News Update - July 15, 2008

By Alan Lee, Esq.^†‡

Disappointing Response By Acting Director of U.S.C.I.S. To Ombudsman’s Recommendations to Improve CIS Handling of Returned Petitions by Department of State

Jonathan Scharfen, Acting Director of USCIS, recently responded to a few recommendations made by the ombudsman for his agency, Michael T. Dougherty. These recommendations, formally titled “Recommendation #33”, proposed changes in the way USCIS treats petitions that are returned by the US Department of State for revocation /revalidation. These suggestions included:

1. Issue receipt notices to customers when the petition file is returned and received by USCIS Service Centers.

2. Establish a nationwide standard for the re-adjudication of petitions returned by consular offices for revocation or revalidation and amend the Operating Instructions/Adjudicator’s Field Manual accordingly; include a “REVOCATION” entry in the processing time reports.

3. Provide additional information about revocation or revalidation processes on the USCIS website.

Mr. Scharfen was more than happy to agree to items #1 and #3, but rejected recommendation #2 with a detailed explanation. A nationwide standard for adjudication of these types of petitions would certainly make things easier for the individual, but UCSIS processes numerous types of petitions and revokes them for multiple reasons. Mr. Dougherty’s request was not considered “practical” for USCIS, citing numerous examples which demonstrated how creating such a standard could compromise large-scale fraud investigations and create impossible time schedules for petition processing.

This is unfortunately a very disappointing response as many returned petitions languish with the agency for over a year before U.S.C.I.S. begins to work on the case. That period is on top of the months and sometimes up to a year that the consulates take before actually returning the petitions to U.S.C.I.S. (after such notification of the petition's fate is conveyed to the parties by the consulate).

† 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 © 2008 Alan Lee, Esq.

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