USCIS Revises Filing Instructions for Petitions to Remove Conditions on Residence

[I'm Gone 60]

http://www.uscis.gov/files/article/USCISUp...751_25aug08.pdf

WASHINGTON— U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today it has revised the filing instructions for the Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence (Form I-751). Effective immediately, all petitioners filing a Form I-751 must file with the California or Vermont Service Center, depending on the state in which they reside.

Petitioners who live in Alaska, American Samoa, Arizona, California, Colorado, Guam, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming must file their Forms I-751 with the California Service Center:

USCIS California Service Center

P.O. Box 10751

Laguna Niguel, CA 92607-1075

Petitioners who live in Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, U.S. Virgin Islands, and West Virginia must file their Forms I-751 with the Vermont Service Center:

USCIS Vermont Service Center

75 Lower Welden St.

P.O. Box 200

St. Albans, VT 05479-0001

Beginning September 24, 2008, USCIS will only accept the revised form dated August 25, 2008, and will reject previous versions of the form as well as petitions filed with the incorrect Service Center.

Please contact the National Customer Service Center at (800) 375-5283 for more information.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

So there you have the reason why CSC is faster than VSC in processing I-751s - volume! CSC receives the applications from 26 States and territories - including the least populated states in the country, while VSC receives the applications from 29 states and territories including virtually all of the most densely populated states. I really am curious to know how they came up with that division.

[GregS 0]

When you look at actual population per state, they probably would still work out roughly the same, considering CSC has the largest state.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Actually - I did that. I took the percentage of populations for each of the states adjudicated by CSC and totaled them - California handles 44.05% of the population based on States and territories - which means that VSC handles 55.95% of the workload. That works if it is based on population. CSC handles caseload from 4 of the top 10 most populated states (California, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan) which provides 25.2 % of the population; VSC handles caseloads from 6 of the most populated states (Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina) which equals 30.35% of the population including some of the most industrialized areas which would provide heavy employment based application workloads. I still say that the division of labour is unequal and that is part of why VSC is so swamped with work they can't process it in a reasonable time. I will admit that there is also a good degree of inefficiency involved as well.

Source of population figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._...s_by_population

[russian_armenian 4]

I have read somewhere that CSC staffed much better than any other office. They just have more people working there; here is the speed of the process.

Actually - I did that. I took the percentage of populations for each of the states adjudicated by CSC and totaled them - California handles 44.05% of the population based on States and territories - which means that VSC handles 55.95% of the workload. That works if it is based on population. CSC handles caseload from 4 of the top 10 most populated states (California, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan) which provides 25.2 % of the population; VSC handles caseloads from 6 of the most populated states (Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina) which equals 30.35% of the population including some of the most industrialized areas which would provide heavy employment based application workloads. I still say that the division of labour is unequal and that is part of why VSC is so swamped with work they can't process it in a reasonable time. I will admit that there is also a good degree of inefficiency involved as well.

Source of population figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._...s_by_population

[l.j./1999 1]

While VSC might be handling more cases now, they only started handling TSC's caseload in December 2007. Yet they have had an extreme slowdown while still processing cases from Aug/Sept 2007. How much slower will it get when they get to Dec 2007 cases??? Perhaps it is more a case of prioritizing other applications? *sigh*

[AussieDude 0]

I have read somewhere that CSC staffed much better than any other office. They just have more people working there; here is the speed of the process.

Actually - I did that. I took the percentage of populations for each of the states adjudicated by CSC and totaled them - California handles 44.05% of the population based on States and territories - which means that VSC handles 55.95% of the workload. That works if it is based on population. CSC handles caseload from 4 of the top 10 most populated states (California, Illinois, Ohio, Michigan) which provides 25.2 % of the population; VSC handles caseloads from 6 of the most populated states (Texas, New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina) which equals 30.35% of the population including some of the most industrialized areas which would provide heavy employment based application workloads. I still say that the division of labour is unequal and that is part of why VSC is so swamped with work they can't process it in a reasonable time. I will admit that there is also a good degree of inefficiency involved as well.

Source of population figures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._...s_by_population

I think there's also an experience issue. CSC seems to approve applications more reasonably than VSC, ie burden of evidence seems more reasonable, based on the anecdotal evidence of the RFEs being sent out by VSC. I think the CSC officers seem to be more realistic about what kind of evidence to expect.

[Dakine 26]

The I-751 form was revised also on 08/25/2008.