What is normal I-829 processing?

The latest USCIS Check Case Processing Times page update gives the implausible report that Form I-829 is not considered “outside normal” processing unless it was filed almost 20 years ago, before May 2001. But not to fear — this does not mean that I-829 should take, will take, or have normally taken that long to process.

What does the report mean?

I have a theory that could explain the I-829 processing time update: maybe USCIS finally adjudicated a batch of I-829 petitions held limbo since 2002 over compliance with Public Law 107-273.  (A situation described at the end of the post, if you’re interested.) If that’s correct, then the report is good news. (And the only alternate explanation I can think of is that 234 months is simply a made-up number or a typo.)

Certainly, the page update does not mean that 36.5 to 234 months is now or ever has been a normal or expected range for I-829 processing.  In communication with stakeholders, USCIS treats the reported “estimated time range” as defining normal processing — but that application is simply mistaken, given the reporting methodology. As explained on the USCIS website, the processing time report Estimated Time Range uses a method where only the first month represents something like a normal processing — the median processing time of recently adjudicated cases — while the larger month represents the border of extreme outliers in recent adjudications. Unfortunately, the report uses that larger month to calculate the “case inquiry date.” This unreasonably prevents inquiries until a pending petition is older than 93% of cases recently processed — and creates unreasonable situations like the 20-year-old cutoff currently published for I-829.  A published “case inquiry date” in May 2001 is good news in the sense that it’s obviously ridiculous and discredits the way processing time report case inquiry dates are reported and used.

Alternate data for I-829 processing times

When the USCIS Check Processing Times Page is misleading, how else can we get a sense of normal and actual I-829 processing times? Available sources include sporadic reports of specific adjudications, I-829 volume trends, and the law.

In the USCIS FOIA reading room, there’s a file I-829 Approvals, Denials, and Receipts for Q1 of FY19 (PDF, 257.8 KB). The file lists the filing date and the approval or denial date for every Form I-829 adjudicated October 2018 to December 2018. I put the file in Excel and made a chart to show the pattern of actual processing times in this quarter for which we happen to have have complete data. As illustrated in the chart, the majority of decisions (79%) came in under 30 months. (Specifically 18-30 months: a wider ranger than one would expect from a nominally FIFO process.) And then there was a very long skinny tail of outliers.

Meanwhile, back around December 2018, the USCIS Check Case Processing Times page was reporting an I-829 estimated time range of 30 to 39 months (as recorded in my on-going log of processing time reports).  Most people looking at that report in 2018 would not have interpreted the reality: that 79% of I-829 being processed had waited less than 30 months. The report was misleading, even if it may have been technically accurate in reflecting the median and 93rd percentile of recent adjudications.

If most I-829 petitions adjudicated at the end of 2018 had a processing time between 18 and 30 months, what can we guess about I-829 adjudications today? Actual processing times today should be shorter or longer than that depending on how much productivity has increased or decreased since then. (Receipt volume should not vary the workload much, since the annual quota for CPR visas naturally paces demand for PR.) The following chart illustrates I-829 filing and productivity data reports from the USCIS Citizenship & Immigration Data page.

Productivity (approvals+denials per quarter) leading up to December 2018 was a bit higher overall than productivity since then, which would naturally mean that people getting I-829 decisions today probably waited longer than people getting decisions in December 2018. But future I-829 processing times promise to be shorter, if the productivity improvement evident early this year turns into a continuing trend.

The Law

In assessing what’s “normal” for I-829 processing, we needn’t just consider reported times, or actual times in recent experience. The fact that 1.5-to-3-year times are typical doesn’t make them normal. To quote from the 2020 Final Fee Rule: “DHS acknowledges its obligation to adjudicate Form I-829 filings within 90 days of the filing date or interview, whichever is later. See INA section 216(c)(3)(A)(ii), 8 U.S.C. 1186b (c)(3)(A)(ii).”

The Public Law 107-273 Saga

The “234 months” in the current I-829 processing time report could only be true by its methodology if indeed 7% of I-829 recently processed were more than 234 months old. Is that even possible? Reaching into my memory, I realize that yes, I do know of one multi-decade delay factor affecting a few cases. Here’s what happened.

• In 1995 to 1998, a number of EB-5 investors received I-526 approval for deals that the immigration service would later judge to be problematic.
• In 1998, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), the predecessor agency to USCIS, issued four precedent decisions addressing the eligibility requirements for EB-5 petitions. The publication of these precedent decisions resulted in litigation over their applicability to cases at various stages of adjudication.
• In 2002, Congress passed Public Law 107-273 with language to resolve the situation for EB-5 investors who had petitions pending when the 1998 precedent decisions changed the rules. P.L. 107-273 offered options for these immigrants to perfect their investments in order to remove conditions on permanent residence. P.L. 107-273 specified that the immigration service must publish implementing regulations in 120 days (hahahahaha), and could not take adverse action on I-829 for those immigrants until implementing regulations were effective.
• Twice a year from 2003 to 2010, the OMB Unified Agency announced the immigration service’s intent to finalize/propose regulations soon. Nothing was published or finalized. The pending I-829 for petitioners affected by PL 107-273 stayed pending for nearly a decade.
• In 2010 at an EB-5 stakeholder meeting, USCIS announced that those PL 107-273 I-829 petitions were finally getting attention. USCIS said that they had just reviewed and approved some of the I-829, and had 581 affected I-829 left that would be held in abeyance pending finalized regulations.
• 2011: A Proposed rule was finally published in the Federal Register for “Treatment of Aliens Whose Employment Creation Immigrant (EB-5) Petitions Were Approved After January 1, 1995 and Before August 31, 1998.” The public commented.
• 2011-2019: Almost another decade passed, and the proposed regulations were not finalized.
• October 2020: An I-829 processing times report suggests that USCIS recently processed a batch of I-829 about two decades old. I hope this means PL 107-273 closure at last. Also, that USCIS will take a lesson from this story: avoid retroactive rule-changes!