Letters to Pelosi and Boxer sent
All,
I am continuing my letter writing to congresspeople campaign. Having gotten Senator Feinstein to write to Don Neufeld my attention is focused on Congresswoman Pelosi and Senator Boxer. My third letter to each of them emphasised the unfairness of processing out of order (as well as reminding them about the shredding, because that was really disgraceful).
Dear Honorable XXX
I am writing to you to draw continued attention to the processing delays at the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS and formerly BCIS/INS). I wrote to you on 11/25/2003 and 1/27/2004 and since then the California Service Center (CSC) has made less than a month of progress according to the CSC’s processing time reports. This appalling progress comes despite the commitment from the head of the CSC, Don Neufeld, to reduce backlogs from over two years to less than 12 months by the end of this fiscal year. It also contradicts commitments made by Congress and President George W. Bush to reduce immigration processing times to 6 months.
I have waited 27 months to have my I485 adjudicated by the CSC. I am very frustrated at the long waiting period and the lack of accountability. Most recently, I have become angered by the injustice in the processing queue. The CSC processing time reports clearly state that the CSC is currently processing I485 cases with a filing date of about 1/9/2002. However, I was shocked to learn that the CSC has processed and approved cases which they received much later. Immigration Watch (
www.immigrationwatch.com), a group that monitors the USCIS online case status reports, shows that the CSC approved I485 applications that it received between October 2002 and June 2003 in March 2004. The CSC received all of these applications many months after mine.
While I do not begrudge these people being free of the lengthy wait, I am disappointed that it comes at the expense of those who have waited over two years to be processed. Consequently, I request your assistance in determining why cases such as mine that were filed in the early part of 2002 are being set aside in favor of later ones. I am particularly concerned that the reason that these earlier cases are being ignored might be due to the fact that cases filed at the CSC in the early part of 2002 were subject to shredding by INS workers at the center. Maybe the reason why cases, including my own, are not being processed is because they were shredded. But, that surely does not mean applicants who filed cases in 2002 should be ignored; rather I think it means that we are especially deserving of an apology from the CSC, and timely processing.
In conclusion, I respectfully request that you write to Don Neufeld, head of the CSC, and ask him when cases in early 2002 will be processed and why cases after that time are being processed at the expense of earlier ones. I would also respectfully ask that Don Neufeld explain his plans to make good on his commitment to reduce the backlog to 6 months before September 2004.
Yours sincerely,
Becky
WAC 02 124 5xxxx