General Updates from the Nebraska Service Center

We have received some general updates from the Nebraska Service Center (NSC) and we would like to share them with you as they provide some useful insight into NSC’s operations:

Backlog.  The net overall backlog at the end of first quarter of FY2009 was 250,000 cases; reduced to 87,500 cases by the end of the 2nd quarter of FY2009.  NSC expects that by June 2009 there would be no case backlog.  Additionally, the I-140 backlog was 40,000 in October 2008, as of May 2009 it is down to 10,000.

Receipts.  There has been a notable decrease in receipts in new cases.  There were 80,000 issued in October 2008 while there were less than 40,000 receipts issued in January 2009.  There has been a slight increase since January to about 50,000 receipts per month.  Since receipts have decreased, the adjudicators have been able to catch up and even review cases from other centers.  NSC has been reviewing I-130 from the California Service Center and some standalone I-140s from the Texas Service Center to help reduce the national backlog.

Preadjudicating I-485s.  The EB-485 at NSC has been “pre-adjudicating” cases to try and have them done but-for the priority date being current.  This means that it is possible to obtain RFEs or NOIDs on cases which do not have current priority dates.