Perhaps the USCIS is acting on the ombudsman's recommendation to "process I-130 as soon as they are received." (Whoah, that's a dream!)
From Prakash Khatri's
Annual Report:
Pending I-130 Petitions
As of April 2006, USCIS had 1,129,705 pending I-130s, Petitions for Alien Relative, with most pending for many years. However, over the last few years, completion rates per hour for these petitions have decreased, despite stated successes in backlog reduction and the increased use of technology. As explained above at section II.A at p. 9, USCIS excluded most of these pending I-130 petitions from its backlog count.
Three factors appear to be responsible for increased Form I-130 processing times. First, in May 2002, USCIS began requiring Interagency Border Inspection Systems (IBIS) name checks for all Form I-130 petitioners and beneficiaries. The IBIS check added time to the I-130 adjudication process, yet USCIS did not allocate additional resources or change its processing methods to offset this additional processing step. Second, with processing delayed, customers are more likely to have moved but USCIS cannot, or did not, update addresses across all relevant databases.37 Finally, the Ombudsman learned in March 2006 that at least one service center was issuing blanket RFEs for certain long pending I-130s regardless of the completeness of the file. As a consequence, USCIS spent additional resources to respond to inquiring customers who did not understand the nature and requirements of these RFEs and sent in duplicate documents.
RECOMMENDATION AR 2006 -- 03
The Ombudsman recommends that USCIS process I-130 petitions as soon as they are received. This would prevent the substantial cost involved in storing and retrieving the applications as well as the resources expended for follow-ups, customer inquiries, address changes, etc.More for your reading pleasure:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/edit...torial_0890.xml