Dear XXX
Thank you for your email inquiry. I appreciate your frustration about the security clearance process. It has been my experience that until the FBI check clears, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is powerless to adjudicate any case. In one sense, the case is out of the hands of the USCIS at the moment, because they need the FBI’s clearance in order to proceed.
As for the FBI’s involvement in this whole process, they are the agency that is tasked with clearing the names and dates of birth. Our office has tried very hard to get through to the FBI to find out the status of particular name checks, and the FBI has made it clear that they are not at liberty to share that information with us. In speaking with the Congressional liaison at the FBI, I have found that the most they are willing to share is that a check is either still pending or has been resolved – information that we can much more easily and expeditiously obtain from the USCIS.
For obvious reasons, Congressman Holt does not have the authority to compel the FBI to clear any case. We have been told that the FBI is only willing to process name checks expediently in life-and-death emergencies; even now, there are thousands of these outstanding. We have also inquired repeatedly as to why the process is so very lengthy for some cases but not others. It seems that at some point over the past few years, the FBI realized that the security checks being performed on cases were sub-par, and it was decided that the only viable remedy would be to re-run the name check on every single pending application at that time. This process inundated the FBI with some 2.7 million name check requests, many of which still remain pending today. Furthermore, the FBI receives over 60,000 new name check requests each week, and almost half of these come from the USCIS.
In response to pressure from offices like ours, the FBI, as well as the USCIS, is now dedicating a greater amount of resources to this task, and you can rest assured that we will keep the pressure on in this situation.
Also, as it has been explained to me, names are submitted in a queue, and the entire queue must be cleared before any in the queue can be returned.
Finally, names are run through the system as every possible variation. For instance, John William Smith would have to clear the system as John William Smith, William Smith John, Smith John William, John Smith William, and so on. If there is more than one person with a single name and date of birth, the FBI must separate them from their counterpart(s) before they can clear the name.
The good news is that I see the clearances coming back every day, so there is certainly a light at the end of the tunnel! You are absolutely correct in saying that your name check has been pending for an unnecessarily long time, which leads me to believe that it will clear sooner rather than later. What we have found to be most helpful in cases such as yours is to keep inquiring with the USCIS on a regular basis as to the status of the case so that we might be able to catch the case as soon as it comes back from the security agencies. The most frustrating thing I have seen is when checks come back from the FBI after being pending for months and years and because nobody is actively working on the case at the USCIS, they simply don’t know and don’t adjudicate the case. When the checks come back, the USCIS has the ability to adjudicate and is happy to do so quickly upon our request. I truly wish we could compel the FBI to clear a case, but we have found them to be completely unwilling to accommodate such requests.
If you do have any evidence to suggest that the FBI has no record of your case, please fax it to me. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me