News Update - December 1, 2007USCIS Fee Increases Fail to Increase Agency Efficiency – Naturalization Application to Backlog 16-18 MonthsWith immigration a top concern in Presidential debates, what’s
undeniable is that at least in the short term the more things change,
the more they stay the same. When the USCIS increased its fees on
most applications in July, many including Congressmember Zoe Lofgren
(D-Cal) questioned what benefit the fees would bring. Faster processing?
More consistent adjudication? At least in terms of naturalization
applications, processing has only slowed. The USCIS goal of adjudicating
applications in 6 months seems to be a fairy tale with the Service
recently estimating 16-18 months for processing of naturalization
applications received after June 1, 2007. The agency points to increased
filings ahead of the fee increases, but those increases were intended
to provide the resources to quicken processing. The delay is not
restricted to the N-400 applications for naturalization. I-130 immigrant
petitions for relatives remain backlogged and a call to the National
Customer Service Center reveals that even posted time frames of
6 months for some of the I-130 applications at Service Centers are
actually incorrect with backlogs of over 15 months. When do we see
the benefits of fee increases? † The author is a 26+ year practitioner of immigration law based in New York City. He was awarded the Sidney A. Levine prize for best legal writing at the Cleveland-Marshall College of Law in 1977 and has written extensively on immigration over the past years for the ethnic newspapers, World Journal, Sing Tao, Pakistan Calling, Muhasha and OCS. He has testified as an expert on immigration in civil court proceedings and was recognized by the Taiwan government in 1985 for his work protecting human rights. His article, "The Bush Temporary Worker Proposal and Comparative Pending Legislation: an Analysis" was Interpreter Releases' cover display article at the American Immigration Lawyers Association annual conference in 2004, and his victory in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a case of first impression nationwide, Firstland International v. INS, successfully challenged INS' policy of over 40 years of revoking approved immigrant visa petitions under a nebulous standard of proof. Its value as precedent, however, was short-lived as it was specifically targeted by the Administration in the Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. ‡ This article © 2007 Alan Lee, Esq.
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Copyright © 2003-2012 Alan Lee,
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