Sindell Law Offices E-Min Newsletter (Vol. 11) - English Article #42

    USCIS is working on backlog elimination. Last year, they had a backlog of 3.8 million cases. They have reduced that backlog to 1.45 million cases. Every month, they are reducing the backlog by 70,000 to 100,000 cases.

The newest goal of USCIS is to reduce the time required to produce the actual alien registration card "green card". If someone loses their green card, recently, it could take up to a year to replace it. In the near future, they hope to be able to replace the card and send it to the alien within 48-72 hours. This would also be the case for initial processing at the district offices.

Many of you have heard about the 90 day interview pilot program instituted in New York for marriage based cases. Many of you also heard that this program ceased at the end of January 2005. The USCIS will start implementing the program again in some of the smaller district offices. However, since New York and many other East Coast offices have larger backlogs, the service will not be implementing the program in those offices until possibly September 2006. By then, all district offices will be using the 90 day program and all marriage based adjustment of status cases should be adjudicated within that 90 day period.