The Law Offices of David Blum & Associates

POLICY SPOTLIGHT
Immigration Prosecutions Reach Record High Based on Justice Department data compiled by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), in January 2008, there were 4,739 federal prosecutions classified as immigration matters. This represents an increase in prosecutions of over 20% from the previous month, and is the largest monthly number of such prosecutions in the past seven years. The comparisons of the number of defendants charged with immigration-related offenses are based on case-by-case information obtained by TRAC under the Freedom of Information Act from the Executive Office for United States Attorneys. When monthly 2008 prosecutions of this type are compared with those of the same period in the previous year, the number of filings was up (32.7 percent). Prosecutions over the past year are still much higher than they were five years ago. Overall, the data show that prosecutions of this type are up 140.8 percent from levels reported in 2003.

Advisory on Processing Times

USCIS has received a significant increase in the number of applications filed. In July and August, nearly 2.5 million applications and petitions of all types were received. This compares to 1.2 million applications and petitions received in the same time period last year. This fiscal year, we received 1.4 million applications for naturalization; nearly double the volume we received the year before. The agency is working to improve processes and focus increased resources, including hiring approximately 1,500 new employees, to address this workload. As of March 11, 2008, processing times for naturalization applications filed after June 1, 2007 have been lowered to 14 to 16 months from 16-18 months to process. Please see the statement of Director Gonzalez in the Related Links section of this page.

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