The Administration is moving forward with its goal to increase vetting of all applicants for immigration benefits. We’re seeing this play out in a number of immigration settings. The most immediate effects we are seeing are longer delays for applications. Higher request for evidence and denial rates are also being reported. Immigration processing is not business as usual.
This month, the National Vetting Center was created by the White House. The National Vetting Center will be run out of the Department of Homeland Security, and will coordinate with other agencies like the Department of State and Federal Bureau of Investigation.
The announcement states, in part:
The NVC, which will be led by the Department of Homeland Security, will help fulfill the President’s requirement that departments and agencies improve their coordination and use of intelligence and other information in the vetting process.
The Federal Government’s current vetting efforts are ad hoc, which impedes our ability to keep up with today’s threats. The NVC will better coordinate these activities in a central location, enabling officials to further leverage critical intelligence and law enforcement information to identify terrorists, criminals, and other nefarious actors trying to enter and remain within our country. The NVC’s operations will adhere to America’s strong protections for individuals’ privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties. The Administration’s top priority is the safety and security of the public, and the NVC will empower our frontline defenders to better fulfill that obligation.
Other immigration-related agencies have also instituting increased vetting measures.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it will interview all or most applicants who apply to remove the conditions on their permanent residence. This will be after one or more interviews previously to get the immigration benefit initially. In the past, a couple could mail in their application, with proof of marriage (e.g. shared home ownership or lease; kids had together; shared bills), and usually the agency would mail the green card after several months. Now, in addition to sending in these materials, the agency is calling people in for a second interview, and also in some cases conducting family home visits, even at odd hours if fraud is suspected. While combating green card is a necessary and vital part of USCIS’s mission, there has been no additional funding for all these interviews, which probably means lots of delays moving forward for all sorts of applications, as the agency reassigns resources.
USCIS has also said that it will move forward with interviewing beneficiaries of employment based immigration cases. While the agency has always had this authority, the practice has been to only interview where fraud concerns were triggered. Now, the agency is calling people in, and in some cases revisiting earlier I-140 approval adjudications. These are complicated applications, and the concern among some practitioners is that the field office adjudicators are not typically trained in the legalities, as are Service Center employees. Also, the added interview creates the potential for additional bias to be introduced in to the process, and again more delays.
USCIS also indicated this past year that it will no longer apply deference to renewals of approved petitions. This longstanding practice led to somewhat predictable results for employers with employees on occupational visas. We haven’t seen a rash of readjudications, but the guidance is now in place for adjudicators.
At the Consulates, there is reportedly an increase in the use of “administrative processing,” which the Department of State will not typically provide reason for. While cases usually are resolved in due time, it’s not unheard of for nonimmigrant visa renewals to suddenly take much longer (e.g. weeks), as they go through this process. This can be a real headache for visa renewal applicants, as well as for their families and employers who want them back.
At the border, it seems like there has been an increase in the use of expedited removals in the past year. On the northern border, we most commonly see this with cases of misrepresentation, which occur after a lengthy interview. It was recently reported that searches of digital media are up by about 60% from 2016.
A safer America is a better America. However, finding the right balance between safety and practicality is also at issue. Applicants need to be aware that processes are slowing down. Changes are on-going, and we will continue to publish updates as circumstances and practices change.