Official USCIS Blog

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USCIS has recently launched The BEACON – the official USCIS blog. Unlike the DHS Leadership Journal, this one is all about immigration. It is also open for comments, which is a great way for readers (you) to get involved. For what it is worth, your comments will be read by someone at USCIS, because they have to review all of them.

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.

4 thoughts on “Official USCIS Blog”

  1. I hope the comments are reviewed, for the past 150 odd days, USCIS and SEVIS have lead me in merry dance. I am a recent grad in Computer Engineering, I had applied for a pre-completion OPT, but the USCIS made a mistake on the Card gave me the wrong dates (12 months instead of the asked for 3, as clearly stated in the I-20 for the request), which made it impossible for me to apply for post completion OPT till the error was corrected. However USCIS despite assuring expedite service took close to 60 days to correct the mistake, and even then the SEVIS system was not corrected. After repeated requests the SEVIS was corrected September 21st, and I sent in my request for post OPT the same day and requested expedited service.
    I had graduated August 13th
    I have a job offer and the latest I can join by is October 31st (I have already had to forgo 1 job offer because of the morass I am in), however USCIS has refused to expedite my request, saying it does not meet criteria, I mean potential loss of employment due to incompetence of USCIS and SEVIS does sound like criteria enough to me. Is it possible to expedite the request? I have been ready with the paperwork since May 13th, exact 90 days before graduation
    It has been 150 days since that day.
    Please advise

    Sincerely
    Ankit Malik

  4. My Brother a child immigrant from Germany in 1949 and US citizen since 1955, applied for a copy of his citizenship papers and after a terrible convoluted, difficult course was told the citizenship paper would be sent to him. He didn’t receive that certificate as he had been promised. Yesterday he recontacted USCIS, and was told by another agent that his case had expired and his citizen paper is not being sent to him. He was also told he could reapply to get this certificate. Obviously the agent promising it would be sent lied to him. This has been the worst ever experience in my family’s life other than my parents surviving the Holocaust. I believe congress should review this agency’s employees and their competence

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