Waiting Line On Name Check

[Sudh]

Ignore if you have read this before:

http://judiciary.house.gov/media/pdfs/maxwell072706.pdf#search="FDNS sir uscis"

Because USCIS is not a law enforcement agency, unlike its predecessor, the Immigration
and Naturalization Service, it faces unnecessary obstacles when it comes to conducting certain
kinds of background checks:
• The FBI does not permit non-law enforcement personnel to conduct name checks, so
USCIS must submit to the FBI the name of every alien for whom a name check is
required (applicants for lawful permanent residence, naturalization, asylum, and
cancellation of removal make up the bulk of these) and then wait for the FBI to return
the results of the check. USCIS also has to pay the FBI for each name check that is
conducted. Because the FBI devotes insufficient manpower to the task of running these
name checks, it has a growing backlog of checks that have been requested but not run.
When I briefed the Subcommittee last September, the FBI’s name check backlog stood at
about 170,000. As of May 2006, the backlog had grown to almost 236,000. USCIS
reported that about 65 percent of these had been pending for more than 90 days, while
the other 35 percent had been pending for more than one year.
Since adjudicators are not supposed to grant an immigration benefit until all required
background checks are completed, this backlog can cause major delays in processing
times. It also presents a major national security risk for two reasons: (1) the alien is
already in the United States waiting for the benefit application to be adjudicated, so this
delay could provide a terrorist all the time he needs to plan and carry out his attack;
and (2) as long as all required background checks have been initiated, an immigration
court can order USCIS to grant an immigration benefit, even though the FBI name check
is still pending. This latter situation could easily result in the granting of U.S.
citizenship or permanent residence to a known terrorist.

 

[my_gc_pain]

great news..Hope they will do some thing to speed up the things, yess then comes the retrogression bottleneck...may be by the time I get GC, my kid will be able to sponser me in family category..

 

[cmonalready]

I bet in a large number of cases VSC personnel is just bullshiting us when they say that NC is pending. Aren't they submitting the names to the same FBI as TSC ans CSC? Yet those two are somehow completing applications submitted on Mar 20, 2006 while VSC is at Jun 21, 2005. The bottleneck must be at the supremely incompetent VSC, and the NC excuse is just BS used to cover their asses and get us off the phone without us yelling at them.

 

[RunninSloth]

If you read the full report, it is very hard on abjudicators and on reps that do the name check. It is possible that, the reps and abjudicators may ger skittish to clear cases.
This report is the statement given by a director of OSI (Office of Security and Investigation - a branch of USCIS that does secusity check) who resigned because he thought the security clearence process is "very easy". The statement was given to House committee. He is very upset that EAD's must be issued with 90 days (he wants security clearance for issuing EADs). If congress accepts his recommendations things will slow down even worst for us.

I think that VSC may be following up on his recommendation of thorough background check when compared to other SC's. Just my opinion.