Immigration issue seems to be another lagging indicator of the economy. You will see unemployment and jobless data still go up even when the economy is turning around. Remember Oct 1999, when the congreee approved the AC21, at that point the economy was already in full bloom and on the way to bust. So I am not expecting I485 to back to normal for another 2 -3 years.
As to the current approval speed, as I always said that speed will probaly goes up once Bush is gearing up his re-election campaign. BUT, some congressmen will very likely to address the H1B issue and use it as a leverage for their re-election. I am pretty sure that someone will introduce some motion in the House of Representatives to limit the foreign workers in USA.
Frankly I do not know what they are going to do. If we survive, we survive and we join the free labor force for another period to prosperity, otherwise we will probaly be stuck with the same company for quite long time.
So do we really want them to speed up the 485 and approve anyone without carefully examining their background. Their excuse is to prevent the immigration benefits falling into the wrong hands. It seems very convincing and I am sure that I do not want the new BCIS to let in another terrorist. If a terror attack happends again, we foreign workers will probaly suffers the most.
Our fate and destination is strongly tied to the US economy. All the reasons behind the h1b issue was based on the fact that US is short of hi-tech worker. Now the situation has completely changed and I think it should be understandable that BCIS is slowing down the process.
Anyway, I still hope that they speed up but I am more concerned that they do not let in another terrorist.