Immigration Road Blog

Finally, USCIS delivered! Now you have an official USCIS green card tracker.

The “pending I-485 data” posted on the new uscis.gov website is exactly what we have been waiting for. The i-485 inventory chart not only displays the total number of pending green card applications, but is broken down by priority date, preference category and country of origin. These three levels of details determine your position in the waiting line, and can give you a much better estimate of when your adjustment of status (green card) application will be processed.

1. Country of Origin

There are essentially five lines for employment-based green cards, separated by country of chargeability. The five lines are China, India, Mexico, the Phillipines, and All Other Countries (a.k.a. Rest of World – ROW). The monthly visa bulletin, which determines who is eligible for a visa number, releases visas based on chargeability. Historically China, India, Mexico and the Phillipines are “over-subscribed” countries, meaning there are more applicants from these countries than visa numbers available each year. As a result, these countries are tracked separately in the visa bulletin and USCIS’ i-485 inventory report.

2. Preference Category

Each of the five country-specific lines is further divided by preference categories. For example, EB-1 priority workers, EB-2 professionals with advanced degrees, EB-3 skilled workers, etc. The average waiting time for green card varies dramatically from one preference to another. USCIS did an excellent job by compiling and also presenting the data in the reports.

3. Priority Date

A priority date is when the green card process officially starts, which is usually the date when labor certification or I-140 is filed. Your priority date (PD) determines your position in the line, for your EB category and country of chargeability. This is the one piece of information that tells you exactly how many people are in front of you. USCIS breaks the total number of pending I-485 cases down to each month of a given year based on priority date.

How do I use the green card tracker?

Suppose you are from China, have a priority date of March 2007, and your immigrant petition is in EB2, you can see from the chart below that 786 applicants with a priority date in the same month and year as yours are waiting in line in the EB2 China category. You don’t have to know how many of the 786 people are in front you, because quite likely all of you will become eligible for a visa on the same day.

Now the more important question is how many people have a priority date earlier than yours. Again from the chart, you simply add up all the numbers before March 2007:

1 + 1 +2 + 13 + 20 + 35 + 123 + 4,084 + 8,581 + 743 + 671 = 14274

So there are a total of 14274 applicants from China in EB-2 category who are in front you in the waiting line for green card. You can’t find this level of detail and precision anywhere else.

How do I know when my green card will be approved?

Unfortunately you don’t know that yet, at least not accurately, since this is the first time USCIS published such report. USCIS plans to update the green card tracker every quarter. So after the next one, you will know how many people ahead of you (or behind you, for some reason) have received their green card or otherwise left the line. Comparing that with the Visa Bulletin, you will have a better idea of how much longer you have to wait for your turn.

Pending I-485 Adjustment of Status Applications based on Priority Date for China EB-2:

China EB2	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	Grand Total
January	0	0	0	0	0	6	4	11	9	509	743	18	2	1,302
February	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	2	152	508	671	9	0	1,343
March	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	4	612	713	786	11	1	2,128
April	0	0	0	0	2	0	2	11	71	493	686	16	4	1,285
May	0	0	0	0	1	0	1	1	145	612	552	16	2	1,330
June	0	0	0	0	2	3	4	5	188	803	567	12	0	1,584
July	0	0	1	0	4	1	4	6	211	713	1,906	16	0	2,862
August	0	0	0	0	1	1	3	11	404	827	190	5	0	1,442
September	0	0	0	2	0	5	0	17	1,028	922	107	12	0	2,093
October	0	0	0	0	0	0	10	13	401	869	62	6	0	1,361
November	0	0	0	0	3	2	5	13	395	762	26	14	0	1,220
December	0	0	0	0	0	1	2	29	468	850	29	4	0	1,383
Total	0	1	1	2	13	20	35	123	4,084	8,581	6,325	139	9	19,333

USCIS has now unveiled the much hyped case status checking system. Although it is noticeably better than its predecessor, it fell short of expectations.

From the DHS leadership journal and various speeches made by government officials, people had the impression that the new online status system would achieve two major objectives:

1. Identify the current processing step of an immigration case, i.e. let a customer know what has been done, what is being worked on and what is coming next on their application; and,
2. Provide an estimated waiting time before a case can be adjudicated, i.e. let a customer know “how many people are waiting in line or how long it may be before USCIS can process and approve his application.”

USCIS has done a fairly good job for No. 1 (case status), but not nearly enough for No. 2 (waiting time).

The case status tool now displays seven steps: Acceptance, Initial Review, Request for Evidence (RFE), Testing and Interview, Decision, Post Decision Activity, and Document Production or Oath Ceremony. Below is an example of the RFE step (see more examples here):

The benefit of this format is that all processing steps are displayed in one window – people who are not familiar with the immigration process  are now able to figure out what steps have been completed and what is likely to come next. For others, especially high-tech workers under employment based categories, this change is far less appealing because most of them understand the green card work flow quite well already.

As it stands now, a new status update will replace the old one, and if a case has reached the next step, previous ones will be grayed out. A better way would be to keep all status updates in the system until at least some time after the case has been adjudicated. This way it also acts as a personal journal for the applicant. The data are stored in the USCIS database anyway, why not make them  useful?

The new alert function via text messaging is nice and geeky, but doesn’t deserve so much spotlight in my opinion.

Regardless of how case status is presented, what is critical to immigrants is that the information in the system is complete and up to date. For example:

• Does the system reflect a RFE that has been responded to?
• Is background check information included in the report?
• Does a rescheduled appointment or interview get updated?
• If a case is at a certain stage, does it mean all previous steps have been completed? In another word, does RFE mean FBI name check is cleared? If an interview is scheduled, does it mean all RFE’s have been processed?

The waiting time report, implemented as National Volume and Trends on the new website, is far from what everyone expected. We will discuss it in a separate post.

It is worth mentioning that USCIS redesigned the website in a hurry, and completed the bulk of new development in roughly three months. So it is probably unrealistic to expect a complete overhaul. It is an excellent start, however, and USCIS deserves credit for that. But we certainly hope that the efforts don’t stop here. USCIS.gov is one of the most popular government websites (6 million visitors monthly), so hopefully the agency will have the support to continue to make it better.

United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently placed a purchase order of $3.1 million for additional green cards. According to LaserCard, recipient of the order, these permanent resident cards are to be delivered by December 31, 2009.

I don’t know exactly how much it costs to produce a piece of green card, but 3 million dollars is a huge amount by any means, especially since there are only five months left for 2009.

So, can we assume that USCIS is preparing to issue truckloads of green cards coming October?

It is not that far fetched, if you think about it. The visa bulletin has been in a virtual standstill since May, for much of EB2 and EB3 anyway. There have been various reports that USCIS has been pre-adjudicating I-485 cases aggressively, and now those cases are ready to be approved as soon as visa numbers become available. And FBI name check, the old bottleneck, is no longer heavily backlogged.

Based on all of above, it is reasonable to expect that a large number of people with earlier priority dates will receive their green cards shortly after October 1, the first day when new fiscal year’s visa number can be released. The Department of State will no doubt regulate the flow of visa numbers in a controlled manner, but they still have to open the gate. So for those waiting patiently for years, hopefully 2009 will finally be the year.

Now if anyone has an idea of how much it costs to manufacture a green card, please share with us. The production line that makes green cards is likely making millions of credit cards, ATM cards, and other similar products too. So even if green cards have enhanced security features, I can’t imagine it would cost more than $1-2, given the huge volume. If that estimate is in the ball-park, plus logistics and bureaucratic waste, USCIS may be ordering 1 million green cards by year end. USCIS issued about 1.1 million new green cards in 2008, and an unknown number of replacement green cards, so the 1-million number may not be too off.