USCIS Transformation Program may affect our cases

Below is from www.immigration-law.com. Please also see www.shusterman.com.

03/23/2006: When Will the USCIS Disclose the Details of Its Transformation Program?

In November 2005, GAO criticized the USCIS for the ineffective management and operation of the immigration benefits potentially causing the two serious problems: One was the security risk and the other was backlog elimination. The current structure of the four Service Centers was cited as one of the causes and the GAO recommended to streamline the operation into a single centralized structure in order to avoid the faults in security management and backlog elimination to meet the Bush's five-year 6-month processing time target date of September 30, 2007. The USCIS partially disagreed and in response to the criticism, it first made public for the first time the outline of the USCIS' ongoing transformation program which included, among others, electronic filing of the immigration benefits petitions and applications with the embedded biometric clearance requirement for filing, and restructuring of the current four Service Centers into two Centers. One Center appeared to Vermont Service Center with the current Nebraska Service Center under its command as the Satellite Center, and the other Center appeared to be California Service Center with the current Texas Service Center under its command as the Satellite Center (?). Accordingly beginning from the new year, the immigrant community has witnessed the swifting of files among Service Centers and the USCIS which also was pressing ahead the electronic filing program.

Lately the EB-485 filers in Califonia Service Centers have received notices that their cases have been transferred to the Texas Service Center. Earlier the family-based I-130 petitioners had received a notice that their cases had been transferred to the Carlifornia Service Center. At this point, there is no official report about the details of ongoing streamlining of processing of immigration benefits and planned restructuring of the processing centers. The customers are concerned that the ongoing transformation may affect the processing of their cases, particularly the processing times, and we urge the USCIS leadership to release the details of its transformation program and its schedule of implementation. The last we heard was that the USCIS was targeting to complete the transformation program by the end of this fiscal year, September 30, 2006. We also urge the AILA to work with the USCIS HQ and give a guidance to the immigrant community and their constituents. Predictability of administration should be an important goal for the government service agencies.