Texas Service Center Update March - 1999
Posted Mar 18, 1999

On March 1, 1999, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) held a liaison meeting with the INS Texas Service Center (TSC). Several issues were discussed, but the biggest news was Service Center Director James Burzynski's statement that the current processing time for adjustment of status (I-485) cases is over 1,000 days!! That means that a person has to wait almost 3 years, after completing the labor certification and the I-140 Immigrant Petition approval, until the I-485 will be approved. In exchange for higher INS filing fees which should have brought improved processing times, all we find is additional backlogs which are unacceptably long.

One important question was "when is a case considered to be properly filed or delivered to TSC?" Sometimes there are deadlines, for example when a person's status is about to expire, or when the Service Center has requested additional information for which a response is required by a particular date. It is the TSC's position that an item is not properly received until it actually arrives at their street address. If it is sitting at the TSC post office box, it is not yet considered filed. TSC has generally advised the use of the post office boxes. However, AILA suggests that time-sensitive items be sent by courier to the street address instead.