Coming to America: An attorney's commentary on US immigration law

What is a Priority Date and what does it mean to me?

Immigration is basically a quota system.  For each category of immigrant visas, there is a quota allotting the number of visas that can be used in any given fiscal year.  There are two main categories and several sub categories beneath them.  They are family and employment.  For the most part, the closer the family relationship or the higher educated the employee, the higher their ranking will be in the quota system.  For example, the unmarried adult child of a US citizen currently has about a four and a half year backlog, while the sibling of a US citizen has an eleven year backlog.  To give an example in the employment based aspect, an outstanding professor or researcher has no backlog while a professional holding a bachelor's degree has four and a half year backlog.  This system can be tracked on line by viewing the State Department's Visa Bulletin.  It is important to plan ahead properly in order to deal with the system of priority dates.  An attorney will figure a way, if possible, to keep his or her client present in the US in valid non-immigrant status until such time as their priority date becomes current, thereby allowing them to apply for adjustment of status to lawful permanent resident.  For certain countries which send many immigrants to the US, there are even greater backlogs separate from the rest of the world.  Those countries are China, India, the Philippines and Mexico.  There are some borderline cases where an argument can be made (but planned from the beginning) to include a client in a higher preference category.  Earlier this year, this did not seem to matter in the employment based preference system because there were few, if any, backlogs.  Now, the backlogs are significant and it is crucial to take these factors into account before embarking on a new case.

What do you do when the government won't respond?

We receive many calls from frustrated applicants to the immigration process that have had their cases "lost" in the system, cannot find out what is happening with their case or have a case that has gone beyond the normal processing time frame.  Fortunately, US immigration allows you to track most cases on the Internet at USCIS On Line Case Status Service.  This has been a vast improvement over the old days.  You can even set up an account whereby they will e-mail you when there is action (good or bad) taken on your case.  This is not yet possible with overseas Consulates.  However, many are responsive to e-mails from applicants or attorneys (see links to US Consulates).  Customer service is an important goal of US Immigration, but it is not perfect.  If a case has taken 30 days or longer than the normal processing time (see USCIS Processing Times) you can call their customer service toll free number.  An operator will take your information and promise a response within 30 days.  Unfortunately, quite often, there is a one line non-responsive letter that you will receive in the mail to the effect that the case is under review and a decision will be rendered shortly.  In these types of frustrating cases, an attorney can be of assistance.  Generally, the US Consulates seem to be open to communication with attorneys.  Also, if an attorney is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association, he or she has an added method of obtaining a response to a pending case.  AILA (its acronym) has staff members in place whose job it is to have direct contact with officials at the various immigration offices to obtain reasonably responsive answers and to resolve simple and even complex problems.  As an attorney, I use this resource quite often and have found it to be very helpful.  In addition to this, many local immigration offices have privileges for attorneys only to meet in person and inquire about or resolve pending matters.  Aside from our existing clients, we have taken on a number of new clients whose only task for us is to use our resources to facilitate a resolution to their long pending case.  Nothing is impossible.