USCIS Reducing Backlogs

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said on Friday it willmeet its goal of reducing the average wait time for immigrationservices to six months by the end of September. The agency  also saidthe total number of pending cases that exceeded the six-month waitperiod fell from 3.8 million in January 2004 to 1.1 million in Julythis year.

Nearly 1 million applications will still be pending atthe start of October, said Michael Ayetes, director of USCIS fieldoperations. But the agency considers these outside its control because theyare awaiting feedback from other agencies such as the FBI, orinformation or documents from applicants, Ayetes said.

Three main types of services still face backlogs,Ayetes said. They include relative petitions, in which a U.S. citizenasks for the naturalization of a relative, requests for permanentresidence and asylum applications. The offices with the biggest numbers of backlogs are New York, Miami and Atlanta, he added. Click here.

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