Will the USCIS Atlanta Office go back to swearing in applicants on the same day as the interview?
It is unlikely that the Atlanta District Office will resume swearing-in applicants on the same day as the N-400 interview, aside from customers who come from Alabama or at least four hours away, who CIS makes every effort to swear in the same day due to the distance traveled for the interview.
Has USCIS discussed the new Naturalization policy regarding the review of the underlying adjustment case? Should clients come prepared to discuss their marriages, for example?
Review of the underlying adjustment of status is not a new policy. Officers have always had the authority to look back at the underlying adjustment, at any time, and doing so is not a new process.
What is the preferred procedure for an N-400 applicant to elect to be naturalized through a federal court ceremony rather than a CIS administrative ceremony? A verbal request during the naturalization interview? A writing submitted at interview?
The preferred way is to advise the officer at the N-400 interview. This can be communicated to the CIS after the fact, but the preference and best way is to notify the officer at the time of the interview. In addition, if the applicant is requesting a name change, the oath ceremony/naturalization must be done by a federal court.
Several people have reported receiving two certifications of the same PERM application, with different validity dates. In most (but not all) of these cases, when the case was first approved, no hard copy ETA 9089 was received by the attorney in the mail. When the case was “recertified,” a hard copy 9089 was generated. Has DOL identified what caused these duplicate approvals? Has DOL also communicated this problem to USCIS, as this could impact processing of an I-140 petition that was filed with a request that USCIS contact DOL to obtain a “duplicate” certification?
DOL indicates that there has been at least one case where the I-140 was approved by USCIS despite issuance of a “duplicate” certification with different dates. In that case, the DOL and USCIS were advised of the duplicate certification issue prior to the I-140 being approved.
Employers may choose to withdraw cases undergoing SR for many reasons, such as the employee terminating his employment, the employee obtaining a green card through other means (such as marriage), or the costs of the required recruitment. In determining any employer-wide consequences of withdrawal during the SR process, does DOL consider the explanation as to why the SR case is being withdrawn? How can an employer best provide an explanation why the SR case is being withdrawn?
DOL indicates that it does not monitor or track particular reasons for withdrawal. DOL does, however, pay attention to the rate of withdrawal both for individual employers and overall. The withdrawal rate has decreased, but at one point was more than 10%. Such a high rate of withdrawal caused DOL concern.
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AAO Processing Times as of November 1, 2012 |
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Time |
Case Type |
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I - 129 CW |
CNMI-Only Nonimmigrant Transitional Worker |
Current |
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I - 129 F | |||
News Releases November 14, 2012 Boston, MA
Several newspapers (Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, etc.) place their online ads on Monster.com. When the SR instructions direct the placement of an ad on these newspaper websites AND on Monster.com, this means placement of the same listing twice on the same website, which is redundant. Has DOL indicated that a single advertisement on Monster.com is sufficient when the required newspaper uses Monster.com to place job advertisements online?
DOL has suggested e-mailing the SR e-mail address for clarification on particular recruitment instructions. Note, however, that the employer should still follow the recruitment instructions. The focus is whether a full labor market test was conducted that provides U.S. workers with opportunity to apply for the position. DOL is not intentionally seeking duplicate ads.
DOL has indicated that it would make sense to consolidate recruitment for Supervised Recruitment (SR) cases that are identical. Has DOL made any progress on publishing a standard that can be followed to consolidate recruitment for SR?
DOL has indicated that it is generally not opposed to consolidation of recruitment efforts in appropriate cases, and a request can be made to the SR processing e-mail box for consolidation. Even where cases are consolidated for recruitment, however, DOL will still require individual recruitment reports for each SR application.
The processing of supervised recruitment cases is still extremely slow. Cases filed directly into supervised recruitment in January and February 2012 have still not received the initial communication from DOL or any recruitment instructions. Based on reports, it appears that DOL is not following FIFO (first in, first out)on SR cases, as there are SR cases with priority dates ranging from May 2011 to October 2011, and draft ads/ad corrections have been submitted as early as February 2012 and as late as July 2012. Has DOL provided details on SR processing dates and times?
DOL indicates that it expects to see a significant increase in the speed of processing of SR cases as well as cases under audit. Staff members who normally work on SR cases were temporarily reassigned to identify and process “straggler” cases. That project has been completed as of October 1, 2012, and DOL has moved those staff members back to their normal work. This should result in much faster processing of both SR and audit cases.