On September 28, 2017, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) hosted a stakeholder call to discuss the implementation of the new interview requirement for employment-based adjustment of status (I-485) applicants. During this call, USCIS indicated that all I-485 cases filed before March 6, 2017 will continue to be adjudicated by USCIS Service Centers. These cases will likely be approved without an interview, although under “normal” circumstances, approximately 5 to 10% of employment based cases are typically pulled for interview – usually on a random basis or based on certain triggers such as an arrest record or the legitimacy of a marriage. All employment-based I-485 applications (EB-1, EB-2, EB-3) that are filed after March 6, 2017 will be subject to an interview.
USCIS began conducting interviews nationwide on October 2, 2017. The top ten field offices that are most impacted by this new workload are:
| Atlanta | Chicago | Dallas |
| Houston | Los Angeles | New York |
| Newark | San Francisco | San Jose |
| Seattle |
Loke Walsh Immigration Law expects that USCIS processing times will be impacted, including family-based and N-400 citizenship applications, but no one knows what the expected timing will be. We will keep you updated with any new developments.
