The Influences of USCIS's New Case Filing Procedure

Until March 31 st , 2006 , to which service center should an applicant file an immigration petition was decided by the residential location of the applicant. Although each service center had the same competence in adjudication, such system caused unfairness among the applicants under the jurisdiction of different service centers. This was because there were no uniform standard and time limit in processing cases. In previous time, TSC was the fastest to process cases, and NSC was the slowest, and NSC had the harshest standards when they reviewed NIW cases and EB1 cases. For instance, until March 20 th , TSC had advanced its process in handling I-140 petition filed in January 2006, while CSC was processing I-140s received in October, even June 2005. And the processing of NSC and VSC also lagged. Applicants under jurisdiction of TSC felt they were lucky, while others who were in the states near Nebraska complained about their bad luck. Some even moved to other states where they could easily get green cards.

However, in April 1, 2006 , this issue was eliminated and would not exist any more. According to a new rule released by USCIS, to which service center an application should be filed is determined by the case category, not the applicant's location. All the I-140s and related immigration applications should be submitted to NSC, and then NSC will transfer a part of I-140s to TSC. That is to say, NSC and TSC will specialize in I-140s and related immigration applications, and the other two service centers (VSC and CSC) will specialize in dealing with I-129s and related non-immigration applications.

On the other hand, the new rule brings some uncertainty. The applicants cannot make sure which service center will process their I-140 petitions finally, because there is not any criteria about what cases will be transferred to TSC after filed to NSC. Previously, many clients liked to retain attorneys in their own geographic area. For example, Californians liked to retain attorneys in California , because they believed California attorneys had closer ties with the California service center. To some extent, this was correct. But according to the new filing procedure, applicants will not know whether NSC or TSC will process their I-140 petitions. They cannot use the traditional standard to choose attorneys. In this situation, choosing an attorney who is familiar with both NSC and TSC is the safest way, especially for NIW and EB1 cases.

Moreover, since the new filing procedure makes the service centers more specialized, we believe that, in the near future, USCIS will establish equal standards for the same category of cases no matter where they are reviewed. Meanwhile, applicants should realize that in the moment that the service center is not certain and evaluating standards is not stable, retaining an experienced and high-quality law firm is particularly important.

Zhang & Associates has offices in Huston (headquarter), Chicago and New York , which are under jurisdiction of TSC, NSC and VSC separately. During these years, our firm has built favorable working relationships with the three service centers. Our attorneys often discussed cases with the USCIS officers by phone, to clear the confusions and expedite the processing of cases. Furthermore, our firm succeeded in large quantities of NIW and EB1 cases in behalf of thousands of clients in the past ten years. In communication with both NSC and TSC, we have been familiar with their rules of processing and officers' preference in materials. We know that, to some extent, the results of immigration cases are subject to the officers' subjective judgments. Thus, whether a case will be successful or not largely depends on the materials prepared by the attorney. The 12 attorneys in our firm are all very experienced and professional in immigration cases.

In addition, we adopted the Siebel customer relationship management system (CRM) to ensure service quality and customer satisfaction. Siebel is the industry leader in CRM solution. Hosted by IBM, Siebel CRM OnDemand is a hosted CRM service delivered over the Internet. As the USCIS is one of the big clients of Siebel CRM system, Zhang & Associates, P.C. becomes the first immigration law firm to use the same CRM system as the USCIS, which gives Zhang & Associates, P.C. a big edge in terms of keeping pace with the USCIS.

Accordingly, after April 1, 2006 , whether the I-140 cases are processed finally in NSC or TSC, our firm has some advantages. It is sure that the reform will promote efficiency and approval rate of our firm.

(04/03/2006)

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