WASHINGTON – U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) today announced a joint plan to eliminate the backlog of name checks pending with
the FBI.
USCIS and the FBI established a series of milestones prioritizing work based on the age of the pending
name check. The FBI has already eliminated all name check cases pending more than four years.
“This plan of action is the product of a strong partnership between USCIS and the FBI to eliminate the
backlogs and to strengthen national security,” said USCIS Director Emilio Gonzalez.
By increasing staff, expanding resources, and applying new business processes, the goal is to complete 98
percent of all name checks within 30 days. USCIS and the FBI intend to resolve the remaining two
percent, which represent the most difficult name checks and require additional time to complete, within
90 days or less. The goal is to achieve and sustain these processing times by June 2009.
The joint plan will focus on resolving the oldest pending FBI name checks first. USCIS has also
requested that the FBI prioritize resolution of approximately 29,800 pending name checks from
naturalization applicants submitted to the FBI before May 2006 where the naturalization applicant was
already interviewed.
The target milestones for processing name checks are:
Completion Goal Category
May 2008 Process all name checks pending more than three years
July 2008 Process all name checks pending more than two years
Nov. 2008 Process all name checks pending more than one year
Feb. 2009 Process all name checks pending more than 180 days
June 2009 Process 98 percent of all name checks within 30 days and process the
remaining two percent within 90 days.