Letter to House Judiciary Committee on delays of I-130

[naam_2013 72]

Hi Fellow VJers,

I want to send the following letter to the the chairman house judiciary committee and others (see below). One of the responsibilities of this committee is the oversight of the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security "http://judiciary.house.gov/about/welcome.html".

I want to send (email, fax, snail mail) this letter on Tuesday 11/12/2013. I want as many of you to join me in this effort - this is like the pulling of rope in "tug of war", 100 letters within 2 days will have more effect than 100 letters in 10 days.

This letter is not my original work, I took most of the verbiage from the petition "http://uscgreencardpetitionerscommittee.blogspot.com/"; so I want to give the credit to those who wrote the original petition.

{

To: Mr. Bob Goodlatte – Chairman House Judiciary Committee

From: US Citizens unfairly treated by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

Subject: Failure of the USCIS Executive Leadership - Separation of US citizens from their foreign spouses for almost 2 years

Date: November 12, 2013

Mr. Chairman:

Due to the failure of executive leadership at the USCIS, I and several thousands of US Citizens have been separated from our spouses for many months, and unless House Judiciary Committee takes swift action now, we will remain apart for an unbearable length of time.

The USCIS is now reporting that the average national processing time for petitions for spouses of US Citizens’ green cards, the I-130s, is 11+ months. Please note that this length of time does not include the US Department of State’s processing time for a visa. Adding that time, we are now facing separation from our spouses, for almost two years.

Misleading statements like the following, from USCIS, falsely led us to believe that applying for the K-3 would not be necessary:

The K-3 visa was intended to reunite families separated due to a backlog in I-130 adjudications. However, I-130s are no

longer backlogged and are currently being processed in under 6 months. Therefore, USCIS does not, at this time plan to

implement a new policy on the K-3 visa petition process. (pp. 8-9, “USCIS-AILA Meeting”)

This statement was made on April 11, 2013 when USCIS had already drastically slowed I-130 adjudications.

On the surface, our government appears to support family unification. We note, that upon announcing the “Provisional Waiver” program, then-Secretary of Homeland Security Napolitano said:

This final rule facilitates the legal immigration process and reduces the amount of time that US citizens

Are separated from their immediate relatives who are in the process of obtaining an immigrant

visa. (January 2, 2013).

But in fact, the policy that she announced has produced an effect opposite to the goal that Secretary Napolitano proudly cites.

We maintain that our government is maltreating our spouses and us, and is probably not meeting its legal obligations. According to federal law, adjudicating residency petitions of US citizens, for their foreign spouses who are living abroad, must be a top priority of USCIS, in the interest of unifying our families. Our government's recent actions do not accord with this requirement.

We have suspected that I-130 petitions routed to the new NBC Division 8 facility, in Overland Park, Kansas, have been stockpiling, with few exceptions. We knew that adjudications of our petitions slowed considerably since the beginning of this year.

We knew this because many hundreds of us have reported our petitions' filing and adjudication dates (NOA1s and NOA2s) to each other.

At least until our cohort of January 2013 filers, the median number of days between an NOA1 and NOA2 for adjudicated I-130s, had consistently been 90 days. Our data showed that something significant had changed after January. By June we saw that fewer and fewer of our petitions were being adjudicated within those 90 days. As of today – nine months since March – a vast majority (around 88%) of our I-130 petitions filed in March remain un-adjudicated.

We humbly request that the House Judiciary Committee looks into this matter and take swift action against those in the management of USCIS who allow these petitions to keep piling up, month after month, keeping us from our families.

Sincerely,

<first name last name of petitioner> (Citizen of the United States separated from his beloved spouse)

CC:

Director USCIS: Alejandro Mayorkas

Deputy Director USCIS: Lori Scialabba

Brandi Blackburn, Assistant Center Director for NBC Division 8 in Overland Park, KS

Office of Administration-USCIS; Director: Nancy W. Guilliams

Secretary DHS: Randy Beers

Washington Post

AILA

Fox News (Sean Hannity)

}

The VJ system did not allow me to upload the file in docx format, it has the right text format.

I request my fellow VJers to join me in sending this letter on 11/12 to all the above listed.

I already have the contact information of some of those, and will post it later in this thread.

Please provide feedback ASAP so any changes necessary will take place by noon (CT) on 11/11.

Thank you.

[etrangais 947]

I'm with you!

[Pitaya 2,577]

~Moved from IR1/CR1 Progress to General Immigration-Related Discussion Forum~

~Not a IR1/CR1 Progress Report issue~

[Sulaimon & Brandy 20]

Im in even though we just filed I'll participate.

[NoelAnne 62]

We're in!

[Mr.&Mrs.EMB 55]

In

[Ana&Sean 5]

im in

[del-2-5-2014 1,339]

They wont won't know what noa1 or noa2 is.

[scienceworks 64]

They wont won't know what noa1 or noa2 is.

Agree

[geniams 6]

I'M IN

[Rwlaird 18]

Good luck. My issue is not exactly the same but generally the committee needs to look closer at all legal immigration processes during this immigration debate.

[Karmalicious 60]

You can count me in as well. Can we each send two? One from us and one from our spouse at the same address?

[VolcarSS 2]

I am fully on board, however, I would strongly recommend that the National Visa Center (NVC) be included in your letter somehow as they are just as bad if not worst than USCIS.

[mksobe 31]

I'm down for this... I filed in May and so far nothing. It is very frustrating to hear that my fellow March filers are waiting and it makes me worried about my case as well.

Can this be addressed to congressmen/women? Because they usually coordinate to expedite some cases.

[Shamroz Kadiwal 4]

I filled in march and haven't got the update yet. I am in guys.