As many of you know, over the past few years there have been many Adjustment petitions that have been held up simply because the FBI has not been able to provide a timely “name check” report to USCIS.   

On February 4th, USCIS issued a memorandum directing officers to approve I-485 petitions if they are otherwise approvable and the name check has been pending for more than 180 days.  Quite simply, this means that if the petition is approvable, the priority dates are current and the FBI check has been pending for more than 180 days, the officers may now go ahead and approve the petition without waiting for the FBI name check.  The memorandum then goes to explain that if adverse information is later received from the FBI, USCIS will determine whether rescission of the approval or deportation are in order.

USCIS has already ordered that its offices do searches for files that are approvable but for the FBI name check. Therefore, if you have been held by the name check, there is a good chance that your petition will be adjudicated in the near future. 

The other bit of good news for Adjustment of Status applicants concerns the priority dates. If you have not looked, you should take a look because the priority dates for March of 2008 have moved forward quit a bit.  You may view the most recent priority dates at following URL:   http://travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bulletin/bulletin_3953.html