The
United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) publishes a monthly
report on processing times at its service centers. The Service Centers may vary according to
which type of application you are submitting.
In New England, a variety of applications are processed at the Vermont
Service Center, which released a
new Time Report
on April 3 with processing dates as of 2/28/13.
So,
how do you read a Time Report? There are
four columns: “Form,” “Title of Form,” “Classification
or Basis for Filing,” and “Processing Timeframe.” Make sure you have the right form number and
classification. The processing dates
represent the receipt dates of petitions and applications currently being
processed by the Service Center. If a
certain type of application is being completed within USCIS target timeframes,
the timeframe of days, weeks, or months will be shown. If a USCIS service center doesn't meet the
target timeframe, a date will be shown (January 1, 2009) to indicate what cases
they are currently processing.
For
example, USCIS set a goal to complete an I-765 Employment Authorizations for Asylum
Seekers within 3 weeks, and the service center is meeting this goal, so the
processing report shows “3 weeks.” Notice
that the processing times may vary greatly for the same form, but a different classification. For example, the processing time for an I-765
for someone who has a pending adjustment of status application (I-485) is three
months.
For
an example where USCIS is not meeting its processing goal, look at the
processing time for an I-130 Petition for a U.S. citizen filing for a spouse,
parent, or child under 21. In the column
for “Processing Timeframe,” the date listed is “August 6, 2012,” which means
that USCIS is processing applications received on August 6, 2012.
