USCIS announces that effective today it will begin consolidating biometric collection when employment-based adjustment of status application and employment authorization requests are filed at the same time at one of the Service Centers. Applicants who concurrently file Form I-485 based upon the approval of an employment-based petition and Form I-765 will receive one biometrics appointment letter to appear at designated Application Support Center instead of two notices.

Agency officials today say it will take almost three years for USCIS to clear the naturalization backlog due to a surge in applications last summer. It is estimated that the agency received 737,223 applications — three-and-a-half times the number of applications (207,536) received during the same period a year earlier. As of October 2007, USCIS had almost 1 million naturalization applications pending approval. The surge caused the processing time to more than double — now standing at 16 to 18 months for applications filed during the summer of 2007, compared to the six-to-seven-month timeframe for applications filed in 2006.