Articles Posted in Citizenship & Naturalization

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The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have sent out an email notice to USCIS Stakeholders that they are working to reduce the extended processing times for Form I-130, Petition for Alien Relative. This form is filed by U.S. citizens for their eligible immediate relatives and is the first step in helping the relative to immigrate to the United States.

The USCIS has been receiving feedback from the public expressing concerns regarding extended processing times for Form I-130. USCIS is working on the delays as part of their goal of preserving family unity. In the last few months the processing time has went from October 2012 to February 2013; that puts the processing time to around 9 months. We have found in practice that current I-130 processing is taking between 6 months to 11 months. USCIS’s goal is to return to an average processing time of five months by May 2014.

Last month, in an effort to expedite the adjudication of these cases, USCIS began transferring stand-alone Forms I-130 filed by U.S. citizens for their immediate relatives from USCIS’s National Benefits Center to its Nebraska, Texas, and California Service Centers. This shift improves USCIS’s ability to adjudicate the cases in a timely manner.”

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Processing Time reports for all of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) Service Centers were released on 11/18/13 with processing dates as of 9/30/13.

If you filed a petition with one of the Service Centers, please review the links below to determine the applicable processing time associated with your particular case.

California Service Center

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Processing Time reports for all of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) Service Centers were released on 10/16/13 with processing dates as of 8/31/13.

If you filed a petition with one of the Service Centers, please review the links below to determine the applicable processing time associated with your particular case.

California Service Center

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The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) has requested information from the federal government agencies involved in the immigration system for updates on their contingency plans in case of a government shutdown. A possible government shutdown could happen as early as October 1, 2013, the beginning of the new fiscal year 2014 (FY2014). AILA has reported that they have not received any updated information at this time. They suggested reviewing the shutdown plans for the last threatened federal government shutdown, which was in 2011.

Below is an excerpt from MVP Law Group’s original blog post on the subject dated (4/8/11).

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On Tuesday, September 17, 2013, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced they have awarded nearly $9.9 million in grants to qualified organizations serving immigrants. These grants will be used by 40 organizations from 21 states to help prepare legal permanent residents (LPR) for U.S. citizenship.

The News Release stated, “Under this year’s program, grant recipients will offer citizenship instruction to prepare permanent residents for the civics and English components of the naturalization test, and naturalization application services within the scope of the authorized practice of immigration law. The period of performance for the grants is two years.”

USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas stated, “This funding will help thousands of permanent residents gain the support they need to learn English and civics, and embrace the important rights and responsibilities of United States citizenship.” For more detailed information please review the USCIS News Release listed below.

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Processing Time reports for all of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) Service Centers were released on 9/17/13 with processing dates as of 7/31/13.

If you filed a petition with one of the Service Centers, please review the links below to determine the applicable processing time associated with your particular case.

California Service Center

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Processing Time reports for all of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) Service Centers were released on 8/20/13 with processing dates as of 6/30/13.

If you filed a petition with one of the Service Centers, please review the links below to determine the applicable processing time associated with your particular case.

California Service Center

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Immigration Policy Center Releases Updated State-by-State Fact Sheets!

The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) has released all fifty states, the District of Columbia and the United States (Overall), for a total of fifty-two updated fact sheets with accompanying info graphics. These fact sheets highlight the demographic and economic impact of Immigrants, Asians and Latinos in each state. The Immigration Policy Center (IPC) is the research and policy division of the American Immigration Council (AIC).

As Washington D.C. debates Comprehensive Immigration Reform, we thought that it would be an appropriate time to provide some statistics on the Immigrant population in the United States as provided by this IPC research. Once a week we will be posting a blog with information on four states at a time. This week we will highlight; West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming and the United States*.

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Office of Immigration Statistics has released a report entitled, “Estimates of the Legal Permanent Resident Population in 2012.” This report uses estimates of the legal permanent resident (LPR) population living in the United States as of January 1, 2012. An LPR is any person not a citizen of the United States, who is residing in the U.S. under legally recognized and lawfully recorded permanent residence as an immigrant, also known as a “Green Card Holder.” The estimates are shown for the total LPR population, and the LPR population eligible to apply to naturalize by country of birth, state of residence, and the year LPR status was obtained.

Data for the estimates was obtained primarily from administrative records of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). An estimated 13.3 million LPRs lived in the United States as of January 1, 2012, and 8.8 million of them were eligible to become U.S. citizens. The majority (61 percent) obtained LPR status in 2000 or later.

Source of Information:

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Administrative Appeals Office (AAO) Processing Times were released with processing dates as of August 12, 2013.

If you filed an appeal, please review the link below to determine the applicable processing time associated with your particular case.

Administrative Appeals Office

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