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US CIS Updates
Projected Naturalization Case Processing Time;
Agency to Complete 36-percent More Naturalization Cases than Last Year
Washington, April 2, 2008 - U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced today that it will fmish more than one million naturalization cases during fiscal year 2008 - far exceeding the number of cases completed last year. This update comes following a thorough analysis of the work completed during the last six months.
"By the end of the year, I expect USCIS will have finished
36 percent more naturalization cases than last year without
compromising national security or the integrity of the naturalization
process," said USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez.
The agency
recently updated the expected time it will take to complete
naturalization cases, projecting processing times averaging
13-15 months. That's a three-month improvement from the
16-18 month projection that USCIS made six months ago.
A
critical
component of the strategy for addressing this workload
is to quickly grow the capacity to handle the influx of
additional cases. That includes expanding the USCIS workforce
by adding
nearly 3,000 new employees, detailing employees to work
in
the most heavily affected offices, quadrupling the funding
for overtime and using Asylum Office facilities and staff
to conduct naturalization interviews.
Last summer, USCIS
received an unprecedented number of applications and petitions
for immigration benefits. During June, July and
August
alone, USCIS received nearly three million filings, compared
to
1.8 million filings during the same period the previous
year. This sudden surge included 1.4 million naturalization
applications
last year - 460,000 in July alone. While historically
filing increases have occurred in advance of fee increases,
Presidential
elections, immigration debates and new legislation,
none of the past increases are close to the magnitude of
last
summer's surge. |
