U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced significant progress on the reduction of processing times for various forms. The USCIS processing times fact sheet shows that for the highest-volume forms, median processing times are lower during the current fiscal year 2024 to date than the previous fiscal year. Some highlights include:
Employment authorization documents for asylum applicants and some parolees is less than 30 days for processing,
Employment authorization documents for adjustment applicants is at 3.6 months, the lowest since 2017,
Naturalization is at 5.2 months, the lowest since 2016,
Advance parole documents are at 4.4 months, the lowest since 2018, and
Form I-129, Petition for Nonimmigrant Worker without premium processing is at 2.7 month.
USCIS acknowledges that while some progress has been made, additional work remains to reduce USCIS processing times. Below are some examples where net backlogs are higher than processing goals.
Form I-601, Application for Provisional Unlawful Presence Waiver
Form I-730, Refugee/Asylee Relative Petition
Form I-918, Petition for U Nonimmigrant Status for a bona fide determination.
The HART Service Center is working to reduce these backlogs. More information is available on the HART FAQs webpage.
The EB-5 Immigrant Investor program is an area of concern. USCIS announced the hiring of new staff and other investments to address ongoing delays. Compliance with Congress’ anti-fraud and integrity provisions is an area of focus for USCIS as it relates to the EB-5 program.
Increased benefit filing fees that went into effect on April 1, 2024, are being used to more fully support timely processing of applications, with the goal of further reducing backlogs. USCIS emphasizes that some delays are due to statutory limitations which only Congress can resolve. Some examples are delays in processing Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative, as insufficient visas are available to process incoming requests.
As always if you have questions about any U.S. immigration related issue, contact us. We actively monitor ongoing updates to U.S. immigration policy to ensure our clients get the right advice for their specific situations.
