http://blogs.ilw.com/gregsiskind/
FULL-BLOWN SCANDAL
[NOTE: A hat tip to my friend Jay Solomon for tipping us off on this story]
What started out as a story of mean-spiritedness at USCIS regarding efforts to head off accepting visa applications in July may be turning in to a serious scandal that involves blatant disregard for the law and a potential jeopardization of national security.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association and others are reporting that USCIS adjudicators were issued instructions to pull for processing every employment-based case that had been pending for more than six months regardless of whether security clearances had been completed. Officials worked at a frantic pace over last weekend to request visa numbers on all these cases in order to head off accepting any cases when the first business day of the month began yesterday.
USCIS would have had to have requested numbers in about 60,000 cases in order to exhaust its numbers. The big question is whether the agency finished security clearances on all those cases, something that seems impossible given how long security clearance backlogs have been. These delays have been well-documented and are the basis of mandamus cases all across the country.
So assuming security clearances were not received, that leaves one of two possibilities:
a. USCIS was going to approve these cases without getting a security clearance or
b. USCIS was not really finished with the cases and was requesting visa numbers before they were really finished with the cases.
If the first is true, this will be front page news around the world and there will likely be resignations at the agency. While this may be the juicier story, the second is the more likely explanation.
But even if USCIS intended to finish the security clearances before issuing actual approvals, this is still a violation of the law.
By law (8 USC Section 1255), a visa number should not be claimed by USCIS until an applicant's adjustment of status application has been granted.
If any of you have heard anything that would tend to support this, please let me know.