Immigration Law

BREAKING NEWS: USCIS WILL ADJUDICATE DELAYED GREEN CARD CASES WITHOUT FBI NAME CHECK

By Greg Siskind

I've reported many times on how adjustment of status cases can be delayed for years because it is stuck in a queue waiting on a security clearance. In many cases, the only remedy that has regularly worked is taking the government to court.

A reader at Immigration Voice has scooped all of the normal sources for immigration news and posted a new USCIS memorandum that allows USCIS examiners to adjudicate adjustment cases pending more than 180 days without having the name checks completed. The reasoning behind this recognizes something that is pure common sense - adjustment applicants are already here in the US so the country is no safer just because the case is pending without adjudication. Instead, USCIS will institute removal proceedings against the very small percentage of adjustment applicants who would have had their cases rejected had the case been delayed until the security clearance was completed.

USCIS has indicated it will, along with the FBI, devote substantial resources to get all security clearances turned around in under six months so this is nothing but a rarely used option for an examiner to complete work on a case.

NOTE: Naturalization cases are not included. This is probably because revoking naturalization would be an extremely cumbersome process and might not even be legally possible. So don't count on this policy ever being extended to those cases.

Congrats USCIS on showing some pragmatism and enacting a policy that will end a lot of suffering.

Download Mocanu_New_USCIS_NC_Procedures.pdf

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).