An extraordinary backlog of immigration cases is affecting United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) recently. In 2022, there were more than nine million applications in various categories that were still awaiting revision. One of the main reasons for this backlog includes the drastic increase in the length of the paperwork which is increasing the amount of time and attention each individual case requires.
Ever since the USCIS agency was established back in 2003, and up until this past year, 2022, the total length of immigration forms has rapidly grown from 193 pages to an astonishing 701 pages. That is an increase of 508 pages throughout the past nineteen years. In addition, the length of the form instructions is not included in any page counts, although they have grown significantly as well. As a result, the lengthier forms inevitably take longer for the agency to complete since every answer to a question must be manually entered and checked.
Aside from increasing the number of pages to immigration forms, the agency has also incorporated additional questions that require an enormous amount of information in response. Without consulting Congress, the USCIS is imposing huge increases in the procedural barriers to receiving immigration assistance. However, the agency is becoming less effective at its work as a result of the hundreds of extra pages of material, which is evidently delaying applications and growing backlogs to unthinkable sizes.
