The Case Redistribution Plan to Reduce Processing Delays - how will it be done?

[N400NYC 380]

As reported earlier this week, USCIS is implementing a plan to transfer some citizenship cases to other field offices to reduce processing delays in the most heavily affected offices. As of yesterday, all of the field offices in the northeastern region - Maryland through to Maine - had a notice indicating as such. 

 

Any theories as to how they will do this? Will they focus on the backlogged cases and transfer those? Or transfer the newer cases to other field offices so the primary office can work on the backlog? How long do you think before we start to see this happen on a wider scale within each region (as opposed to the isolated cases we have seen in recent weeks/months)?

 

Also, if a case gets transferred to another field office, does the estimated case completion time automatically change to match the prediction for that particular field office where the case is now being managed?

[Dashinka 24,508]

I wonder that myself..

 

 

Edited June 22, 2019 by Bill & Katya

[Dashinka 24,508]

Apologies, I was going to point you to the other thread, then realized you started that one as well.  I would hope they focus on backlogged cases as priority.

[N400NYC 380]

Just now, Bill & Katya said:

Apologies, I was going to point you to the other thread, then realized you started that one as well.  I would hope they focus on backlogged cases as priority.

That would be the most fair approach. But we shall see as "fairness" doesn't seem to be a guiding principal in many phases of this process. 

[Jeanne Adil 1,651]

back in October 2014 Nebraska had had our case 10 months

they transfered it to Missouri for faster processing which was a laugh as it took 5 almost 6 more months

from what happened to our case i am assuming they will transfer the older cases for processing

after all it wouldn't be fair to transfer newer cases and let them get go thru the system faster

just my opinion 

[N400NYC 380]

32 minutes ago, adil-rafa said:

after all it wouldn't be fair to transfer newer cases and let them get go thru the system faster

 

 I agree, I just don't think that's always a governmental consideration though when it comes to immigration matters...

[carmel34 3,633]

5 hours ago, N400NYC said:

Also, if a case gets transferred to another field office, does the estimated case completion time automatically change to match the prediction for that particular field office where the case is now being managed?

The idea of the USCIS redistribution is to even out processing times, so those that are less busy and faster now will become longer, and those with big backlogs will become shorter.  So in theory, processing time estimates will become the same regardless of the field office assigned the case.  Sounds like a good goal but a difficult thing to implement unless their antiquated systems catch up to the private sector.

[afrocraft 313]

I obviously don't know how it'll be done but what makes the most sense intuitively: A field office first picks a target processing time (say, 6 months). It retains those cases that are roughly on track to meet that target. Then it reassigns those just outside of the target (say, 6-9 months) to other offices with spare capacity. It also retains all new applications.

 

Review every month or so, rinse and repeat.

[Dashinka 24,508]

I think it really depends on the workloads in the offices that are proximate to each other.  I am not sure that any office will re-prioritize all their cases, but if they have more capacity, I would think the end result would be beneficial to those transferred.

[RamonGomez 271]

I think this may, in the best case scenario, help to equalize waits.

 

Kind of like at the supermarket, there's the (1) one line per each register setups or the (2) one long line for all the registers. The second scenario basically makes everyone's wait time the same. The first one lets some people fly through, while others wait forever while some old dude writes a check to pay and argues about the price of desonex.

Edited June 23, 2019 by RamonGomez

[N400NYC 380]

7 hours ago, RamonGomez said:

I think this may, in the best case scenario, help to equalize waits.

 

Kind of like at the supermarket, there's the (1) one line per each register setups or the (2) one long line for all the registers. The second scenario basically makes everyone's wait time the same. The first one lets some people fly through, while others wait forever while some old dude writes a check to pay and argues about the price of desonex.

I think it should have always been this way (#2) - that is the only fair approach. It shouldn't be the case (with all other case factors being equal) that some people get an interview in 2-3 months while others are left waiting in the wilderness of silence for >12 months. It really baffles me that USCIS allowed this imbalance to develop in the first place - it would seem like basic organizational efficiency to aim for a universal wait time rather than having processing times varying dramatically across >80 field offices.