INS Texas Service Center Update - January 1999
Posted Jan 31, 1999

Pursuant to a meeting between officials of Texas Service Center ("TSC") of the Immigration and Naturalization Service and representatives of the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), some useful issues were brought to light.

General Issues

If an H1B Approval Notice is lost or not received, it is necessary to file a form I-824 (with $120 filing fee) to request a new Notice from TSC. The other Service Centers will issue a duplicate notice upon a simple request by letter, or even over the telephone. At the meeting TSC agreed that the $120 fee should not be charged, but it is necessary to provide information proving that it was an INS error and to inquire through an attorney liaison. TSC did not offer any satisfactory explanation as to why it is so complicated to obtain a duplicate approval notice from that Center, especially because in many cases original approvals are not mailed to the company or the attorney and after they agree to mail duplicates, no duplicate is ever mailed out.

Nonimmigrant Applications

Many subscribers of the Law Office of Sheela Murthy Bulletin are aware that the TSC processing time for Form I-539 (Application for Extension or Change of Status, used for non-working temporary statuses such as tourist and student) is quite long. For B2 visitors, who can request only a 6 month extension, it can take almost 6 months to approve the extension, meaning that by the time the extension is approved, it is already over and many people depart the U.S. even prior to the approval if the extension request was only for 2 or 3 months! This of course leads to complications and possible denials at the consulates later on when the persons attempt to apply for a non immigrant visa and have to prove that they did not overstay previously.

In view of the above situation, AILA asked TSC how it would handle the following scenarios.

Situation #1: A B2 visitor files for an extension, and does not hear anything for over four months. She then decides to attend school and obtains an I-20 form from the school. Could she file an application for change to F1, showing proof of the extension application as evidence that she did not go out of status?

Situation #2: A person files a timely extension of B1 status and later, while the extension request is still pending, has an H1B petition filed by an employer on his behalf.

In both situations, TSC answered that they would be willing to consider such a case, as long as the extension of stay was filed prior to the expiration, and the receipt for the extension is enclosed.

Adjustment of Status

TSC stated that for new I-485s, fingerprint scheduling letters are going out almost immediately after the case is entered into the system. (This remains to be seen.) For cases filed between April 1, 1998 and November 23, 1998, there is a backlogged list of cases that are still waiting to be scheduled. TSC claims to be working on some 15,000 such cases and hopes to schedule them as soon as they can manage it. Cases filed before April 1, 1998 should have been scheduled for fingerprinting by now, but when the Center discovers some that have been forgotten, or that need new prints, they generate a scheduling notice. Depending upon the fingerprinting location, appointments may be scheduled about 30-60 days in advance, sometimes slightly longer.

A widely publicized problem at TSC has been the processing time for adjustment of status. At one point, TSC had requested AILA attorneys to send faxes notifying them of all cases pending for longer than 9 months. A while later, they revised that request, requiring notification of those cases pending for over one (1) year. The Law Office of Sheela Murthy, like many other law offices, duly sent those fax inquiries. However, TSC has not been prompt in all cases with these inquiries. When AILA asked for an update of this situation at the meeting, TSC said that "I-485's are not top priority." Their priority is apparently advance paroles, work authorizations, H1B and other nonimmigrant worker petitions and then I-140 Immigrant Petitions.

TSC did indicate that they are working on new procedures to address this problem. However, they are facing a limit on overtime expenditures, which may mean they do not have enough funds in the budget to enable their staff to spend enough time to become current on I-485 processing. Many members of their staff have also been "detailed" (temporarily assigned) to other locations.

As mentioned before in earlier editions of the Law Office of Sheela Murthy's Immigration Law Bulletin, the frustrating part is that the INS is always increasing its fees, and the millions of dollars that are collected are not disbursed to benefit fee paying clients but are used up for other functions like border patrol which should be paid for from government tax and other revenues. The INS often forgets that "Service" to its clients is part of its name and its functions!