Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the immigration process to the United States has been significantly delayed. Immigrants face a sharp increase as they move through the system, experiencing delays in processing visas, work permits, green cards and naturalization applications, as well as a backlog of cases in immigration court.

Immigration Office In Los Angeles

Milap Kashipara spent 16 years waiting for a green card that she hoped would provide better opportunities for her three children than in India, as well as a chance to reunite with her siblings in California.

Los Angeles Immigration Attorney

In 2019, his request finally came to the fore. Complete the paperwork and reach the final stage: arranging an interview with the US Consulate in Mumbai. An assessment evaluation at the time showed that his family could be accepted in April 2020.

Then came Covid-19. Kashibara was 47 years old and in good health when he became ill. He died alone in hospital 15 days later, on May 1, 2021, before the interview could take place.

“Your family is in desperate need of support now and deserves the opportunity to immigrate,” his sister Amy Bhanvadia wrote in a letter to the Department of Homeland Security shortly after his death. “Families like my brother’s have faced the worst effects of the coronavirus and are suffering through no fault of their own and have lost their immigration benefits after waiting years to become legal.”

A major setback is the immigration process in the United States. Unprecedented delays in processing millions of visas, work permits, green cards and naturalization applications, as well as cases pending in immigration courts, are so severe that experts say they cannot be resolved without major reforms.

Ur M. Jaddou, Director, U.s. Citizenship And Immigration Services

It’s been more than three decades since Congress passed a sweeping overhaul of the U.S. immigration system that draws lines across multiple federal agencies based on factors including country of origin, family ties and a person’s employment. The Trump administration has implemented time-consuming changes — longer application forms, requests for additional evidence, and further review of reforms — that have extended existing delays to unmanageable levels at every stage.

People arrive for a naturalization ceremony at a USCIS office in Miami in August 2018.

“Wait time is increasing even though policy is moving in the right direction, because policy does not move quickly if demand for these services increases,” said David Beer, director of the Liberal Immigration Study. Cato Institute. “There is no way to control these delays through normal side-by-side editing.”

Although delay is a hallmark of any bureaucratic process, the human cost can be significant in the migration context. A study by the Cato Institute estimates that 1.6 million people, like Kashibara, who are sponsored by relatives for a green card will die before they can legally come to the United States.

Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible

Bhanvadia, who lives in Yorba Linda, asked Kashipara nearly two decades ago to join her and most of her family in the United States. Kashibara built his truck scale business overseas while waiting his turn.

US citizens like Bhanvadia can sponsor green cards for their spouses, children, parents, and siblings. After consulting with a lawyer, Bhanvadia decided that Kashipara’s death had severed his family’s ties to American citizenship. Their daughter, who dreamed of studying in the United States, may not be able to obtain a student visa because applicants must prove they do not intend to stay permanently.

“It’s a myth that it’s so easy for foreigners to come here,” Bhanvadia says. “My brother’s family would have been here if there had not been a visa or immigration delay, and he would still be alive.”

Pending applications with USCIS have increased by a third since the start of the pandemic, to 8.6 million in March. Immigration courts have 1.8 million pending cases, a 25% increase since the beginning of the fiscal year, according to the Transactional Records Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan think tank at Syracuse University.

Interfaith Refugee And Immigration Service

The Ministry of Labor has been processing some requests submitted seven months ago regarding determining the prevailing wage, and calculating the average wage paid to similar workers in all occupations that set the minimum wage for sponsored workers who obtain a green card. This process, which took less than two months, should ensure that American citizens do not transfer foreign worker benefits to my workers. But the delay prevents employers from hiring the workers needed to fill the national deficit of about 5 million workers.

Labor Department spokeswoman Monica Ferrin said demand for seasonal farmworkers and other temporary jobs has increased dramatically, but congressional funding has not kept pace with demand.

When US consulates reopened after being closed due to the pandemic, wait times for visa appointments increased. The State Department reported last month that nearly 410,000 immigrant visa applicants whose cases were full still had not had scheduled interviews. Compared to an average of 61,000 candidates who held this position in 2019.

Cato reported last month that wait times for visa interviews vary widely between consulates. Tourists and business travelers are waiting an average of 247 days, compared to just 17 days before the pandemic. At the consulate in Santiago, Chile, the wait can be up to 886 days – two and a half years.

Suspicious Package Delivered To La County Immigration Office

The latest annual report from USCIS notes that delays are causing people to seek other solutions, request urgent or emergency applications, and overwhelm the agency with calls.

“The perfect storm of decreased resources, increased enrollment rates, and physical constraints imposed by the pandemic has resulted in longer processing times for almost every tantanin production line,” the report said.

USCIS is almost always funded by application fees, although some petitions, such as asylum, are free. The agency has not raised rates since 2016 and is operating at a 20% vacancy rate. In an attempt to address the problem, Congress this year provided $275 million to deal with the recession and support refugee care, in part to hire more workers.

USCIS Director Or Jadu has reversed recent administration actions, such as requiring additional visa interviews and biometrics testing for applicants who have already completed those processes. The agency has also automatically extended some business licenses, set targets to reduce delays, and hopes to implement full electronic processing by 2026, including electronic submission of all applications, approvals for electronic payments everywhere, and digital issuance of documents. Only 17 of the 102 benefits are currently available through electronic filing.

Immigration Law Office Of Los Angeles Reviews By Real Customers 2024

During an online presentation in May, Gado said nearly two-thirds of pending applications would not be completed within the expected period, an amount that reached 5.3 million cases in January.

“We do our best whenever we can. I know it’s frustrating, but the truth is it’s frustrating for us to know how to do it.” “Let’s do our best.”

Among those who qualify for permanent residency — often through sponsorship by family members or employers — the delay has become particularly long for people from countries such as India, China, Mexico and the Philippines. This is because the United States allows up to 7% of green cards issued each year to people from any country.

Congress authorizes 675,000 green cards each year, most of which are intended for families of U.S. citizens or residents. The law allows family-sponsored green cards not granted within one year to be transferred to the employment category the following year before they are declared invalid. Last fiscal year, the federal government did not issue nearly 67,000 green cards before they expired on September 30.

Immigration Legal Services

Both houses of Congress have introduced legislation to reduce the green card backlog. Senators Kevin Cramer (D) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) introduced the Eagle Act on July 20, which would lift the cap on employer-sponsored green cards and increase the state cap on employer-sponsored green cards. family. Card. Other proposals include restoring unused green cards and removing immigrants with advanced STEM degrees from the national cap.

Ashraf Awad, a 46-year-old Egyptian mechanical engineer, obtained a green card in 2016 through the US low-income immigration program. Awad asked his wife and two children to join him in Dallas.

At the same time, he spent thousands of dollars on flights to Egypt to see his 10-year-old daughter, who had been hospitalized several times for stomach pain and vomiting. Doctors can’t find a reason, and Awad wonders if this is part of the reason they broke up.

Awad’s attorney, Curtis Morrison, said it was unlikely the Awad family would be reunited anytime soon, and noted that since President Trump took office, it has taken green card holders years to process immigration applications. Awad is a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by Morrison’s company against the federal government over processing delays. Such lawsuits have tripled since 2020, and there are expected to be about 6,300 plaintiffs by the end of this fiscal year, according to a report.

Immigration Issues And Resources

Immigration law office los angeles, immigration office los angeles, immigration office downtown los angeles, immigration court in los angeles, immigration organizations in los angeles, immigration attorney in los angeles, immigration office in downtown los angeles, immigration jobs in los angeles, immigration services in los angeles, immigration office in los angeles california, immigration in los angeles, us immigration office los angeles

ViassildNews

Immigration Office In Los Angeles