This is a list USCIS compiled after conducting a survey three months ago asking your input on the areas that USCIS should review their policies and make changes first. It was an important study, and we called for actions in our community forum. Hopefully you had a chance to voice your opinion at that time.

After “nearly 5,600 stakeholders responded to the survey, representing current immigrant and non-immigrant visa holders, employers, immigration attorneys and advocates, among others, in addition to responses from approximately 2,400 members of the USCIS workforce,” the Top-10 list is quite extensive and other than a couple items, I think it hit the nail on the head:

1. National Customer Service Center
2. Nonimmigrant H-1B (specialty occupations)
3. Naturalization and Citizenship
4. Employment-Based Adjustment of Status
5. Family-Based Adjustment of Status
6. Employment-Based Immigrants Preference Categories 1, 2 (priority workers, professionals and holders of advanced degrees) and 3 (skilled workers and professionals)
7. Refugee and Asylum Adjustment of Status
8. Form I-601 (Application for Waiver of Ground of Inadmissibility)
9. General Humanitarian Programs
10. Employment Authorization and Travel Documents

I would say that EAD and AP could have been a little higher on the list, and B-2 visitor visa should have been included given the massive number of people its policy affects. Nonetheless, this is good list to start.
What comes next is as dissappointing as usual. According to the official announcement,

The USCIS Policy Review is a comprehensive, multi-year effort with four stages.

The word “multi-year effort” reminds me, and many others I’m sure, the typical government way of doing business. There will be meetings after meetings, reviews after reviews, and reports after reports. And in the end, we don’t even know what they are working on any more.

Come on! Have your “working groups” sit down and talk about one issue at a time. Give each member one week to read/review the policies and bring up their own suggestions. Give them another week to convene, one more week to test their ideas, and yet another week to tweak them. So a total of one month per issue, not enough? No one is expecting them to fix everything, just hit the big ones. There may be 100 items that can be improved over USCIS customer service; just fix the top 3, which should address 80% of complaints if not more.

Maybe I’ve made it sound too easy. But if you know there are issues, how do you justify a “multi-year effort” to address them? Should your paying customers continue to suffer while you spend “years” reviewing them?

Don’t get me wrong. I like the list, and I like the fact that USCIS is willing to work on it after soliciting input from immigrants. But sometimes, “do something” is more important than trying to do everything, which often ends up being nothing.

Update 7/27/10: USCIS Survey Report

http://goo.gl/nVat

What is that!? In case you’re wondering, it is actually the same address (URL) as this one:

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.
5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=8c75d06dcebf9210VgnVCM
100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=
68439c7755cb9010VgnVCM10000045f3d6a1RCRD

Yes, we are using shortened URLs, but almost exclusively on USCIS pages which are extremely long, as demonstrated in the example above. USCIS’ content management system apparently add these dynamically generated “keys” in their URL, but it is meaningless to users. We started using URL shortening on Twitter first, which is necessary due to the 140-character limit, but thought it wouldn’t hurt to try it on our news page because it contains lots of links to USCIS updates.

There are many URL shorteners such as TinyURL, bit.ly, tr.im, and so on. I picked Google’s shortening service arbitrarily, or because I have been a fan of Google’s tools for years and their Chrome browser offers a convenient tool to trim long URLs with one click.

So there you go. Don’t grow suspicious when you see a weird goo.gl link on our site; it is taking you to a legitimate source – as always – we are just tired of super long USCIS web addresses.

The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services is aware of the fact that some private parties are selling free USCIS forms and Infopass appointments for profit. In a recent blog post, USCIS reminded immigrants of such activities, but fell short of calling them fraudulent.

These services are offered free of charge by USCIS, but they do cost money. To design all the forms and to maintain local offices where infopass appointments take place aren’t necessarily cheap.

Immigrants are effectively paying for these services through application fees.

But some are tricked into paying more, by falling prey to websites and individuals who somehow manage to sell them.

Although selling USCIS forms is not nearly on the same level as green lottery scams yet, it is still troublesome.

USCIS can do more to raise awareness among unsuspecting immigrants, not only to save them money, but also to minimize their chances of using outdated USCIS forms, which can have severe consequences. Here are five suggestions:

1. On all USCIS forms, clearly indicate they are available for free, as shown in the image above. Free advertising for uscis.gov as well:
2. Convert more applications to electronic filing, which would eliminate or greatly reduce the need for downloading forms. E-file offers numerous benefits, not limited to detering fraud.
3. Make all PDF forms fillable, save-able and user friendly. This should help people who may be knowingly looking for better alternatives to save time. Also update expiring forms with new expiration dates or replace them with new versions in a timely manner.
4. Educate immigrants with information on unethical vs. illegal practices, and encourage them to report fraud.
5. Make all USCIS forms copyright protected. As a federal government agency, USCIS may have to work with a private organization to do this. But if implemented, it will enable them to pursue legal actions if they have to.

Our only advice to immigrants is very simple:

Just don’t download any USCIS forms from anywhere but uscis.gov!

With RFID embedded in the new green card, a CBP officer is now able to read your card while you are still standing in line at the airport. This, hopefully, can get you through a port of entry a bit faster. But the problem is, anyone with a sophisticated reader can read the same information as well, all from a distance without you even knowing it.

Before you push the panic button, however, let me just say that USCIS isn’t playing around with all the hassle of redesigning the green card. They must have worked with LaserCard (the manufacturer) to make sure that any embedded data isn’t easily accessible by an unauthorized source. And people who can break an RFID encryption are probably working on other stuff than reading your green card anyway.

But it remains a privacy concern. Since you are supposed to carry your green card with you at all times, the thought that someone walking by may have just read your green card is simply uncomfortable. So you want to follow all instructions from USCIS with regard to the storage and carrying of your new card. In fact, according to Piers Fawkes at PSFK, his new green card arrived with a warning on the card sleeve:

We recommend use of this envelope to protect your new card and prevent wireless communication with it.

The little card holder is probably some sort of electromagnetically opaque sleeve that shields your green card from external readers. At a minimum, it will make contactless access to your RFID more difficult.

Wikipedia has a good article on RFID, with a large section dedicated to security and privacy risks of the technology. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published a consumer report several years ago that had a section called The ABCs of RFID – another good read if you want to learn more:

In RFID systems, an item is tagged with a tiny silicon chip and an antenna; the chip plus antenna (together called a “tag”) can then be scanned by mobile or stationary readers, using radio waves (the “RF”). The chip can be encoded with a unique identifier, allowing tagged items to be individually identified by a reader (the “ID”).

Well, I think that is too far.

Sure, the data is incomplete. But it is something we never had before. Prior to September of 2009, if you had a pending I-485, all you knew was that you were standing in line waiting for the next visa bulletin. Now, with the inventory, you can find out approximately how many people are actually ahead of you. Even if USCIS doesn’t count all the pending cases, you now have a general idea of how long the line is, and more importantly, what position you are in.

USCIS clearly indicated that I-485 applications transferred to field offices are not included in the inventory. And it appears that they plan to add this missing piece in later releases. There has been much debate about the exact percentage, and I guess nobody knows until USCIS publishes the data, but we do know that the majority of employment-based AOS applications are being processed by service centers, not district or field offices.

Another source of missing cases in the inventory, as claimed by many, is that USCIS simply isn’t capable of counting! I’m not as pessimistic, however. After all, it is a database. Let’s look at the case status checking system first. How many people with a pending I-485 cannot find their case in the system? Not many, right? It is a non-scientific indication that the database at least contains the vast majority of I-485’s out there. With data being present, counting and sorting is a few queries away. And there are multiple ways to cross reference your results to make sure nothing is obviously off track.

Many people also question the accuracy of the data. I can’t guarantee the inventory is error-free; in fact I can pretty much guarantee there are errors. But it serves its purpose well, and is good enough to shed some light on a matter that traditionally has been a black box.

We want to push USCIS to further improve their reporting of the inventory data – no doubt about that. But we shouldn’t ignore what we already have, especially since there is nothing better right now. Let’s not tell a starving person to throw away the burger in hand, and just wait for a steak dinner.

However, it doesn’t mean you should vent your frustration on whatever post they publish, although we understand your urge to do so. What is a better way than posting on their own blog if you are unhappy with their services? But it doesn’t help anyone if most comments left by immigrants are essentially “USCIS sucks!” or something of that nature. In my personal opinion, we should give USCIS credit for starting a blog in the first place. And we want to encourage them to continue opening up more communication channels in the future. So if at all possible, please try to comment on relevant posts only, and offer constructive suggestions rather than simply demand for better services.

I have read some of the comments on this post and it appears that many of them are about visa retrogression. This one, however, is actually not USCIS’ fault. The US immigration law sets a limit on how many immigrants are allowed into this country each year, based on categories and preferences. If there are more applicants than visas available in a particular category, there will be a waiting list. In this case, regardless of how fast USCIS processes I-485 cases, they cannot approve more than what the law allows. Now sometimes USCIS may mess up and cause delays in adjudicating applications, but the fundamental problem many immigrants, especially China and India EB applicants, are facing is visa retrogression, which is frankly out of the control of USCIS.

The ultimate solution is immigration reform: increase annual caps, recapture wasted visa numbers, re-balance visa distribution (family vs. employment, for example), change per-country quota, and so on. These are the responsibilities of Congress. USCIS, as an agency, has no authority to accomplish any of that.

OMB: More applications mean more fees. Can you hire more people or something, with the additional income?

USCIS: No.

OMB: What do you mean no? USCIS is funded by immigration fees; every extra application comes with extra payment, so what are you doing with the money?

USCIS: I don’t know. But if I can raise application fees by 40%, we’ll be alright.

OMB: OK.

Two years later:

USCIS: Mr. OMB, we are getting fewer applications so we are running out of money.

OMB: What are you talking about? Application fee is collected to cover the application processing. If you don’t have that many applications, what do you need that money for?

USCIS: I don’t know. But if I can raise application fees by 40%, we’ll be alright.

OMB: OK.

Two more years later:

USCIS: Mr. OMB…

OMB: OK.

(I know, maybe I’m being too harsh on USCIS. But if you raise fees when application volume spikes, or drops, something doesn’t add up.)

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:

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.

In this post we are glad to report that the search function of the new USCIS.GOV is much improved over its predecessor.

For many years the search engine on USCIS.gov has been horrible. Its accuracy is always questionable, making it nearly useless. For example, below is a screen shot showing search result for keyword “green card” on the old USCIS website. It makes you scratch your head: among thousands of webpages containing the phrase “green card,”  and hundreds of pages specifically talking about “green card,” why the one titled “M-274″ appeared first?

The new website is much improved in terms of search quality:

You can easily tell that the new website is performing much better, since the top search results are all relevant to green card. If you are new to immigration, you will learn more about the green card process by following those links. On the old uscis.gov site, however, the same search would return many pages that pretty much have nothing to do with green card.

There is still room for improvement, though. A domain-specific search on Google (“green card site:uscis.gov”) still provides better results in my opinion:

We experimented with many other keywords, such as citizenship, AC21 and contact USCIS, and compared the search results with the ones we saved from using the previous USCIS website. The conclusion is the same: the redesigned uscis.gov has a much improved search engine that can now return relevant and useful search results.

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.