TSC Update : April 2003
Posted Apr 04, 2003

MurthyDotCom and the MurthyBulletin provide periodic updates on issues pertaining to the Service Centers. This Texas Service Center (TSC) update is the result of a February 3, 2003 meeting, the notes of which were issued in late March 2003.

Fingerprinting

The TSC is continuing to schedule fingerprinting for I-485 cases filed in 2001. As of February 2003, approximately 5000 cases still need fingerprinting. Though I-485 cases can be processed while waiting for fingerprinting, they cannot be approved without fingerprinting and appropriate background checks. This continues to be a problem area with the TSC.

Missing I-140 Receipts

In some cases, the Form I-797 receipt or approval notice for the I-140 was either never received, was lost, or remains unavailable for some other reason. The TSC was asked how to file an I-485 in this situation, in order to avoid rejection of the filing by the mailroom. The same problem exists in other situations requiring the receipt notice.

TSC advised that they would accept the computer printout of the online status screen. This is available on the BCIS WebSite. The names of the petitioner / beneficiary need to be typed onto the printout, as it only has the receipt number. Of course, in order to obtain this printout, the SRC (receipt) number is needed. If the notice was never received, then one could locate the receipt number on the check cashed by the BCIS / INS for the I-140. If the check has not been cashed, this issue would continue to pose a problem.

Holds

The information officers at the TSC were informing callers that I-129s (used for cases such as Hs and Ls) were on hold. TSC advises that this is not correct. They are continuing to process all types of cases. However, they did reassign staff to meet a March 2003 deadline for TPS applications. This caused a slowdown and further backlogs in other categories of cases. We reported on this deadline in our February 7, 2003 MurthyBulletin articles, VSC Update: January 21, 2003 and CSC: Delays Due to Processing Priorities, available on MurthyDotCom.