Number crunching letter to senators

[Collie 122]

Fellow VJers, I know that everyone is frustrated with USCIS and I decided to do a little number crunching today to include in my letter to my senators and congress. If you want to use the body of the letter for your own use, please feel free to do so, but I think that it is worth taking a look at the bullet points. It makes me even more appalled and frustrated with USCIS. I apologize if the formatting in the letter is weird. It is copied and pasted from a Word document.

I know that y'all are filing for spouses and I am filing for my parents, but ultimately we are filing the same petition and being thrown together, so in my eyes there is no difference. Hopefully this is helpful to y'all that are still waiting, especially those who filed in Feb/March.

Dear Senator Cruz,

I reached out to you by letter on August 4^th 2013 to request assistance with a pending immigration case (I-130 petition for an immediate relative), that I have filed on behalf of my parents. The I-130 petitions for xxx and xxx were filed with a priority date of March 28th 2013.

The receipt numbers are xxx and xxx.

On November 14^th 2013, I received a notice of action from USCIS stating that both cases had been transferred from the National Benefits Center to the Nebraska Service Center in order to “facilitate more timely processing”, (Please see enclosed). The letter also stated that if I did not receive a decision within 60 days, I should contact customer service. The 60 days deadline will come to fruition on 1/13/2014 and I still have not heard of any advancement on the pending petitions.

When I called USCIS customer service on 1/3/14, I was advised that my petition was still within normal processing times and that petitions were being processed with a priority date of February 13^th, 2013. This is a disturbing figure as according to the USCIS government website, petitions approximately 30 days prior in September 2013, were being processed with a priority date of February 12^th, 2013. This is equal to an advancement of one day within the space of a month and is simply unacceptable.

Additionally, the volume of petitions that are in limbo nationally and at service centers around the USA is increasing by the day, but despite USCIS statements where they claim to be putting all efforts into facilitating more timely processing, the actual figures published by USCIS do not reflect this.

I have illustrated these figures below in bullet-point form to support my concerns. Please note that the most recent data published is from October 2013.

• The National goal to process an I-130 petition from start to finish is 5 months, yet the national average claims to be 8.7 months. If USCIS are only processing from February 2013 at a time of January 2014, this average is false. A more representative average would be approximately 11.5 months just to get the petition approved and moved to the National Visa Center.
• The current number of pending I-130 petitions sitting in the system that have not received adjudication is 379,068. Between September 2013 and October 2013, the number of pending cases increased by 6%.
• Between February 2013 to October 2013, the case-load increased by 60%.
• In contrast the volume of petitions that were adjudicated nationally was 7%.
• Nebraska service center showed an adjudication rate as of October 2013 of 1.6% which was equal to a mere 10.8 applications being completed daily. Compared to the 20,358 pending at the Nebraska Service Center, this is simply unacceptable.
• Texas service center had an even more appalling completion rate of 0.27% of all petitions pending. An average of 0.68 petitions was processed daily. This means that they did not even complete ANY applications on some days during the month of October 2013.

Even more disturbing is the fact that USCIS is holding $159 MILLION dollars in processing fees from petitioners. Considering the facts that I have stated above, I am appalled that these people at USCIS are being paid and holding US citizen’s money to ransom when they are not even doing the job that they are being paid for.

I am a member of an online immigration forum where it has been observed that USCIS are now attempting to adjudicate petitions out of priority date order in an effort to portray shorter processing times. This manipulation of data does not reflect the reality in that the real processing time is at least 11.5 months.

I urge you, on behalf of myself and my fellow United State citizens who have petitioned for their immigrant relative to investigate why petitions are not being adjudicated by USCIS in a timely manner, in accordance with honoring their legal obligation as outlined in section 201(b) of the Immigration and National Act. This act was put in place to put all I-130 petitions as a priority above others in an effort to reunite foreign relatives living abroad with their United States Citizen family member.

I am aware that you are a family-oriented person and I am certain that you can appreciate the emotional turmoil and stress that separation from family can cause.

I appreciate your time and assistance in any information that can be provided with this case.

Sincerely,

xxx

Phone: xxx

Email: xxx

[camden 20]

Brilliant and cohesive. I'll definitely utilize your letter. Thanks for sharing.

[Kaylara 814]

Now THAT is an excellent letter.

Some things for you to read, because this is exactly the argument we're going to get back: http://www.dhs.gov/telecon-recap-application-processing-times-conversation-uscis-office-performance-and-quality

And also check out: http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/ilink/docView/PUBLAW/HTML/PUBLAW/0-0-0-22204.html Title 2 which includes this little tidbit:

(b) POLICY- It is the sense of Congress that the processing of an immigration benefit application should be completed not later than 180 days after the initial filing of the application, except that a petition for a nonimmigrant visa under section 214© of the Immigration and Nationality Act should be processed not later than 30 days after the filing of the petition.

And then all those things that are supposed to keep the USCIS accountable at the end.

[Collie 122]

Good links - Thanks!

Anything that supports keeping USCIS accountable is helpful.

[DvMan 49]

I used your letter as a template and emailed Senator John Cornyn of Texas last night, but I really think congress could care less...its all about politics...and DACA...we are just left out.

[domwardbound 73]

A good letter for sure - worth a shot.

However, my experience from contacting Texas senators is that they won't do much, if anything. Sen. Cornyn responded just saying that USCIS is backed up (I don't think he even contacted USCIS), and I haven't heard anything back from Sen. Cruz. My representative was most helpful, as he at least contacted USCIS and gave me information.

I don't think that the Senator/Representative route is some sort of magic wand, unfortunately.

[thedude6752000 360]

We need to do another mass email/fax blast this coming 16th or the day after whatever the new stats come out.

[Collie 122]

In my last round of emails/faxes/letters, Ted Cruz' office was actually the first to respond. I got a phone call from them, so I can't be harsh on him as a senator...at least not too much

I agree that another round of mass emails/letters/faxes is warranted. Senator Cornyn's office also got a fax from me this morning, as did Congresswoman Kay Granger.

Its all about strength in numbers. You have to keep fighting for what you know is right.

[oreos1984 1]

I filled for i 130 was tranfered to Nebraska November 14 ..just approved today hang in there your next!!! Good luck

[anuspras 65]

I filled for i 130 was tranfered to Nebraska November 14 ..just approved today hang in there your next!!! Good luck

Congrats!!! Please fill in your time line.... Not many have noticed this post of yours.... Since you are a April filer would be great if you could post your approval in the April thread as well.... I have updated your details in the April spread sheet... All the very best in your journey ahead!!!