Month: August 2007

According to an article on CNN.com:  “The Social Security Administration cannot start sending out letters to employers next week that carry with them more serious penalties for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, a federal judge ruled Friday.”

The USCIS has issued an Application and Petition Receipting Update.  No progress in EB I-485 Receipting from the Texas Service Center (still at 6/30/07).  This is in line with the number of EB Receipts received and filing fee checks processed from our office in the last week:  zero.

Enjoy the long weekend!

According to an AP article that appeared on Forbes.com:  “Some attorneys want to challenge the government’s policy of rejecting green card requests if an immigrant’s American spouse dies before the application is processed. At least one lawyer plans to file a class-action lawsuit.”

According to a Business Week article:  “The nation’s largest federation of labor unions sued the U.S. government Wednesday over a plan to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigrants, arguing increased scrutiny of Social Security numbers will result in errors and threaten the jobs of legal workers.”

From 9 PM for 12 hours, the USCIS has scheduled a system outage will be unavailable.

The DOS has released a Revised Visa Bulletin for September.

The House Immigration Subcommittee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the STRIVE Act on September 6, 2007.  I still believe the chances of anything substantial passing before the 2008 elections are next to nothing, but it’s promising that the vitally important issue of immigration is not being ignored.  I will update as I hear more.

Better late than never!

“USCIS Update August 24, 2007

USCIS ISSUES SERVICE CENTER AND LOCKBOX RECEIPTING UPDATE

WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it has experienced a tremendous increase in the number of applications filed, which has resulted in a front log of cases awaiting data-entry. USCIS is making every effort to address the delay.
USCIS will prioritize data entry for specific form-types. Delay in data entry and fee receipting will not affect Change of Status or Extension of Stay eligibility, assuming all other eligibility requirements are satisfied. USCIS would also like to assure its customers that requests for Premium Processing Service will continue to be processed within 15 days, consistent with existing policies and procedures. The actual received date will be honored and recorded on the receipt notice. This date will appear in the Received Date” box on Form I-797, Notice of Action. The received date on Form I-797 is different from the “Notice Date,” which also appears on the Notice and identifies the date the receipt notice was actually generated.

USCIS will provide weekly updates to give our customers accurate information about current receipt times and service level commitments. As of the date of this notice, USCIS has completed data entry and has issued receipt notices for applications and petitions received on or before the following dates:

California Service Center
Date
Received
Form Number:
N-400 7/23/2007
All Other 8/14/2007

Nebraska Service Center
Date
Received
Form Number:
I-131 7/24/2007
I-140 7/24/2007
I-485
Employment
Based 7/24/2007
I-765 7/24/2007
N-400 7/24/2007
All Other 8/05/2007

Texas Service Center
Date
Received
Form Number:
I-131 6/30/2007
I-140 8/13/2007
I-485 Employment
Based 6/30/2007
I-765 6/30/2007
N-400 7/15/2007
All Other 8/16/2007

Vermont Service Center
Date
Received
Form Number:
I-130 7/25/2007
N-400 7/18/2007
All Other 8/15/2007

USCIS Lockbox
Date
Received
Form Number:
I-485 Family 7/29/2007
Based

USCIS would also like to remind the public to wait at least 14 days from the dates indicated above for their receipt notice to arrive in the mail before inquiring.”

I guess the USCIS has decided to stop updating us on receipts.  In any event, a few lawyers claim to have receipts for cases that were filed on July 2, 2007, many more do not.

Not a single EB I-485 USCIS filing fee check from our office has been processed since 8/8/07 (that’s 20 days of no progress).

Hopefully the agency will hire more workers with the windfall in new filing fees from both the recent increase, and the proposed requirement that the approximately 750,000 holders of Permanent Resident Cards without expiration dates pay $370 each to replace them.

According to an article in the Washington Post:  ” The federal government yesterday announced the settlement of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union against conditions at a government detention center for illegal immigrant children and families in Taylor, Tex.“