Recently, the U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has improved the reporting procedure for processing times of immigration benefit applications located at the USCIS website: http://www.uscis.gov.Following is the notice published by the USCIS:

In the past, USCIS benefit processing reports indicated the specific type of applications or petitions that were being processed and the date the cases were received. However, the date the case was received did not provide a clear indication of when USCIS expected to complete the case, nor did it provide a clear indication of USCIS’ commitment to process cases within a certain cycle time. It also did not align with the processing times and cycle times the agency reports in other contexts.

This improved reporting procedure is an effort to give our customers more accurate information that better reflects current processing time and USCIS service level commitments. Effective immediately, when we are completing applications and petitions within our service goal levels we will report that as the processing time. For example, when our service level goal is to process a particular kind of case within six months, then if our processing time is six months or less, we will show a processing time consistent with our service level goal because that reflects our commitment. Similarly, where our service level goal is 3 month processing, we will show a processing time reflecting that commitment if we are meeting that service level goal.

When we are not meeting our service level goal, the date posted will reflect the filing date of cases that are being completed. It should be noted that while in some instances reported processing dates may appear to have regressed due to this change, they do not reflect a lengthening of USCIS processing times, but simply the change in reporting. Our goal is to provide accurate projections and thus give customers clear expectations as to what they can expect as a processing time.