****Today's Deposition (July 22) Postponed to August 2nd****

rajeevnair32 said:
Too coincidental.

I read through the explanations of the government, and they are trying to complicate a simple matter.

What more is involved in employment based I-485?

* Completed I-485 with related documents
* An approved I-140 or I-140 receipt.
* Security checks. ( I read some where that it takes less than 30 minutes for a security check according to FBI for 90% of the cases.)

Rajiv Khanna, I see the point of the Court regarding the security Checks, you can refer them to the latest memo from USCIS admitting that it is their fault.
I will post the link if I find, I had just recently this article either on murthy.com, ilw.com, shutterman.com, visalaw.com or some immigration portal.

Also, a good question to ask CIS is why consular process takes just 6 months for the worst case and 3-5 years for 485 cases. Do they mean consular processing dont involve any process that 485 has??
Click to expand...


You may be referring to the IBIS checks that USCIS is doing at their pleasure. They seem to have changed the rule quietly....

From "www.immigration-law.com"

Life of IBIS Clearance: In the immigration adjudication process, one of the most obnoxious culprit that causes backlog is IBIS name check for criminals and security risk aliens. For the three years, the immigration agency worked on a rule that the adjudicators conduct the name check before adjudication and the check remained valid "only for 35 days!" Accordingly, should the adjudication fail to complete within 35 days, the adjudicators had to redo the IBIS check over and over again. Not only the IBIS check takes time but also such work demanded a tremendous man/hour workloads leading to the eventual accumulation of backlogs. Recently, USCIS study revealed that the life of IBIS check can last longer than 35 days for the purpose of its intended detection of criminals and secruity risk aliens and has decided to change it from 35 days to "90 days." This is indeed a welcome move. This move will certainly help processing times of I-485 adjudications.

For a "complete" set of DHS Issues, see:

http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?p=852470#post852470
 
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Rajiv,

(1) In addition to standard operating procedures, you might consider asking the USCIS about specific cases. For example, what exactly happened (with timeline) for -
(a) a case that was processed smoothly, i.e., in say 1-1.5 years, versus
(b) a case that has been pending for three years without even an RFE.
That might throw some light into the darkness that we want to explore. FYI, I belong to the category (b) and I would be happy to give you my Case #.

(2) Have you considered filing a separate lawsuit asking for compensation to the injury caused by the USCIS to us for this delay? Reading the transcript of your hearing with the Judge it seems the judge has no doubt that we have suffered an injury and even mentions that impact of it can be measured. So he is sympathetic.

(3) What impact does this rescheduling has on the judge's drive to rule on the class action by a certain date to keep his record intact. In the transcripts, he says that he has a strong motivation to rule by a certain date.

Regards,

sg_rg2
ND 09/01, FP1 01/03, FP2 05/04, still waiting.
 
Rajiv,

I didn't expect that an Govt orgnaization like CSC is going to come with this silly reason to postpone the DEPOSITION, though I thought they will try to find a way to avoid it/postpone it.

I'm not sure how relevant asking Standar Operating Pocedures for I-360 or such cases with the pending law-suit, but if it helps we should do it.

And we sure need to ask when the CSC is going to stop the random processing and implement a standard processing where an applicant can atleast able to guestimate when his/her application will be processed.

Good Luck,
 
USCIS lawyer playing a game

They have very cooly said that they are sick and cannot do deposition. They have dropped a "TROJAN HORSE" by asking what documents we need.

Based on our our questions/documents the lawyer will get a chance to be prepared for his/her craft. USCIS definitely did not want to face the deposition without having a clues as to what we will ask.

There is a big difference in answering questions face to face and taking question sheet home, taking time to think lies and get around the questions.
This is like taking the question paper home and returning the answersheet whenever we please!!!! Remember school days. To be able to take question paper could be such a big luxury. By answering questions face to face one does not get much time to think and has to resort to honest answers and facts no matter how smart the lawyer is.

I would suggest we be very generic in asking documents/questions rather than specific. Even during discovery phase we should be generic so as to not disclose our strategy of fighting case. Ask them documents for the following: -

1) Full Lifecycle of I-140 application that includes 140 checklist.

2) Full lifecycle of I-485 applications and its checlist.

3) Full lifecycle of concurrent I-140/I-485 applications.

4) IMPORTANT: Their project plan document for the past 2 years.

In a single sentence we could ask them "Give us the standard operating procedures for each type of queues."

IMPORTANT: We should not ask for resource allocation questions now. We should ask these questions face to face in the deposition on August 02.

After learning these facts we should design our plan of attack which I will
Rajivji can do better.
 
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I) CIS cannot deny that there is backlog in processing of I-485 cases.
Here is their own explanation regarding "Backlog Elimination program" presented to the Congress.

http://uscis.gov/graphics/aboutus/repsstudies/backlog.htm

II) If they claim the current processing times are not unreasonable, how are they planning to follow up on the "Backlog Elimination program," i.e. moving from 30 months to 6 months.

III) An Explanation regarding Consular processing and 485 processing should be asked. More importantly to inform naive people like us to inform how are the smart CIS people handling the processing differently?

IV) An Explanation regarding the progress of the cases for last 2 years, and inform them to provide us with their own processing dates for different regional centers.

V) How can they explain the backlog pre-Apr 2001 and pre-Sep 2001 delays?

VI) What about the people who get selected by Diversity lottery (for GCs)? Why are they delayed? Only information required is security checks.

VII) Also, why does the visas applying from abroad (specifically B, F, H visas) get their visa on the day they file, whereas we are required to wait for 3 years with multiple security clearance? Are they (CIS) not checking security and name checks for those visas. How can they say security clearance is taking so much time?

VIII) Another of the direct violations denying people to use AC21 by planning not to clear I-485 (3rd stage) before I-140 (2nd stage) is cleared?
 
There are a lot of concerns here about the various processes, processing times and the actual adjudications etc. as is obvious by the myriad of posts in the various threads and forums on this portal.

Obviously, we all have a lot of questions that need to be asked, and addressed by USCIS. However, I am almost certain they will play the game on "technicalities" and side step or defer as many questions as they can on technical grounds. I anticipate their reaction to a lot of facts and figures to be something like "let me get back to you on this information", to buy more time. Or they would treat our assertions as allegations and ask us to prove it, again to buy more time. For instance, if we ask why is a 2001 filer still waiting while one from June 2003 has been adjudicated, they might say we're misinformed and that we need to prove our allegation. Now, we have to get back to them with the proof, which we can. However, while we're searching for the proof, they've bought themselves more time. So I guess we should strategize in such a way so that they can't buy much time, if at all.

A lot of questions here are based on various assumptions. If they tell us, or can prove, our assumptions are wrong, then they can blow our questions (which were based on wrong assumptions) to smithereens. We need to ask quetsions based on facts. Hard facts provided by USCIS itself, so they can't refute them.

Perhaps it would make sense to strategize what documents we ask for, as originally requested by Rajiv in the first post of this thread. Then, perhaps we should base our questions on the proof they provided us and avoid getting into a situations where they might say "let me get back to you on that".

There have been many good ideas for the various documents requested in this thread. Perhaps it would also make sense to ask them (amongst other documents) for a statistical report where they list all the I485 applications received on each business days since, say, Sep. 1st, 2001 (or the oldest RD of a pending application known to us). Against each day they should tell us how many of these applications have been adjudicated, finger printed, re-finger printed, transferred, finger-print checked, name checked, IBIS checked etc. etc. (please feel free to add columns here). We should also ask for a report that provides the receipt date and adjudication/transferred date for each adjudicated/transferred application.

If they refuse to give us a such a report, it would indicate bad faith on their part (perhaps a political win for us in the eyes of the honorable judge). If they do provide such a report, it should provide us with plently of ammunition to base questions on the proof provided by them. I believe we should at least be able to ask questions about the accuracy of the processing times posted on the web site (something like, when there are Dec. 2001 filers still awaiting adjudication, why do the posted processing dates say July 2004? etc.). We can also ask them about 2003 applications being adjudicated way out of turn etc. All the pertinent questions have been posted repeatedly here. So I am not going to repeat them.

Perhaps we can ask for similar statistics for I140.

Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Rajiv, the core team, and all the good people here who help and support each other.

God bless and help us all.
 
operations said:
This morning, the lawyer from US Attorneys Office who was supposed to defend the deposition was taken sick with high fever. We have no choice but to agree to the rescheduling. So, we will see them on August 2nd.

In the meantime, we are sending them a request for production of documents.

POST YOUR SUGGESTIONS HERE ABOUT WHAT DOCUMENTS WOULD YOU LIKE US TO ASK FOR.

We intend to ask for documents like copies of Standard Operating Procedures for I140/360/526/485, etc.

Please brainstorm.
Click to expand...

(a) Procedures to break the first-in-first-out rule, on all GC stages (LC, I-140, I-485) - when the line can be cut and how?
(b) Procedures to measure human productivity in each DOL, INS dept. How does the govt. know if an area is doing what is expected? How does the govt measure what is expected? E.g. what is the cost in tax dollars for each form an INS employee checks? How long a form take to be evaluated?
(c) Copy of the memo that moved resources from labor certification procedures to security checks. Who was the genius that had the bright idea to potentially allow harmful aliens to legally stay in this country for years, only allowing the govt to check their security background only as a last resort and on the last stage? - competing as one of the dumbest ideas ever
(d) Maintanence records for the (only?) computer in NYDOL (according to my attorney they stopped processing all cases for two weeks in the NY DOL because their computer -- broke :D ) -- sad but true
(e) Pay stubs for all NY DOL employess during those two weeks (well - just checking. may be they took a salary break -- com'on these are still my tax dollars)
(f) Air tickets that these employees can furnish for those two weeks (as of curiosity only - where did they go? some fancy place?)

(d to f) are optional

:)
 
There is a danger of us being tracked into a ploy. Why do we need to ask for documents instead of a deposition (correct arguments already posted).

Is there a document or a rule or a memo for everything? Absolutely not.
What about asking documents/rules/memos about the Security checks?
Like, what is the life of an IBIS check and why it changed? where is the memo? Besides, there is a fundamental difference in opinion that was shown in defining the backlogs and how one would correct it. More resources? Apparently NOT:
From "www.aila.org" advocacy62904.pdf
Although questioned about the relatively small budget earmarked for backlog reduction, in stark contrast to that for immigration enforcement, Mr. Aguirre repeatedly denied the need for additional funds to accomplish backlog reduction goals.

More denials and transfers?Well it looks like it!

In any case, a good place to start for documents would be the following:

Paparelli letters to the Ombudsman: First (culture of no) and the second one (rules): For a historical account from 2001, we can take a look at the references listed below:

1: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/ Timeliness of Applications, May, 2001. backlog problem, FP problem.
d01488.pdf

2: http://www.GAO.gov/ Fees, January 2004
d04309r

3: http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/...ism/hsa2002.pdf Homeland Security Act, Sections on Backlogs, Congressional Reports,
Ombudsman

4: http://www.tcf.org/4L/4LMain.asp?Su...d=451&TopicId=5 The Century Foundation: DHS, one year progress report. "3.immigration.pdf"

5: CRS Report on Permanent Admissions. February 2004. Numbers not met.
http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/31352.pdf

6: http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/articles...9-paparelli.pdf Letter showing all the memos, regulations, guidances and all.

7: http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/index.htm

Immigration Records and Databases INS data accuracy (8/27/03)(PDF)

Official Crime Information Should Be Accurate In her opinion editorial, published in The Miami Herald, April 28, 2003, NILC's policy attorney
Joan Friedland discusses the Justice Department's information problem.

8: http://www.ilw.com/lawyers/immigdai...0615-eib108.pdf

Definitions for the EAD: temporary employment, restricted SSN, exclusion from the definition of a "US worker", which includes Asylees and
Refugees...

9: http://www.ccfr.org/publications/im...on/summary.html June, 2004.

The Task Force urges the administration and Congress to work together in
finalizing and enacting backlog reduction plans, including adequate
appropriations and infrastructure, in order to meet a six-month processing
standard.
 
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Abug posted the following message a couple of days ago:
Dear Rajiv,
Have you though of a possible monetary interset in the backlog delay?
I'm not sure how many EADs and APs are processed every year, but at least each I-485 gets an EAD, so:
1.1 million applications pending times $120 per EAD = 132 million dollars a year
If only 50% of I-485 would get an AP, then:
550,000 applications times $110 per AP = 60.5 million dollars a year
We're talking about $192.5 million/year!!!!!!!!!!! just for the APs and EADs. What do they do with all that money?
You can add the income from the I-485 (which I forgot because it's been so long since I filed...). But with that annual income ALONE I think that ANY company in the universe could process ALL those applications in less than a year.
It might also be beneficial in this trial to investigate where all that money goes.

I don't know if the math is okay but I think he has a very good point. Where does all the money we pay USCIS go?
I think it would be a very good idea to ask them for their financial/budget record. It might help in defending the position that money should not have been an issue for them.
 
Kailashr,

Thanks for the correction. I do mean AC-21.

I want to point out one more thing. When I read through the forum, some people complain about unfairness in USCIS processing cases out of order. I don't think this would be strong point to argue with USCIS. As long as right now they can work in some efficient and speedy way, everybody will get his/her turn sooner.
We should ask them to give more detailed information to those whose date went 30 days earlier than processing date to explain why their cases got stalled.

kailashr said:
I suppose you meant AC-21 in point 6 instead of AR-11 (This is for address change)...
Click to expand...
 
Excuse

The Attorney had high fever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rajiv, what are you doing to these guys????? :D

I used to make that kind of excuses in my school days. :p
 
documents...

i'm not sure if this is obtainable, but a few documents of interest besides SOPs and other recommendations could be

1) FTE allocation per their budget for processing (per application type namely, 485, 140, EAD etc)
2) Time-effort summary on usage of allocated resources
3) Statistical projections on number of applications
4) Staff distribution per office and spread across different application types
5) Full-time v/s contract workers with their salaries

most of this information for government agencies, i would guess is subject to public scrutiny...
 
Aren't they supposed to be processing the applications in the order they were received? Or is this some kind of lottery system going on here? Wasn't this one of their points in the case that they process cases in the order they were received?

Time and again you look in 140 or 485 forums, you will see they are processing cases so randomly. This does not do any justice to anyone. It is like a lottery system going on here. What is the basis of advancing the dates by approving 5% of the cases?

THIS IS FRUSTRATING!
 
focus should be on I485 problems

Rajiv,

Following the course the lawsuit has taken, I think we should focus on the I485 delays and put less priority on other problems, such as I140, etc. I think we are playing into USCIS hands when we bring up other issues because that dilute the problem with I485. It also gives USCIS an opportunity to confuse and mislead the Judge with lots of crap, after all that is what lawyers are trained to do (no offense to you). Although you have a noble mission to reform the immigration system, I don't think you can fix all the problems with one lawsuit. Regards,

sg_rg2
 
The focus of the lawsuit when it started was both on 140 and 485. The judge had said in court that they process cases in the order they were received. But as you can see in forums(both 140 and 485), there is no logic to the adjudication of cases. There is a thread in VSC forum that focusses on whether Mr Khanna should inquire about the logic of random processing of 140 in deposition hearing Aug2?

http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?t=135751

This is worse than the lottery system. Isn't the deposition hearing meant to understand the logic behind RANDOM processing of employment based GC applications?
 
Sadists

Hi Rajiv,

You are doing a job that no AILA lawyer has the guts to do. Kudos to you for that. Because of your effort things are moving fast, albeit randomly. USCIS is trying to confuse the 'commonality clause' by having different JIT years for the EB categories of I-140.

We have to stick to I-485(there is no categorization) and ask them why even after namecheck is over.
why cases are not being adjudicated and kept on the shelf. FBI clears 98% of namechecks in 4months. So we should be left with only 2%cases on hold. If they deny our claim they should give us a list of cases whos I-485 is ready for adjudication and still pending and see if their claims hold water.

By bringing in laws like that of FO, they want to stop adjudicating I-140 approved I-485 cases. USICS people do not seem to have proper guidelines to adjudicate these cases as new guidelines have been created for the later applicants.

What is meant by "Funds generated by I-485, need not be used for adjudicating the same?", WOW, what is it meant for, we all collect fees for an application for the service of THAT application isn't it? I did not donate it to welfare or any other thing.

Keep up the pressure Rajiv, you are the only person who can bring these SADISTS on their Knees, and when the justice is served all the USCIS and AILA people will act as if nothing happened.

Everything that we are seeing now, like all these quick adjudications etc is happening because of you and the lawsuit and the hardwork and unrelenting efforts of the moderators of immigrationportal.com.

FO(no pun intended) may be sick on Aug 2nd, We cannot discount that. Actually we know that people can fall sick, we all can. Why doesn't the judge prepone the deposition when everyone is healthy and ready to go on a vacation. Let us show them our work ethic and how ready we are..

People do not fall sick on vacations...WOW. It just show how SICK these people really are..I hope none of them gets West Nile, East Nile or something, then we will be in more problems.

Anyway, I am sure these SADISTS will all get DYSENTERY during the next deposition, guaranteed.
 
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hrithikroshan11 said:
sg_rg2, Is your 140 approved that you are saying so?
Click to expand...

Yes, my I140 was approved three years ago. Don't misunderstand my earlier statement, I am brainstorming here. I have been in this process since 1998 when my LC was started, so I have waited more than most of the guys that are in this forum. I do understand the pain and suffering this process causes because I am living it first-hand. And that is why I strongly believe that you have to take small steps in fighting this 300-pound gorilla.

Fixing the I485 backlog is a good start, not because I am personally in that stage but it has more commonality than say the I140 cases. So legally, it is a stronger case for class certification. Also, there is very little decision to take when you reach the I485 stage. So, it is easy to argue that why does it take such a long time to adjudicate when all they have to do is make a few checks? Did you get a chance to read the entire transcript of the previous hearing in front of the judge?
 
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I think most of the people have written what to ask. May be I am repeating what people have already written. We should ask USCIS for
1) Historical performance (performance is the long term data) of processing time at each stage with the standard deviation.
Let me explain what I mean. If average processing time for a particular stage is 1 month and standard deviation is 6 days. Then worse case USCIS will take 1 month + 6 times standard deviation to process that stage. So worse case time will be 30 days + 36 days = 66 days. Now if we add all the days for all the stages we will get an idea how much time USCIS is takes currently to process currently.
USCIS may say each case is different. In that case we should ask to give the data for best cases and worse cases and calculate differently the time take to process the application.

Then we should ask how they plan to reduce the time to 6 month (as USCIS plan to do) from the current processing time of XXX months for the beat and worst case.
 
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