CONGRESSIONAL EFFORTS TO REDUCE BACKLOGS: There are frequent bills introduced in Congress for immigration reforms, but Congress needs to hear from you and your employers!  The anti-reform voices are a minority but they call and write Congress frequently and so they are louder than individuals who favor immigration reform.  

To track ongoing legislation to fix our broken immigration system, see http://immigrationimpact.com/legislation/  Contact your congressional representives frequently and whenever you are aware of an important immigration issue.

November 1, 2011.  For cases not affected by visa retrogression, we are seeing most I-485 applications approved within about 6-7 months of filing.  Processing times vary considerably. 

For cases affected by visa retrogression, please see the information under "Visa Bulletin" on our website. 

Please note that we continue to see advancement for EB-2 India and China priority dates.  For individuals with I-485 cases filed long ago, we do not need to submit any new evidence or documentation for a pending I-485 to be approved once the priority date becomes current.   Occasionally, we will get a Request for Evidence from the USCIS if the individual has changed jobs and has “ported” the I-485 to a new employer, or if a foreign national was recently married, but most cases are simply being approved during the month that the priority date becomes current.  The USCIS is doing a very good job, actually, of tracking cases and approving them as soon as an immigrant visa is available.  If a case isn't approved by the last day of the month in which the priority date becomes current, we can contact the USCIS via e-mail to notify them that the case is still pending.  We have only needed to do this a couple of times; again, the overwhelming majority of pending cases that have been affected by visa retrogression have been approved without further action or inquiry by our office.