INS Audit Puts Case Processing on Hold
Posted Jul 14, 2000

For those of you patiently awaiting adjudications of your H1B or I-140Petitions, don't expect any approvals during the week of July 17, 2000, or perhaps for a few weeks thereafter. The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) has announced plans to conduct an agency-wide inventory of all pending cases during the week of July 17, 2000. The apparent purpose is to determine the dollar value of these cases, so that the correct amount can be withdrawn from the "user fee account" and be put toward processing the case backlog.

The audit will involve opening each file and counting each form. According to the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), this will interrupt processing for at least a week at all the four INS Service Centers. The one exception is that permanent residency "age-out" cases (where a beneficiary or family member is about to turn 21 years of age) will continue to be processed. As for the local INS District Offices, some locations may be at a standstill for as long as one to two months.

Even worse is the news that the July 2000 audit is only a "run-through" or practice audit, similar to a smaller one that occurred in May 2000. The actual audit will happen in late September 2000, and is likely to cause another halt in case processing at the INS Service Centers.

The fact that INS always seems to be scrambling for funds to do its job is closely linked to Congressional under-funding of adjudication functions, and to the raiding of the user fee account to pay for enforcement activities. Backlog reduction bills pending in Congress recognize that much of the monetary shortfall is due to the decisions of the U.S. Congress with respect to the allocation of funding. (See article 5 below about the House backlog reduction bill; the Senate bill, introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA),is described in an earlier edition of the MurthyBulletin.)

Now, let us look at the bright side. If the money is correctly allocated and the INS can hire more adjudicators, or provide for overtime of their employees to adjudicate pending INS petitions, then perhaps future processing will speed up. We can only hope so.