U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have announced a joint plan to eliminate the backlog of name checks pending with the FBI.
The organizations have created a timeline for completion of pending name checks based on the age of the name check (please see table below). The oldest pending name checks will be resolved first. The FBI has said it has already eliminated all name check cases pending more than four years.
The stated goal is to complete 98% of all name checks within 30 days. The remaining two percent, which represent the most difficult name checks and require additional time to complete, will be processed within 90 days or less. USCIS and the FBI intend to achieve and sustain these processing times by June 2009.
In addition to focusing on the oldest pending name check cases first, USCIS has also requested that the FBI prioritize the resolution of approximately 29,800 pending name checks from naturalization applicants submitted to the FBI before May 2006 in cases where the naturalization applicant was already interviewed.
| Completion Goal | Category |
| May 2008 | Process all name checks pending more than 3 years |
| July 2008 | Process all name checks pending more than 2 years |
| November 2008 | Process all name checks pending more than one year |
| February 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 |
This is good news for applicants who have been waiting on FBI name checks for months, even years, to be processed. If you're currently waiting on an FBI name check, take note of the processing times. The attorneys at Harrison Alo, Attorneys at Law, have handled several of these kinds of cases and are available to discuss your concerns.
