Dear Editor:
I am writing this letter for the thousands of legal immigration petitioners. The deathly slow processing
speed for Work Based Green Cards at the California Service Center of the BCIS (formerly INS) is causing
major problems for the daily lives of these legal foreign workers.
No one would argue, in light of the terrorist threats,
the need to more fully vet potential immigrants into
the United States. And if the additional checks
required some additional time, so be it, the benefits
far outweigh the small price in waiting.
However, when the average waiting time for a
relatively simple approval process has gone from 6
months to approximately 20-24 months, there is
something sinisterly wrong with BCIS operating
procedures. And for INS to cloak themselves under the
guise of performing additional security checks is
deliberately misleading.
In a post 9/11 environment, in spite of INS past
embarrassments of approving terrorists post humously,
the President has given a mandate to the organization
to ensure I485 approvals be completed within 6 months
with all neccessary security checks. Yet, in practice
the complete opposite has happened, stretching
approvals to an average of 20 months. In addition, INS
(BCIS) has frozen processing from Nov.15 to Feb. 15,
first denying there was a freeze then later
acknowledging there was a freeze when they upgraded
their computer systems. After an initial blip of
approvals (lasting 2 weeks), the process has virtually
grinded to a halt. In the face of a mountain of
backlogged unapproved 485 applications, BCIS is
plodding along approving 5-20 applications a day,
while 125-200 new applications come in every day.
Being forced to wait extraordinary lengths of time,
the would be immigrant is forced to reapply/renew his
EAD (Employment Authorization document).With this huge
problem, what does BCIS do? Do they focus their
resources on approving the green cards? No, they put
the resources on clearing the backlog of EAD's, which
are a temporary solution for the people waiting for
the 485 (GC) approvals. If they would approve the 485,
they would get rid of the backlog on EAD's at the same
time. But this logic escapes BCIS.
In addition, as part of the 485 process, each
applicant submits to a fingerprint exercise, which
gets sent to FBI to check their background. BCIS has a
policy of expiring the fingerprints after 15 months.
(which seems like a reasonable policy as the president
himself has indicated that the process should take no
longer than 6 months). Now because BCIS is now taking
between 20-24 months to approve, they are reissuing
fingerprint notices to applicants who must go through
the process again. It begs the question, with their
system of tracking dates, instead of focusing extra
resources on clearing the EAD backlog, why wouldn't
they focus their resources on approving cases that the
fingerprints are due to expire?
To understand how tenuous the process is for an
immigrant you need to understand the Employment Based
Green Card Process. The first step is to have a
company sponsor you on a work related visa, usually an
H1B. The approval for that could have taken upwards to
1 year. Then for the fortunate ones their sponsoring
company immediately began the Green Card Process (this
is not the norm, some time would ususally have
transpired before this). The company then would need
to advertise the position for approximately 6 months,
reviewing all potential candidates for a better one,
if there were no better ones, they could lodge a Labor
Certification with the Department of Labor. This
process even with the reduction in recruitment option
is currently taking 1-2 years. Once LC is approved,
you file an I140 with INS, which currently takes
approximately 6 - 12 months. Once approved, then you
can make your I485 application and wait the current
20-24 months.
While you are waiting some 2-5 years, at your peril,
under certain circumstances, you may change your
employment. I say, "may", however, you run a serious
risk of being denied your green card for numerous
reasons. In addition to being tied to one employer for
5 years or more, and there are employers who take
advantage of this situation, the immigrant, because he
is "temporary" in nature, may not qualify to purchase
a home among other things.
The immigrant lives a precarious life waiting and
hoping for his approval, and in these uncertain times,
hopes he isn't laid off of his current employment.
They meet on immigrant discussion boards for any scrap
of information out of BCIS, which is miserly with
their statements. Immigration Officers often give
contradictory, inacurate and general information. BCIS
issues a "Just In Time" report which shows the current
date they are adjudicating, for the last 6 months this
date has not changed for the 485 applications.
In their frustration and feeling of powerlessness with
the lack of progress and responsiveness from the CSC
of the BCIS, they have organized a petition.
What is a worthwhile read is the comments box in the
petition, where you can get a very real sense of how
this drawn out process is affecting the lives of these
would be immigrants. It would be great if you can bring some pressure to
BCIS CSC and get them to actively commit to addressing
the problem.
Jeremy Li
Copyright © 1999-2002 American Immigration LLC, ILW.COM
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