| Dear Readers, This week I have some good news as well as some
not so good news to share with you from the U.S.
Citizenship and Immigration Service. The USCIS has
made a couple of announcements that will affect
many people who are filing or have filed immigrant
petitions. On the positive side, USCIS has announced the implementation
of a much needed improvement to the process of adjudicating
permanent resident applications. Since July of 2002
when USCIS first started accepting concurrently
filed I-140 Immigrant Petition for Alien Worker
and I-485 Application for Adjustment of Status,
the two applications have been treated separately,
and have been adjudicated sometimes years apart.
The new system of adjudication that was first introduced
on a trial basis in California will require CIS
officials to review I-140 and I-485 applications
at the same time based on the I-140 receipt date.
Now, if needed, Requests for Evidence can be issued
to attorneys for both applications in the same envelope.
If no additional evidence is required, USCIS will
issue a decision on the whole permanent residence
application all at once. This new procedure will make the permanent residence
application process streamlined and more efficient.
It should also put an end to the long wait times
that many permanent resident applicants have become
accustomed to. We are quite pleased to see USCIS
take this step to speed up and simplify the application
procedure. If you have already concurrently filed I-140 and
I-485 applications, this new processing will only
apply to those applications for which fingerprints
and name checks have already cleared. Service centers
have been allowed a 30-day start up period to implement
this new procedure for all new concurrently filed
I-140 and I-485 petitions On the less positive side, USCIS announced on April
15, 2004 that as of April 30th the will be raising
most immigration fees approximately 26%. They report
that the new fees are necessary to cover the costs
of new national security measures, the new Office
of Citizenship, and improved refugee processing,
among other things As always, if you have any immigration questions
or concerns, please feel free to e-mail me at sardar@durrani.com Sincerely, Sardar Durrani
| | | | In This Week's Issue: USCIS
Implements New Customer Service System
USCIS
Fee Increases to Take Effect April 30, 2004
AILA
Responds to Pending USCIS Fee Increases
Court
Decision Helps Illegal Workers
TSC
H-1B Errors Being Corrected
May
Visa Bulletin Available
Nebraska Service
Center's Processing Times Report Available
USCIS
Implements New Customer Service System You may read about the updates in their
case status system in .pdf form here
and read a general factsheet about the improvements here.
USCIS
Fee Increases to Take Effect April 30, 2004; Fee
Adjustment Chart Available The USCIS is scheduled to publish a
regulation on April 15, 2004 that will indicate proposed
fee increases, raising most immigration fees approximately
26%, will go into effect around April 30, 2004. You can
examine each filing's fee increase in .pdf form here.
Some examples of the proposed increases
worry pro-immigration activists, who fear they will add
additional burdens to the already-heavy load immigrants
carry when coming to the United States. The fees for starting
the naturalization process, for example, would jump from
$310 to $390 and fees to acquire a certificate of citizenship
for a child would increase from around $190 to nearly
$240. For a couple seeking naturalization for themselves
and certificates of citizenship for their two children,
their fees would jump from a total of $1000 to $1260.
For the nearly 41% of Mexican and Central
American immigrants who have annual incomes of less than
$25,000, the increase will be especially hard to match.
Government officials said the hike is
necesary to cover the costs of new national security measures,
improved refugee processing, naturalization services for
immigrant military personnel and the new Office of Citizenship,
among other things. The citizenship office will continue
to consider fee waivers for needy eligible applicants,
officials said.
AILA
Responds to Pending USCIS Fee Increases After the USCIS announced on April
15th that it would implement fee increases across the
board, AILA released a memo saying that immigrant fee
increases were not the answer to the current problems
in USCIS administration. Read the full AILA memo below. Statement of the American Immigration
Lawyers Association (AILA) on USCIS Fee Increase The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration
Services (USCIS) bureau of the Department of Homeland
Security today issued regulations which will increase
some immigration application fees by over 55 percent,
becoming effective April 30, 2004 . Contrary to a statement
by USCIS Director Eduardo Aguirre that increased fees
will enhance USCIS' service, fees will not solve the current
problems that USCIS faces. While Mr. Aguirre has indicated
that this fee increase will help them to meet their current
processing challenges, in fact the increase will allow
them to barely continue to tread water. What are needed
are direct Congressional appropriations to supplement
user fees, a long-standing position held by AILA. Adjudications
are as much in the national interest as enforcement, and
thus merit this direct and reliable source of funding.
USCIS services play a vital role in our nation's national
security by identifying who is allowed into the country
and who uses USCIS resources. Fee-based funding does not
work for American security, American families, or for
American businesses. Everyone is aware of the steady decline
in USCIS' services. Mr. Aguirre has acknowledged those
problems, but his solution goes in the wrong direction,
flying in the face of what should have been learned in
the past years of processing backlogs. These backlogs
today have reached crisis proportions, delaying business
transactions and separating families for months and years.
In addition, the bureau continues to waste its limited
resources revisiting issues already resolved and harassing
honest petitioners with requests for paperwork unrelated
to their immigration eligibility. USCIS' newly implemented
toll-free number, the public's only available avenue to
resolve government errors and problems, has been a failure
in that regard, with immigrants and attorneys alike highly
critical of the contractor-run program. Making matters
worse, the fee increases will be used to fund a study
on the effectiveness of the 1-800 number service - which
we already know to be a failure - to pay for costs of
court cases the Service has lost, and to fund support
positions that previously were funded through direct Congressional
appropriations. AILA calls on Congress and the Administration
to learn from the past. They need to step up to the plate
and change how they fund adjudications by directly appropriating
funds to supplement user fees. The current funding system
is deeply flawed and needs to be changed. Increased immigration
application fees will not do the job. Fixing an overburdened
system needs serious attention and serious funding. Court
Decision Helps Illegal Workers The U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals
in San Francisco Tuesday strengthened cases for undocumented
workers who file claims against employers, making it unlikely
for their illegal status to be used against them when
trying to collect damages. The decision evens out a 2002 U.S. Supreme
Court decision that denied backpay to an illegal immigrant
who was fired for organizing a union. Immigrant advocates
say that some employers have used the ruling to intimidate
workers, telling them that their illegal status would
make it impossible to collect damages if they were fired.
Under Tuesday's ruling, employers facing charges from
wrongly-terminated employees cannot ask about a worker's
immigration status in hopes of blocking damages.
"Granting employers the right to inquire into workers'
immigration status in cases like this would allow them
to raise implicitly the threat of deportation and criminal
prosecution every time a worker, documented or undocumented,
reports illegal practices," Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote
in the ruling. Reinhardt said such inquiries would discourage
workers from coming forward, and "countless acts of illegal
and reprehensible conduct would go unreported."
The case involved a California manufacturer of irrigation
equipment that fired 23 Latino and Asian workers after
they failed to pass a test administered in English. Workers
brought a suit for wrongful termination, saying their
firings were discriminatory because English wasn't necessary
to perform the job.
Attorneys for the manufacturer pressed the former workers
for details about their immigration status, arguing that
if the workers were in the country illegally, they shouldn't
be entitled to back pay or other remedies, making their
claims moot.
The workers' attorneys at the Legal Aid Society obtained
an order from a lower court to stop the questioning of
immigration status. That order was upheld Tuesday.
"This removes a huge sword that hangs over undocumented
workers when they want to assert their rights," Christopher
Ho, a Legal Aid Society attorney, said. "It says that
[the Supreme Court ruling] does not authorize a fishing
expedition into people's backgrounds to dig up dirt."
TSC
H-1B Errors Being Corrected The Texas Service
Center (TSC) is aware of the flood of rejections of H-1Bs
filed after April 1, 2004, with proposed start dates of
October 1, 2004, or later. TSC acknowledges that these
rejections were in error and urges people to re-file immediately.
Mail room employees have been told not to reject an H-1B
filing that has a start date on the I-129 of October 1,
2004 or later, as long as that start date is not more
than six months from the filing date. May
Visa Bulletin Available The Department of State's monthly visa
numbers bulletin for May is available.
You may read the bulletin here. Nebraska
Service Center's Processing Times Report Available A report from the NSC detailing processing
times for various petitions was made available on April
15, 2004. You may read the report in .pdf form
here.
| 
