Leadership Journal: Exciting Changes at USCIS

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Exciting Changes at USCIS

As the new Director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, I’d like to take a moment to introduce myself to readers of the Leadership Journal and to share a few thoughts with you about my vision for our agency, some of the principles that will guide our efforts, and some exciting changes underway that will help us better serve the public.

I came to the United States in 1960, having fled Cuba with my parents and my sister. I was later granted citizenship through the beneficence of the United States government. I understand deeply the gravity as well as the nobility of our mission at USCIS: to administer our country’s immigration laws efficiently and with fairness, honesty, and integrity.

I believe there are four principles that should help us define how we work. First, we must be a customer-focused agency, always mindful of the needs and views of those who seek our services. To this end, we must actively solicit input and feedback from stakeholders and the public so that a variety of views inform our decisions. Second, we must be good and careful stewards of taxpayer resources, cutting costs and improving efficiency wherever possible. Third, we must be transparent in our efforts; the public deserves and is entitled to know how we operate and what our successes and our challenges are. And finally, we must strive for consistency in our operations so that the services we provide meet the same high standards regardless of where they are sought.

Today our agency took a major step forward to put these ideas into action. After much hard work, including substantial feedback from the public, we launched a new and vastly improved USCIS.gov website. This new one-stop-shop will provide a range of tools and features for those looking for information, including case status updates. For example:

The site features a My Case Status tool that allows users to type in a receipt number and find out what processing step their case is in, how that fits into the overall process, and what the local case processing times are.
A National Dashboard that allows the public to compare national processing volumes and trends and download raw data.
A better search engine so it is easier to find what a user is looking for.
New options to receive status updates via email or text alerts.

This new website reflects our commitment at USCIS to continually improve how we do business. It is one of many changes in the works that will help us be a more effective, transparent, and responsive agency. Stay tuned for more to come. In the meantime, I hope you find the new site useful.

Alejandro Mayorkas
Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services

Labels: citizenship, USCIS

243 Comments:

Thanks for the update Alejandro! Are there any plans afoot to ease visa number retrogression, so H1B's with approved I-140's can file their I-485's (and their spouses apply for EAD etc)? Even a little light at the end of the tunnel would be nice. Thanks!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 1:55 PM
Thanks for the update but the key information that has been promised is missing.

The promise was that the I-485 Employment based green card pending applications data will be published with country of origin, EB category details.

Without this information, DOS can't set the Visa Bulletin accurately. Without this information, applicants have no idea how long they need to wait. Without this information, this is no transparent and accountability. It's really unfair to all hard working tax paying EB applicants.

This data was first promised in July and then Sept. 22. What a disappointment!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 2:53 PM
It will be better to post more detailed information regarding how many applications waiting by country based on different category to be more transparent.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:00 PM
Dear Mr. Mayorkas,

I appreciate your effort in making USCIS website more informative and user friendly. However, the newly designed website doesn't release any useful information to those of us who are desperately waiting on 485 approvals.

The only data that is provided are aggregate data of all countries. This information is of zero use to 485 applicants from India and China, whose waiting queues are very long. We are waiting and waiting. No end in sight. We want to know how many EB2, EB3 applicants are waiting for approval per country of origin. The rest of the world (EB2) don't need the per country number since they have available visa numbers.

This is a really simple matter. Just release the backlog on India and China. People from these two countries are experience serious pain waiting on Employment-based 485 applications.

Thank you.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:02 PM
Where are the details of I485?

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:15 PM
I am a US citizen married to a Polish immigrant who is resident in Poland. He left voluntarily and overstayed his visitor visa therefore having a 10 yr bar against him. We were denied his waiver. You talk about fairness. First we scare immigrants so that they don't want to do it the legal way then we charge them enormous amounts of money to go legal He was working and paying taxes and the US gov't never did anything about itthey just took his money. Felons get paroled after a couple of years, but my husband hasn't done anything like that except work the whole time he was here in the US. Why shouldn't he be paroled? The only way it seems that the US will allow him here is if I open a vein to commit suicide or get a terminal disease. What kind of compassion is the US showing to their own citizens??

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:31 PM
Excellent work. Thanks

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:31 PM
Always USCIS has worked very efficiently,but It would be greater if EB3 ROW moves forward.its been stuck in zigzag fashion since many years.
Thanks.

By zeb, At September 22, 2009 3:31 PM
I am a biological researcher holding Indian citizenship and waiting on my green card from 2005 in EB2 NIW category. Most of my friends from India with the same qualification as mine and applied under the same category as me got their green cards more than two years ago. I am still waiting, why this bias? Whenever I contacted USCIS I got the same reply “Waiting for visa numbers”, if it is true how my friends got their GC?

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:33 PM
website does not do any good for the customers there are cases that have been approved in last 6 months but website and phone line used to state received and pending , was hoping new website will show the correct status, but that shows as Initail review there are tons of cases approved but being shwon as Initial review

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:33 PM
In my opinion, it is simply a website packed with totally old statistics. There is no country based info at all.
In last year, only around 1000 Chinese EB3 got approved. Tons of quota got wasted, while thousands of families are suffering because of USCIS' mistakes. This is unforgivable and we will take legal action if no improvements soon.

By law, At September 22, 2009 3:33 PM
Please look on to EB3 Visa,past 4 years EB3 never moved forward except zig zaging between April 2001 & Nov 2001.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:34 PM
Dear Sir/Madam

When USCIS pointed to this re-design, one of the statement said that it would include "Enhanced customer service tools including expanded Case Status Online" . However, what I see is only a cosmetic change in the way the information is presented. The real information is still as outdated and non-user friendly as it previously was. I can say this for sure as I have a couple of case that were approved last year but they are still being shown as Pending. What I would like to see for a given case is what all stages/verifications etc. the case has to go through for approval/denial and from those, at what stage is my case currently at .

Other things that I have noticed so far

- we had the ability to download a printer-friendly case detail which is no longer there.
- we had the ability to download a printer-friendly portfolio which is also no longer there.

I am really sorry to point out that I am disappointed as this doesn't have much change to offer so far but at the same time, I am quite optimistic that this feedback would be taken in right spirit for continuous improvements.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:41 PM
The data for each country should be listed separately, especially for Mainland China and India.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:43 PM
Mr. Majorkas, your efforts for the new website can only be compared to putting lipstick on swine. Your agency together with the DOL should be glaring examples of what Customer Service should not be like for any public service agency. So save the Kudos to yourself and please act on things that make a difference like improving processing, have uniformity in judgement and most importantly, tell you co-workers to kep it moving.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:45 PM
The lump sum number of worldwide I485 cases is totally meaningless. Numbers of I485 cases for each country should be listed separately, especially for Mainland China and India

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:46 PM
Congratulations on a site that has a new look and feel. Information is definitely better organized and easy to access on the new site.
The trends/volumes depiction is also good to show the progress being made by USCIS on the case volume at hand.
The one shortcoming is the case status page. There is nothing new that is presented on the new site that was not already known on the old site. Also, the statuses shown on the case status page are different from the statuses shown on the trends/volumes page.
I hope you have open channel to engage the USCIS customers and keep making improvements to all the services offered by your agency.
Keep up the good work.
-Sree

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:46 PM
Dear Mr. Mayorkas,

I really appreciate your effort to change the culture of USCIS. The changed made are a step forward. However, I must say that I am greatly disappointed. For example, for 485 pending, the numbers and trends are useless and meaningless to any applicant without details about nationality, prioirty date, catogories of the pending cases.

Thank you,

-Daniel

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:50 PM
Dear Sir/Madam

When USCIS pointed to this re-design, one of the statement said that it would include "Enhanced customer service tools including expanded Case Status Online" .
But the new site whows the same ting in a different way, The data is not proper. All wrong info about the cases. We were counting for the Sept. 22nd. But all are sad to see a site like this. All I can see is adding the details to our cell phones. Tell me sir, Who needs that? We only needs the updated and correct details of our cases. No body needs any beauty works 'cause all spend money and hope. I think you could understand this!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:54 PM
To be fair, the website does look better. I look forward to testing the improved search functionality in due course.

However, as one wit put it: "A pig with lipstick is still a pig."

The information available to I-140 & I-485 applicants still lacks the granularity needed. There are c. 180,000 people who are preajudicated, but no information at an individual level as to who is preadjudicated. I don't believe it is too much to ask that this status could have been reflected in the new "ball" system.

Similarly, there is no granularity in splitting reports out between EB vs FB, at EB category level and EB country within an EB category.

The trend graphs are very welcome but there needs to be the possibility to extract information at a more detailed level.

If there are plans to enhance the functionality over coming weeks/months, please make the effort to communicate this to the users of the system.

As it is, actual users of the system cannot help but see it as a waste of money, that would have been better spent on improving USCIS efficiency.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 3:56 PM
I do not see how the so-called National Dashboard will benefit the public: no country, no 485 type,no PD, etc – basically, the public still have no clue where they are in the process queue!!!!

I assume the immigration policy was much open and clear back in 1960. Do not say you “understand deeply …” if you did not go through the same frustration as today's applicants had been through – they never know how many people are in front of them in the pool and how many more years that they have to wait for someone actually to touch their cases … like a blind in the dark for ever!!!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:01 PM
When is the Visa Recapture Bill going to be passed?

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:02 PM
We are glad you will be the director or USCIS. We hope USCIS may provide better service for us under your leadership.

I learn USCIS will post the detail I-485 data today (9/22). However, I did not see any detail I-485 data.

At the same time, Chinese EB3 priority date retrogress seriously. However, Chinese EB3 did not reach its 7% contry quotation (less than 900) in 2008. From unconfirmed resource, the situation is much worse than last year.

Could you please shine some light on these issues? We appreciate your effort!

By Jed, At September 22, 2009 4:03 PM
All we need is to get update information.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:08 PM
Please don't waste our taxpers' money on the website. Instead direct money to expedite the approval of I-485 so that no more visa numbers will be lost.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:10 PM
It would be great if you can provide data by country to decide waiting time for I-485 approval.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:10 PM
Simply useless - doesn't give any meaningful information about applicant's case status.

Applicants are waiting for years and still USCIS Texas Service center cannot process cases in order of priority date or received date. The responses given to service requests are from standard templates.

Please stop wasting our money and do some real work. Otherwise find other job. There should be some accountability for USCIS work.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:13 PM
Please understand the pain of people who fall under Employment Based I-485 EB-2/EB-3 category from India and China. They are paying all the taxes required by the government and still waiting in queue for years.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:23 PM
The web site looks good! More substance in solving the retrogression needs to be evaluated and corrective action needs to be implemented. In the past US used to be a nation that kept brain power from other countries.....If the retrogression continues ...may immigrants might choose to return to thier home countries.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:23 PM
Dishing out NONSENSE is what USCIS is good at. I have no lofty expectations from USCIS that is a barometer for inefficiency. We all know how they (USCIS, DOL... etc. who knows..) wasted all those unused Visas over the years that has made the green card wait a big problem. USCIS, DOL, Immigration Dept. of the Govt. or any other entity related directly or indirectly with such matters are inefficient at best. For example, when they increased the number of H1Bs from 65,000 to 195,000, a 3 fold increase back in the late 90s and early 2000s, did anyone think of increasing the quota of green cards by at least a factor of 2, if not 3, to compensate for the potential increase in green card applications due to enhanced H1B visas being issued. So much for having forethought and being proactive. They are good at collecting money for renewals of EADs, APs and H1Bs - that is all. It is purely business for them

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:30 PM
Mr. Mayorkas, thank you for your message. With due respect, I want to encourage you to keep communicating with the audience in the future through this Journal or other online medium.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:35 PM
Thank You for the update. I know you work for petitioners (customers) and not for beneficiaries. Me as a beneficiary is useful when I apply my 485. Changes to the website make little sense for most of us here. We will be more happy when USCIS can treat legally initiated permanent residence throgh sponsorers as humans.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:52 PM
To all the comment posters here, no one except the immigrants with immigration concerns (of which all the comment posters are) are reading this. USCIS, the new director Alejandro Mayorkas included, does not see, hear nor care about our concerns.
The new UI of the website is only to placate the higher ups and give some tangible proof that USCIS is doing something.
If they really wanted to give us hard numbers and be more transparent, they wouldn't need an overhaul of the website UI.
Giving us a "sob story" of being an immigrant from Cuba is a "cheap shot" "pity me" "i'm one of you" attempt to curb our frustrations during this convoluted immigration process. The "sob story" doesn't cut it. If you want our faith and respect, show us some numbers.

***********

"Today our agency took a major step forward to put these ideas into action. After much hard work, including substantial feedback from the public, we launched a new and vastly improved USCIS.gov website."

You LIE Alejandro Mayorkas! You LIE!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:52 PM
Thank you for the update. For sure new site looks better. New GUI is great. However it doesn't serve the promise of improving the customer service. To me it is the same old content in a new packaging. Honestly when USCIS announced 90 day launch for new site, I knew it then that we may just get the new GUI and no new additional useful features coz 90 days are too short of a time to overhaul the site like USCIS.
It may be in your plans to release more useful information packed features for your customers in next release. Here are some of the items that one can focus on for short term that may not require tremendous amount of work and might bring some satisfaction to users.

-A way to know if the application has been pre-adjudicated

-Release the data of all the pending application By Country, By Category, By Priority date.

-A way to know when someone's pending 485 applications would be adjudicated. So that people can plan.

- There are many other initiative that USCIS can take to help make the immigration experience smooth (regardless of the duration)

Thank you and Keep up the great work!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:54 PM
The newly launched USCIS web site is just a shallow re-design of GUI. It does not convey any useful new information.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:55 PM
If this is the final product that you have promised us, than I would say this is nothing more than a cosmetic change.

But I really hope this is just the begining, and you are going to provide the data that we actually expected out of it.

The information that could have been more useful to many people was
1) Preadjudication status at an individual level
2) EB 485 statistics at country and priority date level.

Regards
Sree

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 4:56 PM
Thank you for launching new website. I had great expectations on probability of getting additional information on case status of I-485s, but, unfortunately, the new website is no different from the old one in providng information - neither at a customer case level nor at a national level. All changes appear to be rearrangement of existing content in a new format. However, I am still hoping for a "real change" in providing accurate case status information.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 5:19 PM
I agree with most of the posts, the website looks nice but it still lacks real information and transparency. Just yesterday i saw a video where the President of the United States was talking about the great expectations of the new USCIS; i don't think Obama would be happy to read these posts. I would like to see a respose from the Director. Personally i am really desapointed to know that we are paying more fees just to have the USCIS website look fancy.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 5:27 PM
Hello Mr.Alejandro Mayorkas,

Thanks for connecting with the customers of USCIS and is great to know that the leadership of USCIS is with a immigrant like us and who can better understand our pain.

I am hoping that your leadership will be a boon or gift from God and am sure you will strive to ease our pains who are waiting in EB3 queue for many years now. We all came here with a dream and for a better life but we are now in a situation where we don't know what awaits us after years of waiting in the line.

Please help by reducing the Visa wait times and ease the suffering and uncertainity, we and our kids are subjected to....

Thanks

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 5:38 PM
I am waiting for more detailed information regarding how many applications are in line based on different category and different country as promised. Should we make everything more clear and transparent to petitioners and applicants? From the new site, I really could not see any improvement on case processing.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 5:41 PM
I have a question:
Can you check out expalin only around 1000 Chinese EB3 got approved, even by law Chinese EB3 should be approved around 3500.
Chinese EB-3 had serve backlog for years, what CIS did make the backlog even worse than ever.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 5:51 PM
I couldn't find the 485 pending case details (sorted by PD, by country, by category) as mentioned before the launch of the website. That is the information most needed by everybody.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 5:54 PM
All I need to know is my position in the Green Card Queue based on my Country of Chargeability "China" or "India", Priority Date and Category "EB2" or "EB3".

I didn't see any data from the new website. very disappointed.

By anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:03 PM
I checked the status of my case on the so called "improved website". The info is not different from what i got from the old site. To me, it's useless as before. USCIS spent so much money and time, the end product is dissapointing. By doing so, USCIS shows one more time it does not care about it's customers.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:03 PM
Useless data plus new skin, that is all for the new website!!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:08 PM
The promise was that the I-485 Employment based green card pending applications data will be published with country of origin, EB category details.

Without this information, DOS can't set the Visa Bulletin accurately. Without this information, applicants have no idea how long they need to wait. Without this information, this is no transparent and accountability. It's really unfair to all hard working tax paying EB applicants.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:11 PM
Looks fancy but no more useful information at all.
Please do post 485 pending data per country as you had ever promised.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:15 PM
I've looked at the new website closely and there are certainly improvement. However, as many have pointed out, it can be much better.

The search engine is indeed much improved, now returning relevant and quality search results.

The UI is cleaner and easier to navigate.

The case status page does offer more information than before - the process flow helps people who are not familiar with the overall procedure.

However, if USCIS is willing to do any or all the following in the future, it would be much more useful:

1. Instead of simply providing the total number of pending cases, link the information with country of origin and priority date. This is really the critical piece that will give customers a general idea of when they can expect their case to be processed.

Even a range of PD (within a month or quarter) would be much more helpful to immigrants.

2. Instead of displaying how many cases have been pre-adjudicated, indicate whether the case being checked is one of them.

3. Add status update, instead of replacing the previous one. Also key information such as name checks should be included in the database as well.

4. If a case's PD is current and it is outside the processing window, but hasn't been adjudicated for some unknown reason, enable a function so that the customer may submit an inquiry directly.

USCIS should already have all the information mentioned above, so implementation isn't really the problem.

Hopefully USCIS will review the comments on this site and through other channels, and continue to make the website even better.

By Immigrant, At September 22, 2009 6:18 PM
WE need I-485 Employment based green card pending applications data. Thank you.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:23 PM
What a shame! It took more than 3 months to make a suck webpage without any notable changes. Do you know what information the customer wants to get? It is simple, every customer want to know how long time they need wait, it is simple inquire about the database, given certain category, country, filling time, pull out how many people wait head of that combined set. Our company hand huge data much more than the data in USCIS, it could take less than 2 months to make it perfect. You spend a lot of tax to get such a junk stuff.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:46 PM
I am sure there must be more to follow.. this is just the beginning.. I understand we all are frustrated by long waits.. I have MBA + Computer Engineering with around 15 years of experience but standing in line of EB3 I for years now (since 2003).. I am happy that I still have a job and able to fulfill my kids requirements at least. How many times you got these kind of messages from USCIS director and an opportunity to share the thoughts in the past.. We should give a constructive feedback and assign the priorities..

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 6:55 PM
Thanks for your hard work to change the website color from blue to green.

It would be more helpful if the web site can offer more detail information about EB pending cased by country and category.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 7:06 PM
we can not find more useful information than old webside and hope big improve
thanks
zhonglin

By zhonglin, At September 22, 2009 7:07 PM
My EB2 I-485 case is pending more than 3 years and I even don't know when a decision will be made on my case. The web site even doesn't say where my case it was transferred to. I came to know from Senator's office that my case is at certain local office.

Just a old wine in a new bottle.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 7:09 PM
This updated website is totally useless for our Chinese EB2. No any information regarding how many EB2 are waiting and their PD date. I cannot figure our how long I should wait for my EB2. Very disappointed!

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 7:18 PM
I don't see nationl dashbord, so I'd like to say I don't see big improvement.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 7:19 PM
I don't see national dashboard! Where is the promise?

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 7:25 PM
The new website is bascially same with the old one.

There is no details of I485 cases. We need to know approved # under each categories based on different countries, the status of the case and the approximate waiting time, etc... The new website is nothing new. We got misled.

By Flame, At September 22, 2009 7:49 PM
I didn't see any exciting changes. These changes just like putting old wine in a new bottle.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 8:11 PM
Oh, my dear director, are you really trying to make the information clearer to public, American alien as promised or just a show?

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 8:50 PM
This new website does NOT provide any new substance other than change of its appearance. We WANT to know how LONG we have to wait for the employment based I-485 approval by COUNTRY and by CATEGORY so that our family can plan for our future. Is that So difficulty for USCIS to do?

We have been WAITING, PYAING, AND WAITING PAYING for the past 6 six years. We work hard, pay our TAXES, and we obey the laws while we have been mistreated for so many years. Let us know where our applications are in the line and approximately when they will be processed so that WE CAN PLAN OUR FUTURE FOR OUR LIFE AND OUR CHILDEREN!

Thanks much

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 8:51 PM
SHOW us your ACCOUNTABILITY and RESPONSIBILITY as a reputable government agency, NOT this unsubstantiated website.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 9:03 PM
USCIS director: a pig who want drive talents from India and China out of USA so that Americans could lose more work chances and competence in this world. Nice job, man.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 9:26 PM
Thanks for the update.

However, for the country that boasts having the most advanced information technology, there is simply a lack of transparent information regarding how USCIS and DOS visa office set the cutoff dates on per country basis in EB categories.

This is going to set a bad example of how incompetent the US government has become. The only hardworking one is IRS.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 9:40 PM
Another good example of how a bureaucratic agency wasted tax payers' money and time and still had the guts to claim it as an achievement. Can you just hire someone at least with common sense who understands what people want to know and need to know in this case? Speaking of those pretty charts and lines, a fifth-grade student can do better than that.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 10:29 PM
Mr. Director of USCIS: Is this a joke? You guys never fail to surprise me.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 10:32 PM
Where is FIFO sir?

When your agency posts that their 485 processing times are 2 yrs and the goal is 4 months and there are 485s that are 4 or 5 yrs old and then even when Priority dates are current there is no response except that "you have to wait", it is a little facetious to say the least. Wouldn't you agree sir?

Once again, why can't your agency respect FIFO?
The problem as I see it is that, when you are wrong, there is no consequence to you, but that greatly affects the life of the beneficiary. When that applicant is within the law, and rightfully the beneficiary of an immigrant petition and your agency is incompetent, I think someone needs to be held accountable.

By Anonymous, At September 22, 2009 11:49 PM
please give us some useful information

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:34 AM
Do something to accelerate the case processing. You are not IT company. Do not waste time on website or something else. Just process pending cases!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:02 AM
The new website has been disappointing. It was promised that we will have a detailed view of our case status. Unfortunately, the website shows the sale old vague processing information in a enhanced 6 or 7 circle format. The goal was not to graphically modify the same old vague information. The goal was to show more details of the pending application so we would know exactly where our application is.

I have applied for EB-2 based I-485 and have no clue how many years it is going to take me to get my Green Card. If would be highly beneficial to show the pending I-485 application based on Priority Dates, Country of chargeability and which category (EB-1, EB-2, EB-3). Telling us that there are 600,000 EB application pending with some fancy colored animations graphs and pie chart is of no real use.

I sincerely hope that your office is reading this feedback from a legal, law abiding, taxpaying future US Citizens @ legal immigrant like me.

Thanks,
EB2 India applicant

By Rajesh, At September 23, 2009 8:15 AM
A pig with lipstick is still a pig!
No new information is provided in the new sites.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 8:35 AM
The interface looks much nicer, the information, unfortunately, still the same. I am extremely disappointed.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 8:43 AM
Through all those reforms and changes, USCIS has successfully proved it is the:

Unlimited
Source of
Chinese &
Indian
Slaves

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 8:45 AM
The new website is rather disappointing...
For those of us visiting USCIS often, there are really nothing new, in term of content.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 9:06 AM
This is totally useless. As always, USCIS did a crappy job.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 9:33 AM
This new website just likes putting old wine into a new bottle. Nothing is new except it's appearance. I am quite disappointed. We need the country based information, such as how many I-485 applications get processed every year and how many are still in the waiting list.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 9:40 AM
Change of Colors doesn't mean redesigning Website. Any 10th grade student can do within 1 hr, if you can tell them which colors you want.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 9:54 AM
According to law USCIS has to approve applications in the Priority date order. Atleast this should be implepented for all pre-adjudicated cases. There is no order followed in approval process. It is very disappointment for all old priority date applicants. If we create Service request USCIS sends generic 180 days wait response .

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:00 AM
The real thing is still missing.

- All I-485 cases pending by country, by category, and by priority date
- Visa numbers used
- Visa numbers wasted

Are you trying to hide the truth?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:00 AM
Hello,

The web site redesign speaks volumes about CIS in taking proactive measures to provide beneficial information to the stakeholders. I really commend CIS for this initiative.

Couple of points I would like to highlight based on the changes which I have viewed myself:

1. The redesign provides more content which seems static information generic to all similar cases rather than anything specific to the case
2. It does not show the projections which were I think originally designed to be included in this change
3. The much talked about pre-adjudication seems is not a status after all. If so it would have helped if that information is provided as part of the text atleast if not as part of the status
4. It does not talk about the total pending cases listed by country, by type of case (Employment or Family or ...), category within the type, number of applicants (in case of dependents as they are 1 family but account for multiple visa numbers.
5. In case the case is subject to additional scrutiny, i.e. if there are any RFE's issued or will be issued, name check, etc, such information if provided both at individual case level and at the overall dashboard level will be awesome
6. If in the overall dashboard if data pattern is shown w.r.t. pending/approved/RFE issued/denied, etc will be awesome.

I hope these should suffice but I am sure there will be more such feedback.

Thanks
Anonymous

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:07 AM
a pig without lipstick is a low-maintenance pig
now, the new USCIS, a pig with lipstick, is a high-maintenance pig

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:10 AM
What a job from USCIS, hope you guys can work harder for the tax payers instead of showing off nonsense

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:11 AM
All your previous bas****s done nothing for Legal Immigrants, other than taking collecting money for every EAD, AP renewals and getting the profit from sucking legal immigrant's money. We hope at least you can something for us.
We have been waiting more than 6 years for Green card. Even though we have been paying taxes, we have no benefits with out GC.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:15 AM
It would be great if you can provide I-485 pending data lists based on the actual approval processing, such as country-based for now. Thanks!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:28 AM
Pls speed up the EB2 I-485 approval process for China and India people!!! Fight for more visa numbers! Thank u!

By Xin, At September 23, 2009 11:13 AM
Shall we wait for another 90 days to get another new website?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:21 AM
Problems When No GC:
1> Keep paying taxes and keep renting apartments.
2> Do not dare to change jobs
3> Better do not ask for a raise
4> Keep working longer hours
5> And the Master of all, suffer with Tensions because we keep on thinking about the GC all the time, and then have hypertension and some other related diseases, in reality we all have become sick.

By manoj, At September 23, 2009 11:25 AM
Dear Director,

Its other thing that, after lot of moves behind the curtain, you guys reluctantly allowed the mass filling of I-485s during the July 07 bulletin fiasco. I hope you should have collected the new fees then for the I485 filing instead of old fees and paying for the EAD/AP renewal every year. Although EAD has been done for 2 years, but AP is only for a YEAR.

We all know, a lot of them wont be getting their approval notices for years to come. This rule of EAD/AP renewal was there earlier on the basis of previous statistics, that your GC will be approved within a year of your I485 filing. That statistics had less facts and more fiction but thats how it worked.

But now, situation has changed. Now, I believe, the USCIS statistical data is based more on facts than fiction. So asking for payment for EAD/AP renewal, when it should be coming for free, makes everyone think, USCI, found a novice way of milking money from legal non-immigrants.

I hope you will understand the financial limitations in this uncertain economic times.

thanks

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:26 AM
It is very important that the statistics on the pending I485 cases can be viewed according to the country of origin and priority date.

By CATstalker, At September 23, 2009 11:29 AM
It is important that the statistics on pending I485 cases can be listed based on country of origin and priority date.

By CATstalker, At September 23, 2009 11:31 AM
USCIS should break the number of visas issued per country basis. In a way, people will know how many visas left during the fiscal year. If this office is paying thousands of $$$ why hire incompitent and useless people? The change of new website is not really very informative, just like changing colors compared to the last one.Leaders come and go, but still did not address the right problem of this organization. It is a really a ONE WAY ADMINISTRATION!! Just like their way or the HIGHWAY!!
They should also listen to the problems of the immigrants/customers so they can apply it for better service.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:31 AM
This is a ridiculous "exciting changes at USCIS". Who is excited? The promise of showing data of I485 by category and country is not included. So, who will be excited? We are only left with disappointed as being fooled again as what have been happening in the past years.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:32 AM
I don't see any change at all in your new site. It basically rearrange old craps and put some graphics on it.

Over all, it is still useless to our immigrants.

The case status is old and not up to date. My wife got her card already but the status is still pending. No update at all for many months. Mine is still pending but no new update for many months too.

This new site is not what I hoped. And where I can send request of my status. It seems that nobody even knows what happened to my case when I called.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:33 AM
Good to see the new website. This does not help me to identify how long my application will take. Also how much money I need to spend on AP Renewal.Please remember ,Dependednt Fees are not covered by employer. Please set a fee limit for AP renewal . I am optimistic at least you can set fee limit if I have keep renewing for decade .

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:35 AM
Useless website. It only proves america is already dumb. Can you see?? other countries are excelling. while USA is going down. So sad that we already started our life here. Wake up USCIS, Wake up AMERICA!!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:37 AM
You yourself said you moved here in 1960, so who else knows an immigrants mind and heart better than you?

The time is NOW. We don't need miracles from you, just tell us the TRUTH. Implementing technology is very simple, resolving pending issues is the difficult part and that is where this agency is lacking.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:37 AM
USCIS needs to give info per country basis for visa issuance.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:38 AM
I think all problems and things need to correct are already posted. If you guys really cares and wants to improve your service or atleast do your jobs. You should address these postings because these are coming from the bottom of our hearts, our future, our childrens future, the future of America.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:44 AM
Please post the backlogged cases for China and India. People have been waiting for many many years to get the green card. It would be helpful if we can see where we are and how long it will take to eventually get the cases processed.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:47 AM
That is crap web not any useful information. They are hide some thing. They just waste money.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:50 AM
New website is very disappointing. 485 pending status needs to be broken up Family based and Employment based category at minimum.
Doesn't tell where pending application is in the process and what has been already done to it.
Once visa numbers are current,485 pending applications should be processed first in received date order and then priority dates. However, USCIS consistently doesn't follow its own policy so can't tell where app is in queue.
Current changes are just cosmetics changes. And status by EMAIL was always available.
-An EB2 India applicant waiting for more than 6 years for Green Card.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:58 AM
I filed I130 in 2002 for my brother it is now seven years and i am stil waiting and it looks like it will another three more years , ten years to get your family over here it's too long of await ,USCIS needs to hire more people to speed up the process or hand over these cases to the local offices in each state to speed up the waiting time

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:12 PM
Alejandro,

Nice work a small step in a right direction.

Pre-adjudicated tab should be in ball system if it means anything to USICS.

List of all EB applications on per country and per EB category is mandatory for this new change to be effective.

We understand its a tough job to compile a data but that is the most impotent step, otherwise being IT guy I can design a website like this one :)

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:24 PM
The endless Green card journey continues. The case status is completely hopeless. It doesn't provide accurate information. Customer service is the worse. Even though my dates are current last yr the green card was not approved due to inefficient and clueless customer service. Once again the dates are current, I have called up to know the status. The response i get is either wait 50 0r 90 days depening on who is on the phone. Infopass , give it a week aor 2. Now its been a month. No clue on whats happening with case. wqating in line for 9yrs. Looks like its going to take a life time to get Green Card in this country.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:26 PM
USCIS is prefect example of mis-management.
Very poor customer service. It doesn't look like organization of 21st century. Just changed the fonts and color of the website and provided status update by text message. Who really cares about text message update? It would help if they can show who is working on case and the exact status of the case.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:30 PM
Dear Mr Mayorkas

Thank you for listening.

This is very frustrating with the treatments we receive as legal residents of this country for more than a decade, seeing other fellows behind the lines getting the green card approved before us inspite of current priority dates (India) in a random manner. We as legal residents for over a decades serving the US veterans, being a professional, hard working are expected to be patience for years, without any accountability by USCIS. Now we definitely feel that USCIS does not care about our ongoing wait and problems associated with it. Over the last years I have not heard a consistant response for the same case enquiry through varous channels. What a department, this is no better than a third world country gov agency. Hope somebody can pay a little attention to the problem and help us. Thanking you.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:30 PM
Hi Alejandro,
This website does nothing for employment based I-485 waiters who see visa dates jump 5 years forwards and then 5 years backwards within a single year. Please do what you can to provide these people with realistic wait times. Please spend the money and time doing this instead of cosmetic changes.

Thanks

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:31 PM
This website is really disappointing. Its another example of the Govt. wasting time and money for useless crap rather than providing realistic data about Employment Based I-485 wait times!

Good job in wasting tax money!!!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:35 PM
The intialtive to make the website more coustomer friendly is good. But the changes made so far have no real value at all, especially for EB2&EB3 people from India and Mainland China. Those people have no clue where their position is in the long queue. How long they have to wait. Please update your website to list I-485 info based on applicant's current citizenship.

Jonny

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:39 PM
I am suffered seriously by my Amrica dream.My experiences in America just like sitting in a immigration jail.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:44 PM
THE "RE-DESIGNED" WEBSITE IS A JOKE:

HIRING A NEW WAITRESS TO SERVE THE
SAME OLD WINE IN A NEW BOTTLE.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:45 PM
Waiting for the green card since May 2003, in the bonded slave category also known as EB3 India. All you have done with the new website is spray some airfreshner on the carcass. Its still gonna stink in a little while. Why dont you look into speeding up the process by clearing the queue (recovering numbers, passing immigration reform etc) instead of making pretty websites with false information.

Unlike you we dont have the luxury of touching the US soil and becoming citizens.

We have to spend some of the most productive years of out lives with our hands tied, while you make pretty websites. In the meantime technology moves on, and requirements change.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:48 PM
Where is my Green Card?
Maintained legal status for Ten years.(Tax paid)
Waiting for "Green Card".
Scream !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scream !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Scream !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

EB3-ROW

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:49 PM
I 485 application processing:
1) Please make public information about I-485 pending applications by country/category/monthly priority date. It allows us to have an estimate when we can get approval.
2) Process application in priority date order. USCIS does not follow any order in approving I-485 applications.
3) Most of I-485 applications are filed in Aug 2007 timeframes when dates are current
4) Last year, USCIS moved visa bulletin date for EB2 India to Aug 2006 and this year moved to EB2 India to Jan 2005.
5) USCIS approved I485 cases without following priority dates. Users with Aug 2006(last year) and Jan 2005 (this year) got approval while old priority dates users are left alone.
6) Visa bulletin dates might again retrogress this year and old priority dates users need to wait another year.
7) USCIS should focus on pre-adjudicating old priority cases first and approve them before looking into new cases

God Bless America

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:49 PM
a broken uscis system. shame on you USCIS! we keep on waiting and waiting for our priority dates to become current eb3(other) frustrating. from unavailable and now because of newly design web it went to JUNE 2001, GREAT JOB USCIS!!! keep up the good work of re-designing you website, and just let us suffer. its because of this system that's why people are force to overstay their visa or enter here illegally, its because of the waiting period of time..Hope you understand that we feel like we are victimized by a big time SCAM! We need to renew and renew all over again our H1 visa because there's no visa available,I am working 7 days a week just to earn money to pay my H1 renewal, simply because there's no visa available..So I won't be able to file I-485. its sad very sad for my family who depends on me.. Please if you are reading these comments posted we hope you guys have a heart and conscience!!! I know that you guys can do something about these. SUGGESTION: (STOP ACCEPTING I-140 DOCUMENT IF THERE'S NO VISA AVAILABLE FOR THAT CATEGORY) very simple!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:50 PM
Looking at the link below:

http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=9&office=5&charttype=1

1. Nationally, the total# of "All other pending" is 279,301 and
the total# of "Preadjudicated" is 178,148.

2. At NSC, the total# of "All other pending" is 47,515 and
the total# of "Preadjudicated" is 91,443.

3. At TSC, the total# of "All other pending" is 71,001 and
the total# of "Preadjudicated" is 66,139.

As far as the "Preadjudicated" numbers are concerned, the sum of
NSC's 91,443 and TSC's 66,139 roughly matchs national number 178,148.

As far as the "All other pending" numbers are concerned, how come
the genius at the USCIS arrived at the equation below?

47,515 + 71,001 = 279,301

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:50 PM
USCIS just revolutionized maths:

47,515 + 71,001 = 279,301

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:51 PM
Well...just looks like the presentation has improved a little ..but if the data is not accurate whats the use.
Moreover significant effort needs to go in to recapture the unused visas and make the life of the legal,tax paying and opportunity deprived immigrant a little better.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 12:53 PM
Dear Mr. Mayorkas,

There are many ways to fix "47,515 +
71,001 = 279,301" at the USCIS:

1. Adding 160,000 to 47,515, or
2. Adding 160,000 to 71,001, or
3. Reducing 160,000 from 279,301

Which one is more convenient for you?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:04 PM
where are those detail data, please make thing clear

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:05 PM
http://www.immigration-information.com/forums/general-immigration-questions/9140-new-uscis-website-is-up.html
------------------------------------------
"The only things the CIS really excel at are hiding information, lying, and obfuscating facts. They have been criticized by everyone from the DHS Secretary to Congressional oversight committees for lying about their statistics. They have turned "backlog reduction by re-definition" into an art.

I have no idea what some of these terms mean. I suspect that even the CIS hasn't given them hard definitions as they probably want to keep the definitions fluid so they can rearrange them at will."

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:10 PM
1. Are these "changes"?
2. Is this "exciting"?

GIVE ME A BREAK.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:14 PM
First of all we welcome Alejandro Mayorkas. Congratualations. I want to comment on immigration.

I have waited patiently for the last 7+ years hoping for the green card (Employment based third preference category) and play by the rules. Looking at the current pace of approvals and the country-wise annual visa limits, it may be at least 3-7 more years before I can hope for any green card relief.

Had I been born in some other country with lesser visa demand, I may have already received a green card as well as my US citizenship. I am suffering the US green card woes just because I was born in India (same applies to folks born in China). This means that I would continue to be exploited by my employers. My family and I would be forced to stay in a state of uncertainty about our future.

The country-wise visa limits on employment based green cards contradicts the ‘national origin’ part of the EEO (Equal Employment Opportunity) policies. Does it sound fair?

Any new legislation to resolve immigration woes is unlikely to happen anytime soon. Could you please help influence the implementation of the following 2 administrative options that can help thousands of voice-less employment based legal immigrants like me who are caught up in delays due to no fault of their own:
1) Allow spill over of unused immigrant visas from various categories (subject to annual limits) for redistribution across all the categories in demand, based upon the earliest priority date thus respecting a fair and equitable first-come first-serve policy for all. Thus ensuring compliance with the EEO policy.
2) Allow un-allocated employment based visas from previous years to be distributed again.(appr:300000no's)

Thanks a lot in advance.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:15 PM
If uscis work hard with Mr. Change to pass the recapture bill to take up and the wasted visa and work hard to give people green cards, there will be no such complains!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:19 PM
For the first time , in my life, I saw how US president's words can be hollow. When I saw Presidents message that in 90 days all applicants cana see their real status online, I understood he was serious and he meant it literally, but little did I realise that he was making joke and playing with sentiments of all the applicants, who are waiting to get the real info on their status. The newly painted USCIS website just dishes out same old junk info. So much for a President's words.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:22 PM
Thanks for this opportunity.

I'd like to see the preadjudicated cases get approved soon (especially EB-3 India, which is supposed to have a long wait of 10-20 years which will put a lot of strain on the immigrants who have high hopes with the Obama administration). I'd like to see the visa recapture bill go through. I'd like USCIS go get more efficient in terms of working with congress to get things done. I'd like to also see some real statistics on the USCIS case status website which makes will make this process more transparent to the people in this great country.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:28 PM
"First, we must be a customer-focused agency, always mindful that we need to
make money out of EAD and AP as much as
possible" by keeping I-485 pending as
long as possible, if not forever."

"Second, we must use as much tax dollars,
finding creative ways to spend money such
as launching a new website containing
same old content, touting it as an
exciting change."

"Third, we must not be transparent in our efforts and keep hiding the information
such as the break-down of the employment-
based I-485 backlog."

"And finally, we must strive for consistency in our operations so that the services we can rip you off, big time."

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:29 PM
its just like dressing up the pig...show us some numbers, how much should EB3 China and EB3 India should wait to get a green card. Its a simple math, why cant that be displayed on our online status.

In our case status we want to know exact month when our application will be approved....is that so hard...?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:31 PM
Please provide realistic per-country I-485 approval timeframes. We all know that the approval process is absurdly slow, but at least please give us some idea of how many more years (decades?) will we have to wait for our I-485 approvals. It appears that Persident Obama's amnesty bill will pass before most of us will get our I-485s approved the right way. Why is it that the folks who follow the letter of The Law get the shaft, while those who are illegal may soon be rewarded for breaking the American Immigration Law? :( I feel really depressed about it :(

Thank you for taking the time to read our comments, and thank you for the opportunity to share our thoughts with you.

Regards.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:31 PM
Congratulation Mr. Alejandro!! Sir my question to you is, what initiatives if any is USCIS considering on eliminating the backlog for EB3 India and China applicants. Most of us have been stuck in the never ending immigration journey, with no sign of hope for getting a green card. In my particular case I have been in the backlog since 2003 and every visa bulletin that comes out crashes the hopes of hard working legal immigrants like us who play by the rules and are contributing positively to the American society. The new website gives no further insight into the case details what so ever and frankly it is not helping us in anyway. The fact is we are interested in getting through the immigration process, and it makes no sense fro us to keep looking at the same pending status for years together and keep paying the never ending renewal fees we are burdened with. I hope you bring in some positive change and relief especially for employment based immigration. Regards and All the best!!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:31 PM
please listen to some voice of legal immigrants!!!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:34 PM
The website is old wine in a new bottle. Nothing new for those waiting. We replied to a RFE in July 09 and the website says wait for 60 days and you will receive an update. It is more than 80 days and the case status is still on RFE status. Don't know what that means.

It should says, PreAdjudicated or Waiting for Visa Number or something, that gives the customer on what it means

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:34 PM
Thanks for the new site, but there is not much information out there that your customers can use.
Please provide us with accurate data regarding the status of our cases, much of the data out there is not correct (I have a case which shows pending on your new site, but I have already received the Notice - your department did the work, but wont claim that it did it!)
Please provide us with usable data. Knowing that my backlogged I 485 case has an RFE which has I have responded to, is of no use (I already know that). Please provide me with my place in the queue, how many pending I 485 applications are present in my bucket (category, country of chargability, priority date, receipt date).

By Chennaikar, At September 23, 2009 1:47 PM
I am pretty sure, >90% USCIS customers will say USCIS sucks. Please change this impression.

There is no responsibility, accountability with this government agency. Please STOP wasting federal dollars.

Thanks.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:48 PM
Atleast let us know weather you have plan to give us Green cards or not so that we can plan mainly for EB3. I mean approve or Regect it so no more waiting game. Here nobody cares about the fancy web sites with out any actual information.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 1:53 PM
The new website is rather disappointing! It is far from what USCIS had propagated before-"more completed, more transparent".

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:13 PM
I want to know my case is pre-adjudicated or Pending. That will be very helpful.
The only new thing is they added the trend and volume. It is good.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:15 PM
I want to express my thanks to the website template redesign effort. However it does not portray the kind of Real Change that President Obama talked about.
The database that feeds this website needs to have the most recent data for all applicants, and the dashboards needs to display data on the dimensions that were mentioned in the posts above.
USCIS customer service needs to provide information that adds value rather than provide generic information.
Administrative reforms needs to implemented at a greater pace so that employment based backlogs are reduced to no more than four months.
At the end of the day please ask yourself if your actions added value and made a difference to your customers.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:17 PM
We need more detailed information on pending I-485 in employment based category. Specifically, we would need the number of pending cases per country, per category, so we know exact where we are in the queue, and when would we know the decision. Thank you!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:23 PM
Dear Director, welcome to USCIS. For each of your guiding principles, please see the comments in 'BOLD'.

First, we must be a customer-focused agency, always mindful of the needs and views of those who seek our services. To this end, we must actively solicit input and feedback from stakeholders and the public so that a variety of views inform our decisions.
-- COMMENTS
THE 5 to 10 YEARS OF WAITING IN THE DARK FOR 100'S OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE FOR GREEN CARDS ITSELF WILL TELL THE STORY.

Second, we must be good and careful stewards of taxpayer resources, cutting costs and improving efficiency wherever possible.
-- COMMENTS
COSTS???? FEES ARE ALWAYS GOING UP AND UP BUT NEVER THE EFFICIENCY. JUST LOOK AT THE GRAPH FOR FEES AND PENDING CASES, YOU WILL KNOW THE STORY.

Third, we must be transparent in our efforts; the public deserves and is entitled to know how we operate and what our successes and our challenges are.
-- COMMENTS
LAW SAYS YOU WILL WORK ON CASES AS THEY ARE RECEIVED BUT YOU KNOW THE TRUTH. HOW COME 2006/2007 EB2/EB3 PEOPLE ARE BEING APPROVED WHILE THOUSANDS OF 2002/2003/2004/2005 APPLICANTS ARE STILL WAITING IN THE QUEUE?

And finally, we must strive for consistency in our operations so that the services we provide meet the same high standards regardless of where they are sought.
-- COMMENTS
EVEN THOUGH THEY WORK UNDER USCIS, "CUSTOMER SERVICE", "INFOPASS" GIVES THEIR OWN PERSPECTIVE OF THE SAME ISSUE. LOOKS LIKE THEY ARE TWO TOTALLY DISCONNECTED ENTITIES.

This new website reflects our commitment at USCIS to continually improve how we do business. It is one of many changes in the works that will help us be a more effective, transparent, and responsive agency. Stay tuned for more to come. In the meantime, I hope you find the new site useful.
-- COMMENTS
FOR LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS, TOO MUCH HYPE CREATED ABOUT REDESIGN OF THIS WEBSITE. THE WEBSITE IS THE FACE OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING. UNLESS SOMETHING REALLY COMES OUT OF IT, IT DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING FOR ANYONE EXCEPT YOU. LIKE IN ANY OTHER BUSINESS, CUSTOMER'S WORD IS THE REAL FEEDBACK. HONESTLY REVIEW ALL THE COMMENTS AND YOU WILL KNOW HOW YOU ARE DOING.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:31 PM
USCIS I-485 Adjudication Manual
****CONFIDENTIAL*********************

1. Guard the backlog information
as a state secret so that I-485
applicants have no idea on how
long they will have to wait;

2. For those have waited really long,
define the term "outside normal
processing time". Only those who
fell "outside normal processing time"
by 6 months can make an inquiry -
BTW, do not feel guilty as nothing is
nomal at the USCIS.

3. For those really fell "outside normal
processing time" by 6 months, send a
one-size-fits-all letter indicating
"we are actively processing your case,
please allow us 60 days before
contacting us again."

4. If the applicant makes an inquiry again
after 60 days, send another one-size-
fits-all letter indicating "we are
actively processing your case, please
allow us 6 months before contacting us
again."

5. If the applicant makes an inquiry again
after 6 months, send another one-size-
fits-all letter indicating "we need to
perform additional review and
therefore, the processing of your
case has been delayed indefinitely",
even though the reveiw of the 4-page
Form I-485 takes 10 minutes at the
most.

6. If the applicant makes an inquiry
again, please refer to Step# 5 above.

7. Repeat Step# 6 several times as
necessary.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:33 PM
Dear Sir
following are USCIS completly fail no matter how much good reporting you do
1. Customer Service (Not proper Train employee everyone has diffrent answer each time i call center.
2. after release of new website it has been clear to public that after double employee and tripple fee's service customer get is the last category in this country.
3. You should have accountibility not numbers FIFO whoever file first should get first response.employee search for good case and aprove it and old case never get updated my 140 is behind 485 after three years.
4. if employee can not do this get fired. To increase productivity.who make more mistake,
5. unique message and regular training to everyone on regular base and make aware about new policy and memorandum take the test and who fail in major case get fire.
6. FBI name check record show up are wrong no one follow the policy there are lot of people who stuck in namecheck program , never show the status about same on website.
7.congress reporting was completly wrong and make the report to get pramotion in different Department.
I am reading on major website everyone get problem so there is problem in USCIS Why other goverment department like social security, MVC, etc never have problem.

By Raghuvir Lavari, At September 23, 2009 2:41 PM
Thanks for the update but the key information that has been promised is missing.

The promise was that the I-485 Employment based green card pending applications data will be published with country of origin, EB category details.

The data was first promised in July and then Sept. 22. How do we know the new management is credible and accoutable? I understand you don't make the law, but at least show some respect to the law binding, tax paying and hard working EB applicants. Please let us know how long we have to wait before we get the green card. People know roughly when to get service at the DMV now, right? Can we get more transparency on the process at CIS?

Thank you,

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:44 PM
the new website is like putting old wine in new bottle. Not much detailed about case status tracking and also not realistic information.I have an approval for my 140 case and the status shows "Initial Review" which is wrong. This is just an example. Also security/backround checks for 140/485 takes forever and there is no tracking for it.My EB3 140 is pending in security checks last 2+ years and dont see a light at the end of tunner clearning it near future as no body is responsible for clearing it. Everybody throughs the boll from thier court and blame on other agencies while USCIS has responsibility of adjudicating the case. The whole system is not transperent and also customer service personnel are inefficient and not reliable information provided.Please increase the system and staff performance and make them accountable.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 2:47 PM
Thank you for giving the pending I-485 inventory. It's very helpful. But there are some I-485 EB2 from China in the table with priority like 2008(139), and 2009( 9). Just wonder how they can ted I-485 and their priority dates never be available since 2008?

By anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:02 PM
"customer-focused agency"? What a joke! What you guys care about is to suck money from us applicants by charging high fees for ead/ap, etc renewals. You said you would improve efficiency after you charge higher fees, but the efficiency never got improved and thousands of applicants have to pay you guys and wait. A face-lift to your website won't change anything. I'd rather you allocate the resources to clear the backlog! What a shame!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:06 PM
Dear Director,
Please give us the answer, why illegal immigrant shout for reform, and legal immigrant have to wait in silence for long time?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:12 PM
=====================================================
Please use this formula for free.
=====================================================

IF( # of years legally worked >= 5 years && I-485 == Pending)
{
// Green card approved.
}

=====================================================
God bless America
=====================================================

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:18 PM
Good job to report pending 485 cases of each country. Would be better if monthly approval statistics of each country can also be reported.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:27 PM
Yes, Why can't you estimate what the wait time will be with the CURRENT data you have for EB2 and EB3 India???

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:37 PM
Thank you very much. God bless you. This is the info we are all looking
http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.5af9bb95919f35e66f614176543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=5e170e6bcb7e3210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=ae853ad15c673210VgnVCM100000082ca60aRCRD

Raj

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:38 PM
Thank you for listening. The information would be useful if the users were able to see the # of cases current then approved in each category based on Priority Date when you publish the monthly visa bulletin. That way we can make sure that FIFO is followed with the minimal old cases left. Without FIFO, no order is in place for everyone to stay in line.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:39 PM
Thank you for your new efforts to make this site more efficient. I would like to take this opportunity to bring it to your notice that some of the case status the applicants see online in USCIS web site does not reflect actual status. I am not sure why it is so. For example one of my application is approved in Nov 2007, but still USCIS site shows it as received and pending. This is really misleading. I guess USCIS website should reflect correct status.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:52 PM
Not in line with what President Obama had promised.
Please adopt administrative reforms at a faster pace, reduce backlogs, think innovation and provide value to your customers.
Customer service needs to improve at a even rapid pace. SRs mostly end up with template letters that adds even more confusion.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:53 PM
This is nothing but a stupX game played by stupX people. For long term, is it good for US? GO back our country and let US people enjoy the game by themselves.
Cheers

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 3:55 PM
I am under EB3 I category, and I have been waiting for more than 6 years for my green card. I am stuck in my life without promotion and not able to change employer. Can you revisit AC21 rules to allow changing the employer with different job title?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:07 PM
To: REGIONAL DIRECTORS, SERVICE CENTER DIRECTORS

From: Director of USCIS

Date: September 23, 2009

Re: USCIS I-485 Adjudication Manual, Updated 9/23/2009

***********CONFIDENTIAL********************************

1. Keep I-485 pending as long as possible
so that we can cash in on EAD and AP
renewals

2. For those have waited really long,
define the term "outside normal
processing time". Only those who
fell "outside normal processing time"
by 6 months can make an inquiry -
BTW, do not feel guilty as nothing is
normal at the USCIS.

3. For those really fell "outside normal
processing time" by 6 months, send a
one-size-fits-all letter indicating
"we are actively processing your case,
please allow us 60 days before
contacting us again."

4. If the applicant makes an inquiry again
after 60 days, send another one-size-
fits-all letter indicating "we are
actively processing your case, please
allow us 6 months before contacting us
again."

5. If the applicant makes an inquiry again
after 6 months, send another one-size-
fits-all letter indicating "we need to
perform additional review and
therefore, the processing of your
case has been delayed indefinitely",
even though the reveiw of the 4-page
Form I-485 takes 10 minutes at the
most.

6. If the applicant makes an inquiry
again, please refer to Step# 5 above.

7. Repeat Step# 6 as many times as possible until:

1.) The applicant files an Writ of Mandamus with
a Federal District Court
- Approve the I-485 IMMEDIATELY.
or

2.) The applicant reachs age 65 or older and subsequently,
checks into a nursing home with Alzheimer disease,
forgetting that he or she has an I-485 pending
- Approve the I-485 on humanitarian ground.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:14 PM
Wake up!!!!!!!!!!!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:16 PM
The Website looks good by the case status page does not give a clear status of what process is completed. I receibed RFE and case resume processing and case is PreAdjudicated but teh status still shows RFE.
USCIS mistakenly put me in EB3 category instead of EB2 because of which I have lost opportuninty twice in last 2 years to get an approval. It will help if USCIS post Some more detais about a petitioners case.
Now I am strucgging with SR's infopass, Senator's help to get USCIS to correct the mistake.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:17 PM
When will USCIS have pity on the EB3-India applicants? It's the only category sitting at 2001 for so many years when those same people paid taxes and thousands of dollars in document renewal fee. And still waiting after 9 years!!! We have very high hopes from you Mr. Mayorkas. Please bring us transparecy and relief. At least information on "when" we gets our GCs will be helpful, rather than just waiting and waiting with no direction. Thank you.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:20 PM
Same website old websites with a different looks. Not much help to people waiting for approvals.
Also please note that the USCIS customer service responses has been very disappointing. The responses are vague and incorrect.
IO's in Infopass appointmnet are not able to help much as they don't know how to use the USCIS systems to inquire case status.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:23 PM
Dear Director, I appreciate you sincere efforts to provide more useful info to the applicants.

On the new website my case status shows 'Initial Review'...where as reality is diffent. I've already attended couple of Finger print appointments, received RFE for EVL.

I hope some one understands the pain of waiting for years (>8 yrs) and years not knowing whats going with your application...

Sincerely,
EB3 India applicant

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:24 PM
Hi Mr. Alejandro,
Great job on the new website! This is great breakthrough regarding to the efficientcy and trasparency of USCIS.
I am in a Chinese Eb3 Category. Could you show the Eb3 I-485 approval number each year based on each country on this new website? Everyone in my catagory are GUESSING that the Chinese Eb3 I-485 was approved only about 1000-1500 each year and this is well below 2800 quote each year. Please aware that Chinese Eb3 filers are greatly biased.
If you can show us the number, we can guess how long should we wait so that we can plan our future, such as buying a house, having a baby, or looking for jobs in my home country. We can not live in such a uncertainty for another 5 or 10 years. Thanks for viewing my post.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:27 PM
What is the use of this website enhancement? Who is going to benefit from this? It's really ridiculous spending so much money on just adding some colorful skins to the web site. Instead of decorating a dead body why don't USCIS spend some time to rectify the faults they made in the past? They always have this excuse they don't have enough money to hire people for USCIS to process the cases whenever they raise the fees. Then how can they spend money on this useless website enhancement?

Is everybody thinking same like me or am I the only fool not understanding the USCIS's great work?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:37 PM
It indeed has turned into a wonderful website! Many thanks.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:40 PM
Uscis website sucks. Customer service is hopeless and completely incompetent. All the customer service does is waste our valuable time by just reading the status from the website. I can read the status from the website myslef and I don't customer service to read it for me. Infopass is even worse. The people at the window have no clue what the process or what to do. Had an interview at the local office. Was told to except something in mail 3 weeks. Its been 8 weeks. Nothing in mail. Every single time we take infopass we spent 3yrs to go and pay 10$ parking to get a reponse to give it 2 weeks and come back. Every single time same reponse. If you tell them that its 3time u have been to their office, the immediate answer is 90days. Please tell the truth. NO MORE LIES PLEASE. STOP PLAYING WITH OUR LIVES.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 4:48 PM
The website has recently released the PDF document of the I-485 Pending application by country and Category. I would like to ask couple of questions:-
1. How could I see application in Year 2007 october for Eb2-India and Eb3-India? The dates never become current for application filling; How did USCIS got the application. The Other country changeability are tracked under different chart ( ROW) Excel.

2. Does USCIS plan to open a forum like this to present the problem and issues with customer in future?

Kindly Address the point in FAQ section if possible.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 5:14 PM
Hi Mr. Alejandro,
Thanks for the updates ofnew website.I am waiting for Labor since 2008 Jan, why does it take this many days.People applied after me got labor approvals.There is no transperancy on what is going on and on what basis these are getting cleared.People are waiting for long time to get their legal status and there should be a change in process.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 5:19 PM
The information listed is useless. My I-485 case have been pending for almost three years now. I still have no clue when it will be approved. It is shown as under initial review. What a long initial review!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 6:11 PM
Few questions
1. Does it include dependents?
2. Why after July 2007 PD (seems it is not changeability, might be just born, and married to other countries person)
3. How many hasn't filed with PD before July 2007
4. How spill over apply? Quarterly? or only in September ?
5. How many EB1 approvals every year, consular approvals, so estimate spillover amount ?
6. New PERM approval after July 2007 with earlier PD ?
7. Are all EB485 pre-adjusted? Or the number including so called "other pending"?
8. How often this report will be updated? Will it be part of the Monthly news Bulletin? or more often update?

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 7:13 PM
I am glad to see that you have published much needed data of pending I-485 cases with Priority date and country. This gives lots of clue about where is our case and how much it could it take.

I have below suggestion to make it more usable.

1. Please update I-485 pending file regularly - If updated with overnight batch job will be a dream but atleast once in a Month is must otherwise it doen't server purpose.

2. This is just an excel file upload. I think USCIS can spend money to present it as a tool and user just enter their Priority date and country of chargeability and it should tell that how many applications are ahead of them for that country and worldwide ! I think logic is simple to implement when you already have raw data.

Again many thanks for making these changing it really helps.

Keep it up !!

Vbhai

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 7:41 PM
Hello Alejandro Mayorkas,
I now know you don't have a family member under process. I am a US citizen and my husband has been sent to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The worst place to be, there have be about 30 murders a day. I am now the sole provider for my family and am now encountering additional expenses by him having to stay there not to mention all the immigration fee. the medical fees were more than double what the forms stated. He has been gone for months my son is 5 years old and feels like he has been abandoned by his father. My husband did not choose to be here illegally, he has been he since he was about 9 years old, his entire life is here. Please tell me you think the best thing for my kids is to be away from their father, my daughter is only one! Please tell me you would not have a problem from being separated from your family without being able to see them for months. Please tell me that is the best for the kids, because my son’s psychologist does not believe so. My 5 years old son now suffers from depression. Thank you USCIS!!!

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 8:22 PM
Dear Mr. Alejandro Mayorkas,

Thank you for your quick response to our requests. Today, I found there is new information regarding the I-485 backlog posted on the USCIS website (http://www.uscis.gov/USCIS/New%20Structure/2nd%20Level%20(Left%20Nav%20Parents)/Green%20Card%20-%202nd%20Level/Pending%20Form%20I-485%20Reports.pdf). That makes us feel a lot better. If this information had been posted there in the first place, there would not be so many emotional comments on this page. I hope you can understand the pain so many applicants are suffering. People were kept in the darkness for many years.

I believe you heard us and understand our situation. I think you are making a very good start as a new director for USCIS. We want to continue see the improvements under your leadership, and we believe you will make a difference in this government agency.

The integrity of FIFO (First-In-First-Out) rule is also a major concern of I-485 applicants. While USCIS processes the backlogged I-485 applications, we see many cases that were processed on LIFO (Last-In-First-Out) basis (applicants got approved with Priority Date two year later than the ones who are still waiting). Under limited visa quota for each country and each category, this is very unfair and devastating practice especially for many applicants with old Priority Date, and this is why so many people have lost confidence in USCIS. That needs to be improved.

We also request USCIS to improve the coordination with the DOS visa office so that visa quota won’t be wasted and Priority Date can be fully followed and understood in a reasonable manner.

Thank your for your effort to make USCIS serving customer better a priority. We are looking forward to seeing more improvements in the near future.

Thanks much

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 8:23 PM
It's great that you provide information on inventory case counts. Two comments:

1) There is no need to have a "Grand Total" vertically. I found it amusing to see you report "the total number of cases reported in September of all years".

2) Are you sure you gave the same numbers to State Department? If you did, how could they set visa bulletin cutoff date for China EB2 at March 2005 while there were only cumulatively 969 cases earlier than that? It should be safe to set at begginning of 2006. By end of Jan 2006, there were less than 5000 cases and historically EB2 China has been above 6000.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 8:42 PM
Just speed up the processing time for I-485. That is what your agency needs to achieve. Other things should not count as an achievement unless your agency can cut down the processing time to at least close to your goal of 4 months.

Right now, the average processing time is over 20 months. That does not make any sense at all.

Just my 2 cents.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 8:45 PM
Amazing incompetence on part of USCIS. This probably is the only agency in US, where no rules are followed.

If USCIS is showcased as government agency, 100% of US citizens will say no to healthcare public option immediately.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 9:01 PM
I have been working in USA for 9 years, am originally from China. I started my employment based green card application from July 2003. It is in EB-3 category.
We experienced various desperate delays resulting from DOL, DOS. We are still waiting desperately.
Is it easy to hold one job for 6-7 years in connection with a green card application? I guess most of us will burst into tears if we really want open our heart to tell the heart-breaking truth and cruel reality.
I know it's no use to complain, but what can I do? We are the lowest group in this society. No body cares to listen to our voices. Labor groups condemn us. Still we do give the most valuable part of our life to this country.

I wrote the following poem in Jan 2007, just before Martin Luther King's day. I am still on my dream now.

I have a dream.

(Under the inspiration of the spirit of Martin Luther King, I wrote the poem.)

I have a dream.
I dreamed that after 8 years of hardworking and legal staying in this country I got my green card approved.
I dreamed that whenever a recruiter called me and asked my working status,
I could tell him that I don't need a visa sponsorship.
I dreamed that I should have known I need 8+ years to get my green card, I should have known it 8 years ago,
when I was still young,
when I was able to move freely to another country without worrying about the family root nowadays.

I have a dream.
I dreamed I could work like other American workers, not like a slave.
I dreamed I could leave my employer when I have a better opportunity instead of for 8 years' worrying that my employer can suspend or delay my green card application.
I dreamed I could be promoted instead of working on the same position and salary for 8 years just for that green card.
I dreamed that I don't have to worry everyday in 8 years that if I'm unemployed, I have to leave this country and kiss my green card application goodbye.

I have a dream.
I dreamed there are never such cruel things called Backlog Elimination Center.
I dreamed Ms. Elaine Zhao as a daughter of an Immigrant family knew how hard it is to work and live legally in this country without a green card.
I dreamed some people working in DOL could appreciate other people's life because 8 years for a family is definitely an important portion of whole life.
I dreamed that 8 years of hard working can convince DOL that there is no other American worker can fit the job I am working on, hence they will issue me a labor certificate as the first step in my green card application.

I have a dream.
I dreamed that legal employment based immigrants don't have to stick to the same job position and same company for 8 years before they can get their green card.

I have a dream.
I dreamed that I could have the courage of Martin Luther King to speak out our issues and let everybody in this country know the issues.
I dreamed that the people of this country could feel our pain and respect our hard working and services for this country for so many years.

By xszhu, At September 23, 2009 9:29 PM
To: REGIONAL DIRECTORS, SERVICE CENTER DIRECTORS

From: Supreme leader at the USCIS

Date: September 23, 2009

Re: USCIS I-485 Adjudication Manual, Updated 9/23/2009

***********CONFIDENTIAL********************************

1. Keep I-485 pending as long as possible
so that we can cash in on EAD and AP
renewals

2. For those have waited really long,
define the term "outside normal
processing time". Only those who
fell "outside normal processing time"
by 6 months can make an inquiry -
BTW, do not feel guilty as nothing is
normal at the USCIS.

3. For those really fell "outside normal
processing time" by 6 months, send a
one-size-fits-all letter indicating
"we are actively processing your case,
please allow us 60 days before
contacting us again."

4. If the applicant makes an inquiry again
after 60 days, send another one-size-
fits-all letter indicating "we are
actively processing your case, please
allow us 6 months before contacting us
again."

5. If the applicant makes an inquiry again
after 6 months, send another one-size-
fits-all letter indicating "we need to
perform additional review and
therefore, the processing of your
case has been delayed indefinitely",
even though the reveiw of the 4-page
Form I-485 takes 10 minutes at the
most.

6. If the applicant makes an inquiry
again, please refer to Step# 5 above.

7. Repeat Step# 6 as many times as possible until
one of the following two events occurs, WHICHEVER
COMES FIRST:

1.) The applicant files an Writ of Mandamus with
a Federal District Court
- Approve the I-485 IMMEDIATELY.
or

2.) The applicant reachs age 65 or older and subsequently,
checks into a nursing home with Alzheimer disease,
forgetting that he or she has an I-485 pending with
the USCIS
- Approve the I-485 on humanitarian gound.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 10:43 PM
Please stop this soon and fire all CSRs/infopass agents and invest that money in computerization using modern technology which can make USCIS's life easy. We understand the numerical limit per year, however answer by CSR that everything is fine but I cannot tell when your case will be approved even though it has crossed processing date and priority date is shame on USCIS.

By Anonymous, At September 23, 2009 11:29 PM
Thanks a lot for introducing this level of transparency. The MOST useful item is "Pending Form I485 Reports.pdf". At first I didnt notice this. But this PDF file itself gives a lot of information for the applicants.

Very very hard work by USCIS and the leadership team to bring this data. Please keep up the good work.

Manoj

By Manoj, At September 24, 2009 12:45 AM
I see some UI changes and that doesn't reveal anything to customer. For example my case says Initial Review. What does that mean? EB3-I with older Priority Date I don't know how long we should check this site. (USCIS web site it self changed but our GC status is not changing!!!!)
Please consider EB3-I to move forward as it never go beyond 2001. I feel something is terribly wrong. One precious time it went to June 2003 during May 15th 2007 bulletin and DOS mistake/USCIS mistake it was shown C. And that's it. Again it retrogressed. Please do something to move EB India forward.
Thanks in advance,
with hope, Anonymous EB3 Indian filer.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 2:10 AM
Thanks for an opportunity to post comments. In this age of technology I really don’t understand why this website can't have daily update on processing dates.

What we see today is the same old info in a glorified manner.

Could you use your IT skill on expediting the cases instead of adding graphs that make no sense?

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 2:14 AM
Do some good for people first...

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 2:44 AM
Dear Mr. Mayorkas, I, a Chinese EB2 category Green Card applicant, as thousands other Chinese EB2 category Green card applicants, have been waiting for years since the visa is not current for the Chinese applicant(7% rule applied), are strongly felt aggrieved at be unfair treatment between Chinese and Indians that during September 2008 the 57% unused visas was assigned to Indians, only 20% to Chinese while so many Chinese are still waiting for the visa quota, I am strongly urge immediate correction and justification. Giving so many Chinese applicants waiting, the actions of 57% assigned to Indians, while only 20% to Chinese, violate the 7% rule and every civilized canon! It is totally unfair to our Chinese EB2 applicants. We demand immediate investigation and correction. Chinese Immigration visa backlog for EB2 Applicants partly dues to allotting unused visa to employment-based second preference in an inequitable way between Indians and Chinese。
Dear Mr. Mayorkas, Please resolve this matter as soon as possible since this September is the last month of the 2009 fiscal year and the unused visa number will be assigned in this month. If no further steps are taken immediately, this monopolization will become much more severe for the fiscal year 2009, which surely will hurt the reputation of Department of State’s Visa Office as a government agency.
Please see the following data: In fiscal year 2008 (October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008), one single country received 21% of the overall visas offered. This percentage was 11% higher than the next country. Why? In the second round of visa distribution this country received 57% of the remaining 21,110 visas while ignoring the 7% rule!(violating the 7% rule)
The following table shows employment-based second preference visas allotted to the top five countries along with their percentages. Note that the first round of 7% allowed for 2,800 visas for each country.
Total visas assigned Visas assigned after application of the 7% rule
Country (a)
Numbers Percentage Numbers
(Subtract 2,800 from (a)) Percentage
India 14,818 21% 12,018 57%
South Korea 7,124 10% 4,324 20%
China 6,964 10% 4,164 20%
Canada 3,404 5% 604 3%
Russia 2,536 4% N/A N/A
Others 35,289 50% N/A N/A
Total 70,135 100% 21,110 100%
Data are from Immigration Visas Issued and Adjustment of Status Subject to numerical Limitations (by Foreign State Chargeability), Report of the Visa Office 2008. http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/FY08-AR-TableV(Part2).pdf

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 8:13 AM
Dear Alejandro Mayorkas,

Congrats on your new job. I can see changes already taking place under your command. The website has been enhanced and transparency of USCIS working has increased. I liked the pending I-485 case statistics. This is very helpful to decide on career path for the Greencard waiters.
You probably know that highly qualified applicants are waiting for their green card for years. The frustration would force them to return to their country and it would be a loss for the US. The benefits of lawful well educated and highly trained immigrant would be lost. This would also increase outsourcing and thereby affect the US jobs and economy.
You can do something here to put a stop to the brain drain. Currently the I-485 employment queue has applications from the main applicant and the family member of the main applicants. All you need to do is to process only the main applicants under the I-485 employment queue and the family members under the family based immigration queue. This would shorten the I-485 employment queue, and immigrants would be accounted correctly.
You have the answer to the problem. Now all we need is action from your side.

Best wishes,

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 10:05 AM
Thanks!!!!

I now know that i have to wait roughly another 5 yrs to get my green card, after all i have only waited 3 years. I think i have wasted enough time. If not for this new site i would have thought that this is my year for getting my GC.

I can take my savings and walk away happy, thanks again U.S.A!

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 11:54 AM
Dear Mr Mayorkas.

I am sure the position you are in is anything but easy. At the same time though I would appreciate if all the promises USCIS makes actually would become true. I have not met a single USCIS employee that was nice or friendly. You call the Customer Service line and all you get is someone who reads something of the screen. You ask them a simple question and you don't get an answer. Sometimes their English is worse than mine.
The new website looks nice, but it does not provide any different information than the old one. The status feature is exactly the same, the only thing that changed, there are some nice little circles with the different steps added to it. There is no extra information provided, like who has my case, at what stage is my case, etc.....
I still see that my request for evidence was received last year in May. I still see that within 60 days I should expect a written response. I still see that nothing is moving and most important I still see USCIS and lawyer fees on my bank statement for renewal fees for my H1B, I765 and everything else.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 12:04 PM
1) “being a customer-focused agency, always mindful of the needs and views of those who seek our services…. To this end, we must actively solicit input and feedback from stakeholders and the public so that a variety of views inform our decisions. “

I am a customer, a dedicated, loyal one. Been through 3 F-1’s to get the Bachelor’s and 2 Master’s degrees (and being in a dissertation stage for PhD at IVY university, while working full-time), 4 extensions of H-1b (for a total of 8 years and counting), EB-3 application (filed back in May/2004, I-140 finally approved after 2 year-long wait, and I-485 been in queue for more than 2 years and still no indication of when it will be processed. Not to mention a series of AP’s and EAD’s… I had to reject multiple offers for management-level position, since I am not allowed to get paid more. For me to move up due to my growing experience and knowledge would be such a noble excuse for USCIS to claim that I am no longer in the correct category (EB3) and reject my pending application. By the way, I hope you can see what the recent visa date of June/2002 does to my self-esteem). Never late in payment and sucked up increased fees (again, if I did, you simply have used it as an excuse to reject the application).

As such a dedicated customer, I want to say that USCIS has been maintaining a pretty bad customer-relationship.

2) “we must be good and careful stewards of taxpayer resources, cutting costs and improving efficiency wherever possible. “

I think this has been a signature rhetoric statement from USCIS for awhile by now. This statement looks dangerously similar to the one made when USICS increased all fees almost by two-fold back in 2007. Now, I am flabbergasted with what has been going on during the last 2 years.

3) “we must be transparent in our efforts; the public deserves and is entitled to know how we operate and what our successes and our challenges are.”

This statement is actually saying two different agendas. First,” the public deserves and is entitled to know what our successes and our challenges are” As for this point, I believe USCIS has been extremely successful. The challenge of processing flood of application filed back in July/2007 is well-known, and USCIS has been repetitively referring to this as the main reason for the delay for the last two years. I know that is the fact. However, the root cause for that problem was USCIS’s decision of substantial fee increase in order to achieve “efficiency”. I am not suggesting to begin blame game, but believe some serious quality assurance is necessary. Secondly, “the public deserves and is entitled to know how we operate”. I think USCIS has failed in this criteria, and it is my greatest hope that you can begin (in a relatively short term, I mean weeks/months, not years) to tackle this problem.

4) “finally, we must strive for consistency in our operations so that the services we provide meet the same high standards regardless of where they are sought.”

I really believe you mean by this statement that you are trying to make USCIS serve better its customers, and hopefully you can live up to your words.

To be fair, I acknowledge that launching a new website is a major thing. While it might not look too much for some, complying with section 508 alone would have been a daunting task. It would be my greatest hope that all these efforts and investments do turn out to be fruitful.

Thank you and good luck to all of us.

Thank you.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 12:14 PM
I don't understand the purpose of the I-800 # and the customer service. All they do just read whats on the website and tell us they cann't provide any more information than that is availbe on the website. I am literate that can read what is posted on the website. I don't understand why do we need customer service and is the value add if they cann't give any more info. Such a waste of money!

Fix customer service. If we call them a couple of times a standard response of wait for 60 0r 90 0r 180 days is given. We wiat for yrs for the dates to become current and when the moment finally arrives we were told to wait for 60 or 90 or 180 days. Then the dates move back and the wiat continues.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 12:43 PM
Few questions
1. Does it include dependents?
2. Why after July 2007 PD (seems it is not changeability, might be just born, and married to other countries person)
3. How many hasn't filed with PD before July 2007
4. How spill over apply? Quarterly? or only in September ?
5. How many EB1 approvals every year, consular approvals, so estimate spillover amount ?
6. New PERM approval after July 2007 with earlier PD ?
7. Are all EB485 pre-adjusted? Or the number including so called "other pending"?
8. How often this report will be updated? Will it be part of the Monthly news Bulletin? or more often update?

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 12:50 PM
Dear Mr. Mayorkas,

I am a Chinese EB3 Filer.
Please take a look at this document.
http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/FY08-AR-TableV(Part2).pdf

I don't understand why China EB3 has so little visa issued comparing with other countries in 2008. If 7% is the limit for each country out of 40000 total EB3 visas, why China got much less than this limit while other countries used much more than this limit?

Please take a look at this.

Thanks a lot.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 1:23 PM
It would be great if we could see information on the number of employment 485 applications pending per country. We would like to request that our voices be heard as it looks like a lot of visa numbers are being wasted every year and we are left in long waiting queues with no definite time period to count.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 2:37 PM
The new website is definitely an improvement. Unfortunately USCIS somehow equates cosmetic enhancements to improved service. My Advance Parole and EAD applications have been approved eight months ago. However, on the new website, they still show up as under "initial review". Considering such blatantly wrong information, it raises two questions:

1) What is the use of wasting tax-payer's dollars on such an useless website?
2) Whether the data presented in the new website is to be trusted at all?

I am not hoping that USCIS will publish the I485 numbers according to EB categories and PD. As it is, I cannot even trust the data USCIS has published on the new "improved" website (going by my own and other's experience of never getting updated alerts of case status). If they do not update data on the case status page, what is the guarantee that they have used the correct status of applications when they publish all the pending, pre-adjudicated numbers?

To top it all, the assertion and self-euphemisms on the part of USCIS claiming that the new website improves customer service, promotes transperancy and accountability insults the intelligence and patience of the customers.

Thanks for the opportunity to air our grievences.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 2:52 PM
Dear Alejandro Mayorkas,
Are you aware that because of USCIS processing inefficiences, at least 300,000 green cards were not allocated in previous years? Consequently, we legal immigrants are stuck for years waiting for green card numbers to become available. But USCIS/govt officials do not care because they know that legal immigrants are helpless- we cannot seek help from political bodies or the court system. On the other hand, illegal immigrants are protected through political interests and others campaigning for them. USCIS does not stand up to the true spirit of America. We are paying a heavy price for the inefficiencies of USCIS, especially in the EB3 category which is backlogged for years.Please reuse the lost green card numbers to provide relief to applicants.

Thanks.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 3:06 PM
Please Please open EB3-India or Visa Re-capture I am totally 9 years in the US my I-140 approved on 2005, I do not know how long me and my wife need to wait my Wife is a PHd and could not work because she is on H4. Please since our I-140 is approved make a way to provide us with EAD status I donot want to renew H1B every year as my contract with the client renews every year..

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 3:15 PM
I don't see any additional benefits in the new website except the pending I-485 pdf.
We should know, whether the case has been pre-adjuscted, whether its EB2/3 (as some companies, lawyers make mistakes and case gets wrongly categorised). I would be nice to know if Fingerprint, namecheck etc is done or not. Othersie the Circle system is just useless.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 4:04 PM
Please revisit the VISA spillover rule, the current rule is unfair to all EB-3 immigrants from all countires.

Until 2008 USCIS followed the rule of spillover to the benefitial to the retrogrssed countries in EB-3, now all of a sudden USCIS and DoS changed the interprtation and started giving those numbers to EB-2 India and China only. Their should be some kind of fairness in the distribution of spillover VISA numbers. Please bring in the admin fix which will allow USCIS and DoS to correct this problem and bring some kind of fairness in the process.

Please look at the current PDs for EB-3 India, RoW and China and you will realise how badly these categories are retrogrssed.

First we were the victims of 245(i) which flooded all regional state employment agencies with their labors, then it was the backlog elimination centres and now it USCIS pending AoS backlog.

We would also like you to investigate the fraud involved in the labor substituion cases.Basically while adjudicating the labor sub cases, please advice USCIS adjudicators to verify the legitamacy of the sponsoring employer and employment offer before approving such cases. Flood of such application were entered into the USCIS backlog prior to sunset on labor sub rule in July 2007.

Finally please let US congress know that in order to clear the current EB AoS backlog, VISA recapture bill is required very badly. Until USCIS gets additional VISA numbers by some legislative fix, their is no relief to the waiting time for EB-3 applicants from india, China and Rest of the world.

It is ridiculous to see people waiting since year 2001 to adjust their status, paying taxes and contributing to US economy and still no relief from US congress and US administration.

EB immgrants dont need CIR, we need just a simple fix of VISA recapture which will help us all.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 4:10 PM
Dear Mr. Alejandro Mayorkas, I like to thank you for taking responsibility of this agency (USCIS) and doing what others have failed to do in past. So far you have provided info which gives some relief and idea about what’s going on in the agency. But, the main question remains unanswered, as many other posters have asked, how long, how much uncertainty, why unfairness…..

This is about the Employment based 3rd preference category. I have started my process over 7 years ago and still no clue how much more time it is going to take. My country of birth is India. So far almost 12 years in this country, maintaining legal status, paying taxes, and living with uncertainty. Most of my professional carrier and productive years are spent here in USA. Without not knowing what is going to happen to the GC application, I can’t buy a house and make other major decisions. It affects a person’s life psychologically and physically.

I believe there are several factors that are contributing to the backlog including following:

1) Country specific limit on number of GC issued in a year
2) Too many visa numbers wasted in past years
3) Too may H1B’s issued to one country (India, china,..)
4) All unused numbers from EB-1 allocated to EB-2
5) So on…

Obtaining an employment based GC used to take 1-3 years in past. Now it is almost 10 years in some cases. For some it is less than 6 months. That is too much difference and it is unfair.

I request you to please take some actions that provide relief to the backlogged applications. Many posters have suggested a variety of options.

Thank you.

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 5:32 PM
Dear Alejandro Mayorkas,

After waiting years in line and when the dates become current , GC is still not approved. USCIS takes a month to respond to SR's with a standard response to wait 60 days before contacting again. After 60 days it beocmes 6 months. The dates will move back by then. We stuck in this viscious circle with no end in sight. I don't mind paying little extra for a premium service if aviable to expedite the processing of I-485. Dealing with the stress and anxiety has taken a severe toll on my health. I beg u to provide us with peace of mind.
Thanks for listening/

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 5:44 PM
Dear Sir,

We have to keep legal status, work hard with lower payment, stick to one position without promotion for long long time. Who care about this?

By Anonymous, At September 24, 2009 7:46 PM

Leadership Journal

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Exciting Changes at USCIS

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