US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will close thirteen international field offices and three district offices between now and August 2020, according to an announcement on August 9, 2019. While eliminating these thirteen international offices, USCIS also announced plans to maintain operations at international field offices in Beijing and Guangzhou, China; Nairobi, Kenya; and New Delhi, India, as well as Guatemala City, Guatemala; Mexico City, Mexico; and San Salvador, El Salvador, “as part of a whole-of-government approach to address the crisis at the southern border.”
Read moreForbes: “Congress Asks USCIS To Explain Immigration Delays And Denials.”
Congress raised concerns about the rising delays and unjustified denials of various visa types at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), during a House Judiciary Committee oversight hearing on July 16, 2019. Representative Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), chair of the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, specifically highlighted inefficiencies regarding changes in processing, noting their impact on students experiencing significant delays for Optical Practical Training (OPT).
Read moreUSCIS: Change of Filing Addresses and Workload Transfers
Every so often, US Citizenship & Immigration Service Centers—located in California, Nebraska, Texas, Vermont, and Virginia—experience lengthy backlogs and delays in processing cases. To balance workloads and “promote timely processing,” USCIS occasionally changes filing addresses for certain petitions to direct cases away from the service centers experiencing these significant delays, as well as transfers cases from center to center. USCIS announced this week they are doing both.
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