The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service announced three measures to improve the immigration system and its procedures.
On March 29, USCIS announced the implementation of three measures to increase efficiency and reduce burdens on the immigration system. These new guidelines are intended to reduce paperwork and processing backlogs, expand the number of priority or premium processing times, and improve timely access to employment authorization documents.
After the measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic, the USCIS accumulated a large number of pending cases and processing times also increased. For this reason, the new actions seek to improve the efficiency of the agency and begin to reduce processing times.
The first measure is intended to reduce the number of pending cases, by establishing new internal objectives in the processing of cases. In this way, the agency will increase technological capacity and expand the staff so that they meet the objectives planned by the end of fiscal year 2023.
In this way, the USCIS has established new case processing times as a goal, for example 3 months for form I-131, Advance Parole, two months for regular form I-129 and two weeks for premium processing, or six months for form N -400. Check the new cycle times in the following link: https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/images/home/CycleTimeGoals2_0.jpg
The second measure is the expansion of premium processing. This rule was approved by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and will speed up the processing of cases involving Forms I-129, Petition for a Nonimmigrant Worker, Certain Immigrant Visas, Form I-140, Immigrant Petition for Alien Workers, among others.
The rule introduced by DHS indicates premium processing fees and expanded categories of forms eligible for it, for example, Form I-539, Application to Extend/Change Nonimmigrant Status, Form I-765, Application for Employment Authorization and additional classifications under Form I-140.
Finally, the third measure is about improving access to employment authorization documents. A few months ago, USCIS began simplifying this type of process, with the aim of ensuring that applicants do not lose their work authorization status while their applications are pending.
Learn more at the following link: https://www.uscis.gov/forms/filing-guidance
