Julie C. Hancock

It is widely known among immigration lawyers that visa processing levels are at crisis delay levels. Work authorizations, which traditionally took up to 90 days to process are now taking upwards of a year. Requests for Evidence (RFE) are issues as a regular course of action where they usually were the exception. These RFEs are supposedly reviewed by a supervisor before they go out to Petitioners; however they are extensive kitchen-sink variety RFEs that overlook evidence submitted with the original petition which satisfy the requests being made. USCIS strings together fragments of sentences across multiple paragraphs, throws it all under one set of quotation marks and states this out-of-context misrepresentation as "insufficient" to establish whatever criteria needs to be established. Its delay tactics at its finest, and it's having a detrimental effect on businesses and families across the world who rely on visas for a variety of reasons.

"The average processing time for all application types is up 46 percent since Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. These increasing delays persist even when fewer new applications are being submitted."

Senators, in a letter to the Office of Government Accountability, asking for these delays to be investigated, stated “The delays in employment authorization applications have led to disruptions in American businesses, many of which depend on employees who need work authorization to carry out their functions. When an employee experiences an unexpected processing delay in applying for and renewing employment authorization it can destabilize a business and leave mission-critical roles unfilled.”

The GAO will take a look into this - in 5 months - which will allow the harmful effects to go on likely for another year and a half. U.S. businesses are suffering. These are businesses bringing in workers for jobs they are unable to fill in the U.S.

You can read more about the delays and the pending GAO investigation here.

If you're experienced significant delays in getting your petition approved, or received a confusing request for evidence, please contact us. We can help. Contact us today at inquiry@yourvirtualadvocate.com