting for several years.

Now i have MS degree(Employer sponsored, Free) and today i took out 150K of Home Equity. I should say i am well prepared to face anything. Thanks to GOD, Almighty. Ready to go back home.

 

[keepingfaith]

We HAVE to speak up!

Ok, after reading all these posts in the last few days, I feel compelled to join those who want to ACT instead of just sitting here complaining.

I tried to organize OUR thoughts and complaints into ONE cohesive plan, and here's the result... please feel free to add any info you think is missing or incorrect:


ISSUES

BEC inefficiency, lack of consistency (no FIFO), lack of accountability (REAL time frame)

- BECs were supposed to clear the backlog, yet things haven’t moved as promised; these are American tax-payers’ dollar being washed down the drain and no one seems to be accountable for it
- No significant amount of cases cleared after almost 1 year of BEC inception
- They provide no information as to HOW LONG will it really take to clear backlog
- Meanwhile, there are cases pending since 2001 – that’s more than 4 years – when the initial estimates by DOL for an LC were for 3-12 months
- Legal, tax-paying immigrants are forced to put their lives on hold; they can’t get promoted; their wives/husbands can’t work without an EAD; they can’t make any sort of plans for the future, be it the next 6 months or the next 6 years
- Employers are suffering too since many of these highly-capable, well-educated legal workers are giving up on the process and going elsewhere. To make matters worse, they can’t count on the H-1B pool as much as they used to anymore because it’s getting harder and harder each year to secure an H-1B visa number


Visa retrogression

- As if long wait for LC wasn’t enough, now there’s a shortage of visa number availability, making the Green Card process an almost impossible dream.
- People who have been waiting 3, 4 years to get their LC now have to get in line yet again for the next phase.
- The worst part is, without a visa number available, one cannot apply for adjustment of status with I-485, and consequently can’t get an EAD for employment.


PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

On DOL end…

- Review allocation of resources to expedite clearing of backlogged cases in BECs and avoid wasting more tax-payers dollars (e.g. why does Dallas seems faster than Philly?)
- Establish a realistic timeline for clearing all backlog and enforce necessary provisions to achieve the deadline (hire more temporary workers, do mass approvals like PERM, etc)
- Create a way for LC petitioners to check on status of pending applications
- Enforce FIFO in separate categories for RIR, TR and PERM

On USCIS end…

- Make dependents NOT COUNT towards the EB visa number pool; just workers
- Increase numbers of visa available for employment-based applicants


RAISING AWARENESS

- Senators – let’s get a list of immigration-friendly senators ONLY, so that our message doesn’t fall on deaf ears. We can write them separately, or collect signatures to one common letter – oh, and the signatures don’t have to be from immigrants only! Get your friends, your employer, your gym buddy to sign it too!

- AILA – let’s ask them for their support with one massive demonstration (draft ONE letter, we each print, sign and mail them… the more we send, the bigger the impact)

- Media – let’s get some names of reporters that are pro-immigration (for example, stay away from Bill O’Reily), send them our letters, and most importantly, let’s FOLLOW UP with them until they do something – that’s the key with media (I know ‘cause I work with them!)


THIS IS JUST A STARTING POINT FOR US TO GET ORGANIZED... Our next step could be drafting the ONE powerful letter that emcompasses our most pressing issues at the moment so we can get the ball rolling.

PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN THIS EFFORT -- DON'T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IT'S WRONG AND UNFAIR

 

[wheremylc]

got LC approved

Thanks for all the friends who responded to me in the last two days. I could file my I140/I485 yesterday. It was a bare bones application.
I have been reading this forum for quite sometime. The people here are more informed than a paralegal. I know how hard it is to wait for the LC. My good wishes to you all to get your LC soon.

Details
P-04274-xxx
PD- Sep 2001
45 day letter recd Dec 15, 2004
45 day replied 12 Jan 2005
labor approved 9/28/2005

 

[chinglun]

still P04274 ...

good luck next stage ...

Thanks for all the friends who responded to me in the last two days. I could file my I140/I485 yesterday. It was a bare bones application.
I have been reading this forum for quite sometime. The people here are more informed than a paralegal. I know how hard it is to wait for the LC. My good wishes to you all to get your LC soon.

Details
P-04274-xxx
PD- Sep 2001
45 day letter recd Dec 15, 2004
45 day replied 12 Jan 2005
labor approved 9/28/2005

 

[mekha]

My lawyer told me that at the end of this year BEC will post the time frame for processing and by then both the BRC's will have to synchronize their processing of LC's.
But the way it looks like end of this year will not be possible for the BRC's to get synchronized since at this moment Dallas is way ahead of Philly. At this moment Dallas is processing cases from april 2003 and Philly is stuck in Feb, March 2002...... and it seems like Philly has stopped processing since no more or very very few new approvals during the last two weeks.
Also I was told that EB2 for the rest of the world will retrogress with in the next few months.
Wish all of you the best and good luck in this black hole.

 

[atyagi73]

Feb/Mar 2002...

My lawyer told me that at the end of this year BEC will post the time frame for processing and by then both the BRC's will have to synchronize their processing of LC's.
But the way it looks like end of this year will not be possible for the BRC's to get synchronized since at this moment Dallas is way ahead of Philly. At this moment Dallas is processing cases from april 2003 and Philly is stuck in Feb, March 2002...... and it seems like Philly has stopped processing since no more or very very few new approvals during the last two weeks.
Also I was told that EB2 for the rest of the world will retrogress with in the next few months.
Wish all of you the best and good luck in this black hole.

How did you conclude PBEC is processing Feb/Mar 2002 ? There are so many people from 2001 still waiting ...

 

[dvp1961]

Ok, after reading all these posts in the last few days, I feel compelled to join those who want to ACT instead of just sitting here complaining.

I tried to organize OUR thoughts and complaints into ONE cohesive plan, and here's the result... please feel free to add any info you think is missing or incorrect:


ISSUES

BEC inefficiency, lack of consistency (no FIFO), lack of accountability (REAL time frame)

- BECs were supposed to clear the backlog, yet things haven’t moved as promised; these are American tax-payers’ dollar being washed down the drain and no one seems to be accountable for it
- No significant amount of cases cleared after almost 1 year of BEC inception
- They provide no information as to HOW LONG will it really take to clear backlog
- Meanwhile, there are cases pending since 2001 – that’s more than 4 years – when the initial estimates by DOL for an LC were for 3-12 months
- Legal, tax-paying immigrants are forced to put their lives on hold; they can’t get promoted; their wives/husbands can’t work without an EAD; they can’t make any sort of plans for the future, be it the next 6 months or the next 6 years
- Employers are suffering too since many of these highly-capable, well-educated legal workers are giving up on the process and going elsewhere. To make matters worse, they can’t count on the H-1B pool as much as they used to anymore because it’s getting harder and harder each year to secure an H-1B visa number


Visa retrogression

- As if long wait for LC wasn’t enough, now there’s a shortage of visa number availability, making the Green Card process an almost impossible dream.
- People who have been waiting 3, 4 years to get their LC now have to get in line yet again for the next phase.
- The worst part is, without a visa number available, one cannot apply for adjustment of status with I-485, and consequently can’t get an EAD for employment.


PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

On DOL end…

- Review allocation of resources to expedite clearing of backlogged cases in BECs and avoid wasting more tax-payers dollars (e.g. why does Dallas seems faster than Philly?)
- Establish a realistic timeline for clearing all backlog and enforce necessary provisions to achieve the deadline (hire more temporary workers, do mass approvals like PERM, etc)
- Create a way for LC petitioners to check on status of pending applications
- Enforce FIFO in separate categories for RIR, TR and PERM

On USCIS end…

- Make dependents NOT COUNT towards the EB visa number pool; just workers
- Increase numbers of visa available for employment-based applicants


RAISING AWARENESS

- Senators – let’s get a list of immigration-friendly senators ONLY, so that our message doesn’t fall on deaf ears. We can write them separately, or collect signatures to one common letter – oh, and the signatures don’t have to be from immigrants only! Get your friends, your employer, your gym buddy to sign it too!

- AILA – let’s ask them for their support with one massive demonstration (draft ONE letter, we each print, sign and mail them… the more we send, the bigger the impact)

- Media – let’s get some names of reporters that are pro-immigration (for example, stay away from Bill O’Reily), send them our letters, and most importantly, let’s FOLLOW UP with them until they do something – that’s the key with media (I know ‘cause I work with them!)


THIS IS JUST A STARTING POINT FOR US TO GET ORGANIZED... Our next step could be drafting the ONE powerful letter that emcompasses our most pressing issues at the moment so we can get the ball rolling.

PLEASE PARTICIPATE IN THIS EFFORT -- DON'T BE AFRAID TO SPEAK UP FOR WHAT YOU BELIEVE IT'S WRONG AND UNFAIR

People like me whose children will reach 21 years of age. After 21 year of age, they will not be able to get greencard along with their parents - just because of they have reached twenty-one.

Eventhough, we pay state taxes, our children are not eligible for state tuition fees. We have to pay double or three to four time college tuition than the state residents have to pay.

This is very much unfair!

We need to fight or let us leave this country.

 

[aycy]

Write to your senators and Secretary of Labor or even President Bush

People like me whose children will reach 21 years of age. After 21 year of age, they will not be able to get greencard along with their parents - just because of they have reached twenty-one.

Eventhough, we pay state taxes, our children are not eligible for state tuition fees. We have to pay double or three to four time college tuition than the state residents have to pay.

This is very much unfair!

We need to fight or let us leave this country.

I suggest you fax or write to your state Senators, Secretary of Labor or even President Bush. They have no choice but to read the complaints. Keep faxing them it as it works for me.

aycy
NJ PD June 2002
45 day letter received Sept 12'05 after constant harrassment.

 

[amrit99]

Approval of Apr 2002 case from BEC

Hello Everyone
My labour was approved from BEC- Philadelphia.
Lawyers informed me of this last week. They had received the 45-day letter 'a few weeks ago'; and responded promptly.
The approval date is September 06, 2005
The priority date was April 02, 2002, filed from NY.
Best of luck to everyone.

 

[bigbang2001]

aging out

People like me whose children will reach 21 years of age. After 21 year of age, they will not be able to get greencard along with their parents - just because of they have reached twenty-one.

Eventhough, we pay state taxes, our children are not eligible for state tuition fees. We have to pay double or three to four time college tuition than the state residents have to pay.

This is very much unfair!

We need to fight or let us leave this country.

You should consult a good attorney. There are provisions for children reaching age of 21. There are no clear cut guidelines about when the clock starts. I looked at Fragomen's website and it had a paragraph on this specific issue

This is what it mentioned:

Aging Out" of Minor Children. The general rule for children who are applying for permanent residence as "derivatives" of their parent's application is that they must be granted permanent residence before they reach the age of 21. If they turn 21 before they obtain permanent residence, this is known as "aging out." To remedy the fact that minor children often aged out simply due to the government's lengthy processing backlogs, Congress passed legislation several years ago called the Child Status Protection Act (CSPA). The CSPA includes a rather complicated formula for determining when a child is protected from aging out. However, the CSPA was enacted into law at a time when there were no cut-off dates in any of the employment-based immigrant visa categories, and its formula did not take into account the possibility of such cut-offs. Therefore, individuals with children in danger of aging out should consult with counsel immediately to determine the best course of action.