Vermont Service Center : February 2006 Update Posted Mar 10, 2006 ©MurthyDotCom The Vermont Service Center (VSC) Adjudications Manager, Keith Canney, spoke at a Washington DC Chapter meeting of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) at the end of February 2006. All of the attorneys from the Murthy Law Firm attended this important VSC meeting. Following are some insights provided by Mr. Canney regarding VSC operations and current policies that we believe will prove beneficial to MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers. ©MurthyDotCom VSC Case Backlog Reduction ©MurthyDotCom The VSC, along with the other Service Centers, is completing a four-year effort to reduce their case backlogs. Their goal, ultimately, is to be able to process a case within six months of the filing date, in most instances. They have largely met this goal, as can be seen by current processing times. This is a remarkable improvement. As long-time readers of MurthyDotCom and the MurthyBulletin will recall, case processing times previously exceeded a year or more for certain types of cases. ©MurthyDotCom Since many of the processing time goals have been met, some of the additional staff used for this purpose have been detailed or sent to the local offices. The VSC will review processing times to determine whether these individuals need to be recalled to the VSC to help in the future. ©MurthyDotCom I-485 "Take Backs" ©MurthyDotCom The VSC has taken back a significant number of I-485 Adjustment of Status cases from local USCIS offices. Mr. Canney specifically mentioned 11,000 cases from New York City and 7,000 from Washington D.C. These are cases that were sent to the local office for personal interviews. The VSC is going to review them with an eye toward the possibility of waiving the personal interviews. Those who cannot have the interviews waived will be returned to the local offices to schedule the interviews. An earlier report on this matter can be found in our December 2, 2005 MurthyBulletin article, USCIS at NY and Washington DC Sends I-485s Back to VSC, available on MurthyDotCom. ©MurthyDotCom Service Centers to Allocate and Work on Specific Types of Cases ©MurthyDotCom The USCIS has plans to make some significant changes in the way that cases are processed in the future. Not much detail was provided, but they indicated that they will move toward sharing a national workload system based on the types of forms. That is, certain forms will be handled by the Nebraska Service Center and Texas Service Center, while other types of forms will go to the Service Centers in California and Vermont. This should improve efficiency in terms of managing the cap counts and specializing in limited types of cases. ©MurthyDotCom Move towards True Electronic Filing ©MurthyDotCom There is also a plan to shift from the transactional, case-by-case approach, with efforts to have cases filed and adjudicated electronically. Important in this endeavor is a proposal to set up employer accounts, so that documentary information does not have to be sent with each case. Our January 13, 2006 article, USCIS Proposal Expansion of eFilings for all H1Bs (available on MurthyDotCom) describes this in the H1B context. ©MurthyDotCom I-485s that Become Current ©MurthyDotCom Many MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers have I-485s pending and priority dates that are not current. With the monthly issuance of the U.S. Department of State Visa Bulletin (always available on our website), however, one can track whether a priority date is current. In order to locate those cases with priority dates that have become current, the VSC conducts sweeps of its I-485 files. Readers should keep in mind that, just because a date has become current, it does not mean necessarily that a decision will be issued immediately. The VSC noted that, in some instances, fingerprinting will be required again due to the ages of the cases. They will move cases as quickly as possible, but there still can be delays due to name checks. ©MurthyDotCom I-140 Adjudications with Retrogression ©MurthyDotCom A question was asked as to whether or how retrogression and the unavailability of visa numbers is impacting I-140 petition adjudications. The VSC advised that they are not specifically shifting adjudicators away from I-140 petitions. Some of the I-140 adjudicators, however, also adjudicate I-485 adjustment applications. Thus, as more I-485s become eligible for adjudication because of forward movement in the Visa Bulletin cutoff dates, some of the adjudications staff may be needed for the I-485 cases, which will likely cause a slowdown in I-140 petition processing. ©MurthyDotCom We thank Mr. Canney for this helpful information and for the time he spent with our local AILA chapter. Copyright © 2006, MURTHY LAW FIRM. All Rights Reserved
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