【ARCFE News】 USCIS ANNOUNCED PLAN TO REDUCE BACKLOGS & IMPROVE PROCESSING TIME

Apr 11, 2022
1 min read

The immigration agency announced on March 29th that it will “increase capacity, improve technology and expand staffing to achieve these new goals by the end of FY 2023.” Although the announcement did not mention the EB-5 program explicitly, this decision by USCIS aligns with the new EB-5 legislation which requires USCIS to process EB-5 applications in a timely manner, specifically 120 days on average for I-526 and I-829 petitions.

USCIS is establishing the new internal cycle time goals this month in hope to reduce the agency’s pending caseload. As cycle times improve, processing time will also follow, and applicants and petitioners will receive decisions on their cases more quickly. Internally, the agency monitors the number of pending cases through a metric called “cycle times.” This measures how many months’ worth of pending cases for a particular form are awaiting a decision. Cycle times are what the operational divisions of USCIS use to gauge how much progress the agency is, or is not, making on reducing our backlog and overall case processing time. See the new cycle time goals below: