Ombudsman Meeting Input
January 13, 2021 5 Comments
2/2 Ombudsman Meeting
IIUSA has announced that its staff have been invited to a virtual meeting on February 2 with representatives from the Office of the Citizenship & Immigration Services (CIS) Ombudsman.
Ombudsman’s Office meets with stakeholder communities to hear about their concerns and identify issues with USCIS programs and processing. The Ombudsman then uses this input to make recommendations to USCIS to fix systemic problems and improve the quality of their services.
In preparation for this meeting, IIUSA is collecting comments and feedback on areas of concern that industry would like to be addressed at the upcoming meeting. You can send your comments to info@iiusa.org no later than Wednesday, January 20. (Note that the CIS Ombudsman deals with USCIS specifically, not with consulates/Department of State and not with legislation.)
I am still thinking about my comments and questions, and invite you to help me. The CIS Ombudsman is most likely to note and act on problems that are systemic and widespread. So the strongest comments will be able to reference the specific experience of multiple witness. I made a Google Form designed to collect such experience, and I invite you to fill out the form with your input on processing issues encountered for I-526, I-485, I-829, etc.. This will save me the time of sorting through old blog comments to collect details from reader experience, and will help to shape and inform my thinking. (And of course, you can respond directly to IIUSA as well.) [Note: the form is now closed. Thank you to the 40 readers who submitted input. I summarized and used detail from your comments to craft the suggested questions I sent to IIUSA.]
Other Updates
Recent announcements on the USCIS News page may be relevant for some readers:
USCIS to Replace Sticker That Extends Validity of Green Cards (January 12, 2021)
USCIS Lockbox Updates (January 08, 2021) regarding delays in issuing receipt notices
USCIS Extends Flexibility for Responding to Agency Requests (December 18, 2020)
EB-5 Updates 
Done, submitted my comment about I829 delays.
Me too – about I-526 delays.
Actually, it feels liberating to rant a bit, even though it may not be productive.
Now if only we could organise a good protest :D, seems to be the only way to get attention these days.
problems at every level of Eb5 process.
Hello Suzanne – does IIUSA or Ombudsman CIS provide any post session notes to wider public or are these sessions more of a closed door discussion.
I was curious to get some insights on which matters were raised …
The Ombudsman meeting was postponed for a couple weeks, IIUSA said. They’ll post a recap on their blog after the meeting.