Immigration Law

USCIS MAKING PROGRESS ON SECURITY CLEARANCES

By Greg Siskind

Some good news from USCIS and the Ombudsman. A joint press announcement states that the backlog on security clearances has declined significantly in recent months. According to Ombudsman Michael Dougherty:

The significant reduction in long-pending FBI name checks will result in improved service for USCIS customers Congress provided the necessary funding for USCIS and the FBI to complete a larger percentage of FBI name checks in a timely manner. We appreciate the resolve of USCIS and the FBI in realizing this customer service achievement; both lack of funding and delays had been a significant concern of my office. We are happy to see significant progress is being made.

It?s nice to make a statement like this, but my first thought was ? OK, show us the numbers. And they have, to their credit.

• There were 269,943 name checks pending on May 6, 2008.      There are 95,449 pending as of August 12, 2008.
• There were 185,162 name checks pending for more than      six months on May 6, 2008. There are 61,817 pending more than six months      as of August 12, 2008.
• USCIS met its April 2, 2008 goal to process all name      checks pending more than two years by July 2008.

USCIS also announced that it has reduced processing times in naturalization cases to ten to twelve months, down from the announced estimate of 18 months after the surge in applications following 2007?s mid-year doubling of fees.

Of course, it is worth reminding USCIS that the agency has promised for years that it would get naturalization times down to less than six months. But the trends are good and I?m encouraged by this news release. And the hundreds of thousands of new Americans who will get to vote in eight weeks are certainly happy as well.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on September 10, 2008 (boomark / email).