Why BCIS should process your case within 1 year ?

dsatish

Registered Users (C)
Hi all,
Rajiv is thinking of filing a Lawsuit on behalf of us (I485 applicants). What do you think is the basis for the Lawsuit ? Please discuss in this thread so that we can compile valid points / arguments and send them to Rajiv. Let every one bring their logical genious out here. How are we going to argue that BCIS must process our applications in 6 months or 1 year ? What are our valid arguments ? People may post their hardships in this thread .
Let me start with mine
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I agree that we do not have any right for speedier processing. The huge workload at BCIS along with security concerns have resulted in these delays. But my question to BCIS is what did they do in response to the increase in number of case and increased security concerns ? Did they increase the man power and did they atleast start approving as many cases as they receive daily ? This is the minimum thing expected of them in order to see that the delays do not increase. But over the last 1 year the processing started going up and it never came down. BCIS has not announced any action plan.

Most of the current immigration laws are archaic and they are causing a lot of problems under the present circumstances . The duration of validity of an EAD,AP, FP etc were kept at 1 year (FP is 1 yr 3 months) assuming that the I485 should be approved within that time. But the current circumstances are forcing us to apply for not only 2nd EAD, 2nd AP but also 3rd EAD, 3rd AP and now 3rd FP. Where is the end to this ? Who caused this situation ? Certainly not the laws. It's the BCIS working style that has resulted in these stupid things which are causing so much problems to us. The law does not state that you need 3 EAD extentions and 3 AP's and 3 FP's to get a greencard. So BCIS can't escape the blame stating that there were no laws stating that every application should be processed in 6 months (There is a law to this effect , but it's going to be effective from 2006 only).
BCIS is responsible for all the hardships that we are facing. It's not the Laws that are bad, it's BCIS working that's bad. They have no action plan and no concern for baclog reduction eventhough congress passed a law to that effect. The 2 yr waiting period (3 yrs for texas) is very orbitrary and creation of BCIS . It only reflects BCIS inefficiancy and insensitivity to the applicants who are its clients. The court must order BCIS to speeden up the process and submit an action plan to it. It can't get away with human rights violation (forcing us to work with the same employer for 5 years).

-dsatish
 
The other hardships are things like travel outside the country. BCIS is supposed to give AP within 2 weeks when a applicant needs to travel outside.But currently BCIS approves only for emergencies like death / seriously ill kind of cases within this short span of time. It does not approve the cases for other reasons and takes 4 -6 months for approving AP.

A applicant is stuck not only with the same employer but also doing the same ( no promotion etc) for a long if BCIS takes a long time to approve since the at the time of approval he should be working in the same job classification. Although there is AC21 clause to switch the employer, it has its own risks associated with it.
 
dsatish,

We just had a rather extensive discussion about the above in another thread that you had initiated.Do you read responses to your thread? If not, please do.
 
ECGC,

This thread is actually thanks to a request from Rajiv asking for more public input over the lawsuit. It was decided during a meeting (conference call), with Rajiv this evening, that we would create clean threads on each and every forum, to request everyone who has an opinion to state it cleanly in this thread. Rajiv plans to do the rounds of these particular threads and he will try and harvest any good ideas if any.
 
Hi ECGC,
I saw the thread where you guys had some discussion about the lawsuit. I have provided the link to that thread (so that that information is part of this thread now) :

http://boards.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=106291&perpage=15&pagenumber=1

others,
please continue discussion in this thread . Don't you guys think that we have some legal grounds for filing a law suit ?On what lines we should be arguing our case ? I bet my arguments in "careless functioning of BCIS has resulted in severe hardships to thousands of applicants" . This one golden sentence should be the cornerstone of our arguments. Is it not ? We are not filing a this law suit asking BCIS to start approving the cases in 6 months. We are not going to say that the reason for filing thisl lawsuit is "delays by BCIS". We are going to attack them where they are really vulnerable : Their overall working style that has caused immense problems to us.
 
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Processing delay causes UNFAIRNESS

Suppose two people A and B filed EB I-485 and both A and B lost job two years later.
If A's case was adjudicated one year later and if B's case was adjudicated three years later,
A would be approved and B would be denied.
The only difference is waiting time, and it affects the result of adjudication.
Longer wait means higher probability of denial.
Even if one applied in 25 years old, it is almost impossible to keep the same job for 50 years.
Of course, 50 years is too long, but how about 10 years ? 5 or 3 years is reasonable ?
Congress said it should be 6 months.

Also, processing time should not depend on economy condition or security checks.
If U.S. Goverment doesn't want more Immigrants, it should deny cases, but it should not delay the process.
If it takes more than 6 months (or 1 year) to adjudicate, it should not be denied because of processing delay.

For the same reason, 5 years of Naturalization requirement should be counted from not approval date but filing date of AOS.
 
AC 21 law provision + EAD/ AP rules

The lawsuit can include these three arguments
a)As mentioned in the thread http://www.immigrationportal.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=105546
AC 21 provisions (http://www.feds.com/basic_svc/public_law/106-313.htm)
state(if I am interpreting them correctly) that the backlog should be reduced by 2001 and should not be present after that.
BCIS is thus violating the law.

b) It makes no sense to renew EAD and AP for a year. They should be valid for the entire period of 485 application OR until the applicant employment status changes. This reflects the poor working style of BCIS and an inability to frame its poilcies based on the circumstances that it has created itself

c) The applicant should be allowed to change his / her job role after a reasonanble period. In an industry where job roles will keep on changing this is a must. The period can be in the order of years instead of 6 months
 
agree with the views

agree with all the views above...

Esp. Mazdur Desi's view....If EAD/APs are made valid for entire duration of the 485, then it also reduces the load for BCIS...That would also provide BCIS with lesser incentive to slow 485 process - as anyway they wont make any money from renewal of APs/EADs either...
 
Tom Ridge talks about legalizing all illegal immigrants. There was recently a bill approved (and now sanefully repealed) about giving driving licenses to illegal immigrants.

When it comes to legal immigrants with squeaky clean records, good education and other credentials, nothing is given as a sop. The EB AoS filers are among the cream of the soceity. They pay their taxes (among the higher income tax payers). Contribute to the Social Security and the local economy.

But still one has to file for EAD/AP renewals time and again. Wait for 6-8 months to get an approval. After one receives his/her EAD/AP approvals, wait for a couple of months and start filing again. Needless to say, if the renewal EAD is not approved by the time one's existing EAD is to expire, run to SFO and have the INS officer(s) maul you.

On other hand, if one is on a H1B Visa or a H4 Visa, file tonnes up on tonnes of paper work to have his/her visa revalidated/renewed. It is a shame that one inspite of filing for AoS has to have his/her visa stamped in his passport when travelling to this country. It is a reflection that just to travel to and from this country, one needs to carry all the paper work (originals, copies of the originals) in their carry on luggage.

There are no promotions at the work place, coz every body knows who is on a visa. No better opportunities provided to people on H1B visa to prove their worth. A jacka$$ can be promoted but not a person on a H1B visa. Add to it, the constant fear of a layoff.

Better opportunities might come, but then one has to worry about the effect it might have on his/her AoS application. It is a loss of pay & loss of career advancement. The blame for this squarely lies at the inefficiency or ineptness of the INS/BCIS or by whatever cr@p they call themselves.

Again, there is a trouble to get a driving license for the spouse. One needs to prove that he/she is legal here before one can even take the test. Banks sometimes shy from giving one good rates on loans. Hence, one finds difficulty in buying real estate here.

The above stated facts are in direct contrast to the spirit of AC21 and the spirit of fair play in general.

The INS/BCIS has taken all the finger prints, the medicals, the biographic forms. These have been run through all the agencies. No further checks are needed. Why the heck can a approval not be approved?

No one here is asking for an immediate approval. What one is asking for is an approval on the basis of his/her credentials in a timely manner. What is happening now is not timely. Rather, it is chaotic. Since one has paid for the EAD/AP renewals (due to the inefficiency of the INS) and the AoS, one has every right to expect an approval in a timely manner.

On the contrary, the dates as given out the JIT show an increase in the time taken for approvals in all the categories, inspite of all the utterances at the INS/BCIS-AILA meetings. The actions however donot seem to reflect the promises made. Is this service that is provided to the future citizens of this country?
 
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We pay tens of thousands of dollars to get just a GC crap. At least some percentage from our pocket (btw are employers still paying for new gc cases?) wait for a long time that includes lot of frustration and uncertainty. At the same time look at the illegal who broke the law and cheated this country and going to be rewarded. I am really sick and tired to watch TV news with comments like "They are the one who is really bringing the food to our table" - pls. Someone help me to describe this bunch of TV morons. We are the one who are paying tax dollars that goes to supporting their kids (free public school and free food), free medical (free county hospitals), construction of freeways (illegal use road to drive for free - no dmv fee), auto insurance (I mean uninsured motorist - indirectly we pay their auto insurance). On top of this, if they get naturalized we have to pay for their background check (check what?! the guy came out of the blue - don’t you think this is a major loophole for all potential terrorists to get into this country).

If government starts considering illegal it may make sense for some of us to tear all docs. and stand in the Q if it takes less time.

I think INS (I lost the interest on remembering lot of their temp. names) should be realistic, consistent and transparent.

1). The movement you get I485 (AOS) WAC number, it is your Q number to be processed. It appears to us that they pick randomly many times. They should come up with some criteria - candidate credential like education and work exp. to give some points to approve (some countries do uniform pointing system), if they find something wrong in background check(ex. fake master degrees, fake experiences and fake companies - you know what I am talking about), do it again to make sure and put him/her in a separate Q if not deport/impression.

2). One should get one time EAD by default after I-485, it should be valid till 485 approved/denied. It cannot be a revenue source for INS.

3). AP and FP: The main reason for delay is to make sure to filter potential terrorists from this Q. Realistically speaking it is a tough job for INS, it doesn’t mean that all of us should be effected. Here is the plan - based on the past statistics INS should make 3 Qs based on the country (probably including something else if they want).
A. Low risk
B. Medium risk
C. High risk
Categories.

I know most of the emp. based I-485 guys are come under A category.

I hope above changes make big difference to speedup our cases.
Am I missing anything?
 
Maybe, there is one more route that we can take. As a public agency that charges us a pretty hefty fee, is it not justified on our part to expect some sort of timely action from BCIS. What we could argue is that BCIS declare to the court on what the timeframe will be.

In my opinion, any other argument (like illegals getting away with the cake with minimal effort) is not going to fly. The lawsuit has to be extremely focused. It should be about what you as an applican, that pays a sizable amount towards the application fees, should expect. Everything else about you paying taxes is irrelevant. As a part of this society and as somebody who avails of these facilities, you are expected to pay your share of the taxes. If an illegal is being pardoned, it is a political issue, not a legal issue as far as this lawsuit is concerned.

The next step, after getting BCIS to agree on a timeframe, is to get it to justify it. Since the procedures involved in a 485 approval are well-known and established, we could draw the court's attention to what should be a reasonable time involved in each activity in the workflow. We could then pray to the court to persuade BCIS to drop/modify non-value added activities like extending EAD/AP applications etc.
 
extra_dry_gin,

As mentioned by you, if one goes only by the hardships suffered by the AoS filers, the only out come of this lawsuit will be that BCIS will approve one's EAD and AP for the validity of the AoS approval time frame and there will be nothing done to rectify the slow approval.

To rectify it, the question one could ask BCIS right now is, "If you find one good enough for approving their EAD/AP why don't you approve his/her AoS at the same time". Isn't that an irony? Why should one have to the file for renewal?

The other thing to point out is that there are no penalties on the ineptness or the inefficiencies of the BCIS. The only penalties are borne by the AoS filer in the form of loss of opportunities at work, trouble in getting spouse a driver's license, no unemployment benefits, paying higher interest rates to banks for car loans, home mortgages etc.

To compensate for the inefficiency if the BCIS doesnot approve one's case within say 12-18 months, the BCIS starts paying steep penalties (like say $500 per week) to the person who filed for his/her AoS.

The AoS case should be either be approved or denied. No stories like RFE, expired finger prints, expired medicals etc.
 
exempt from tax during AOS pending

Personally, I am not intersted in any improvement on EAD and AP.
If USCIS is sure to adjudicate I-485 within a year (or 18 months), we can decide not to go out from the States.
I believe we should focus AOS.

I'd like to propose to the U.S. Goverment:
I-485 applicants should be exempted from paying (federal) TAX during AOS pending.
 
I would say that our entire arguments should revolve around the point, how the I485 delays are affecting our lives. We shouldn't concentrate too much on EAD and AP issues. The court might just ask BCIS to correct those two problems and BCIS will be more than happy to do anything else other than approving I485. So let us talk / discuss about overall effects of I485 delays. We can say that delaying I485 application processing is nothing but doing criminal injustice to the applicants .
 
Send your 485 problems to this email address.

We need personal problems that these 485 delays cause.

Several folks might have personal stories that you might not want to share in this board. I have volunteered to help out dsatish to collect the problems, compile and send it to Rajiv Khanna.


Please send your personal problems that these 485 delays are causing to problems485@yahoo.com.

Please email your stories before Dec 19th (this Fri)
 
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Two things:

First and foremost, taking an antagonistic approach towards the government ain't gonna help anyone. So let's not bring up issues like "we don't have to pay taxes until GC". I understand the bitterness and resentment we all carry on us but this is neither the time nor place to express those feelings. Just remember "every dog has his day" and our time will come. Until then, calm down and be controlled.

Next issue is, let's not embark on "he got this and he got that" and "so I need it too". It is childish and more importantly, will not stand in a court of law. So let's not bring up illegal immigration and other categories that are being worked on by BCIS now. Let's focus on OUR PROBLEMS, WHY WE DESERVE SPEEDY PROCESSING and WHAT HARDSHIPS (if any) THAT WE ARE FACING because of this delay. This is the best way to approach this. Again, i will say like i havesaid before, It is not easy to build up a case aginst BCIS, but no harm in trying. Cheers!!
 
Originally posted by ECGC
Two things:

First and foremost, taking an antagonistic approach towards the government ain't gonna help anyone. So let's not bring up issues like "we don't have to pay taxes until GC". I understand the bitterness and resentment we all carry on us but this is neither the time nor place to express those feelings. Just remember "every dog has his day" and our time will come. Until then, calm down and be controlled.

Next issue is, let's not embark on "he got this and he got that" and "so I need it too". It is childish and more importantly, will not stand in a court of law. So let's not bring up illegal immigration and other categories that are being worked on by BCIS now. Let's focus on OUR PROBLEMS, WHY WE DESERVE SPEEDY PROCESSING and WHAT HARDSHIPS (if any) THAT WE ARE FACING because of this delay. This is the best way to approach this. Again, i will say like i havesaid before, It is not easy to build up a case aginst BCIS, but no harm in trying. Cheers!!

Well said and fully agreed. Let's not talk in a childish way (complaining about what others are getting). Let's talk what is legally admissible as an valid argument in the court. That is what this thread is all about.
 
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