USCIS Changes - Election and Leadership impact - delays to be expected

[Patient 57]

Today a farewell message was aired by the head of USCIS, who will be leaving, León Rodríguez, Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A political appointee, he will resign and his deputy Lori Scialabba, Deputy Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services will take over again.

 

No comment was made about staffing and processing times.

 

Other points from the farewell message were:

• Staff have processed 8 million case related work items ( imagine at an average fee of USD$150 the USCIS income is  USD1.2 billion.)
• The response rate is up 5% on 2015 improving to 66% in 2016. USCIS are a top 23% department for quality of service and hitting of targets in the "secondary level class."
• 85,000 refugees were processed during 2016 ( Compared to Germany - close to 1 million - highlights efficiency level and impact of paper v computer record management).
• Questions were raised from the floor including, Nebraska and Vermont being slow to process - he advised he will "look into it."

 

It was a goodbye message, the interesting thing was you could either dial-in for the teleconference or viewing via Facebook at the USCIS page.

[agripa 100]

You write in the title "delays to be expected"; did he specifically mention this? Or are you just speculating based on a change in leadership?

[Patient 57]

19 minutes ago, agripa said:

You write in the title "delays to be expected"; did he specifically mention this? Or are you just speculating based on a change in leadership?

 

From the tone in the room and comments made, it is to be expected, policy changes will apply after appointment of President Trump. Timeline unknown, what I do know from American attitudes is that some staff resign and walk rather than work for the new administration.

 

Contractors for processing will not be employed at the same level initially so their contracts will not be renewed AND "status" and "security checks" will take longer.

 

He mentioned DACA as one area of change: https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca

[KF & OS 109]

Thank u Patient for this info. Let us hope things will pick up after the new administration takes office on 20th. Keeping my hopes high