USCIS petition adjudications times as reported on the USCIS website have extended out to what looks like an untenable 31.5 to 50 months. In a public engagement on March 13, 2020 the Chief of the Investor Program Office in Washington stated that the recent slowdown in adjudications was due in part to a recent focus on  staff training and "infrastructure development" related to enhancing "integrity" efforts (meaning anti-fraud investigations), and that she expected the pace of adjudications to pick up now that that effort was largely completed.  We shall see. In the last quarter of 2019 there were less than 500 I-526 adjudications which is abysmal compared to years past.  

On a more favorable note, I can report that the IPO Chief also announced that her Office would discontinue is previous "First In First Out" policy and prioritize the adjudication of I-526’s filed by petitioners from countries that are not impacted by visa over-subscription. This means that petitioners from countries with a wait for visa availability such as China, Vietnam, and India who comprise by far the greatest number of pending I-526s will be waiting longer for I-526 adjudication and investors from all other countries where there is no wait for quota will be moved to the head of the I-526 adjudication queue.    

The real question here is whether or not USCIS will commit the personnel and resources required for us to see any improvement in I-526 wait times. The answer to that question unfortunately remains very much uncertain at this time.  As we have yet to see the new adjudication priority policy play out in actual adjudications, the best we can do at this time in terms of estimating adjudication times is hope that the new policy will result in a gradual reduction of adjudication times. 

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