USCIS has announced it will now require interviews of applicants for permanent residence (I-485 applicants)  in the employment based categories. Until now, most of these cases have been decided by mail. Some people are interviewed when there are issues in a case, where there is a recent spouse tagging along as a dependent applicant, or for quality control. Now, it looks like everyone will be interviewed, grinding the process to a very slow trickle unless USCIS also staffs up for these interviews.

In addition to the interviews above, USCIS will also interview refugees and asylees sponsoring their relatives (accompanying dependents) via form I-730.  This is all to say the government wants to enhance its “extreme vetting” of more applicants for benefits even though most of these folks will have already undergone one if not more biometrics and/or security checks and interviews when a) obtaining initial visas to come to the USA in the first place, b) when filing applications, and c) when extending or changing status. Most immigration advocates see this as a tremendous waste of taxpayer money.  It’s also just one more way, absent Congressional action to cut back on numbers and categories of legal immigration, that the anti-immigration forces in the White House are impacting legal immigration by simply slowing the whole process down.