Issues Relating to Delays in Various Immigration Matters

The application process, whether non-immigrant or Green Card, involves a lot of paperwork, forms to be filled out, birth certificates, and other documents like filing fees and much more. During this process, meeting government officials, visiting embassies/consulates, tracking the application progress, and writing letters to the concerned authorities regarding follow-ups or delays will be essential. Below are a few pointers that provide information and guidelines on all types of immigration delays:

Contacting your Congressman

For all types of government delay, contact your local Congressman in USA. They are usually very helpful.

For finding the member of House of Representatives for your area, please click here

For Senators, click here

Note: For the House of Representatives, when you enter your ZIP code, the software tells you who your local Congressman is. For the Senate, each state has two Senators.  You can go to either a Senator or a Representative. They are both members of Congress. If you are outside USA, have your U.S. employer (for employment-based cases) or family members living in USA (for family-based cases) contact their Congressman.

USCIS Related Delays

If your case has gone beyond the stated processing time, an applicant should make inquiries with the USCIS directly. The “processing times” are published on USCIS’s website

For information on Processing Dates for Applications and Petitions that can be used to check whether your case is within a “reasonable” wait period, click here

Note on EAD Delays: The USCIS Acting Deputy Director issued a memo responding to CIS Ombudsman's recommendations on USCIS processing delays for Employment Authorization Documents.

Note on Receipt and Processing Delays: U. S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) advises customers that, due to a tremendous increase in the number of applications filed, the processing of fee payments and entry of cases into the USCIS tracking system has been running behind schedule. USCIS is now current with all forms. Click here for more information on Receipt and Processing

Note on “Naturalization Delays: Causes, Consequences and Solutions” For written testimony prepared for Emilio T. Gonzalez, Director of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, concerning delays, click here

USCIS and FBI Release Joint Plan to Eliminate Backlog of FBI Name Checks On March 20, 2009, USCIS Acting Deputy Director Mike Aytes wrote in the DHS Leadership Journal about USCIS' progress in meeting interim goals in efforts to eliminate the backlog in FBI namechecks. For more information on this topic, please click here

AILA (American Immigration Lawyers Association)

The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) an immigrant advocacy group, has a liaison system that permits members to make specific inquiries with USCIS on delayed cases through channels not available to the general public. This route should also be engaged where possible.