Service Center Changes I-129 and I-140 Filling

During a long time, the four service centers of USCIS have had great differences in processing speed. Applicants often complained that they were not in the district under jurisdiction of a service center with high processing speed. Some even took employer's location as an important consideration in job hunting. However, things will change from April 1st. An applicant will be required to file his/her petition to a specified service center according to the case type, not the applicant's location.

USCIS released a new filling instruction on March 24 th . It made changes to the filling procedure for Form I-129 and I-140. Since April 1 st , all the I-129 forms should be submitted to Vermont Service Center (VSC), while all the I-140 forms should be submitted to Nebraska Service Center (NSC). The reform is on the purpose of balancing the workload and processing speed and specializing the function for each service center. After receiving the petitions, VSC will transfer a part of I-129s to California Service Center (CSC), and NSC will transfer a part of I-140s to Texas Service Center (TSC). This means, since April 1 st , VSC and CSC will specialize in handling I-129s and related non-immigration applications, while NSC and TSC will specialize in I-140s and related immigration applications. The reform will promote quality of case management and client service for USCIS.

Applicants will receive a receipt notice after filling their petitions to the specified service center. But the center which receives their petition may not be the one which makes the final decision. USCIS will deal with the petitions filed before April 1 st in previous procedure.

The new instruction is believed to expedite the processing of immigration applications. This is good news especially to clients of Zhang & Associates. Zhang & Associates' headquarter is located in Houston , Texas . During the past 10 years, our firm succeeded in large quantities of immigration cases in behalf of thousands of clients and built a favorable working relationship with TSC. We have established a hotline with the TSC to facilitate communications between our attorneys and immigration officers. Our attorneys occasionally discuss cases with immigration officers through this hotline, having expedited many cases.

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