Legal Question in Immigration Law in New York

Re: Asylee Hot Seat

I will try to answer the question as I understood it. The first question asks about how Adjustment of Status (AOS) in accomplished. The second question asks why AOS takes a long time. The third question is whether USCIS takes into account processing time for AOS as part of the durational requirements needed by a LPR to naturalize.

1. AOS is a process in which a Non-resident alien acquires Lawful Permanent Residence (LPR) status while he/she is in the United States. This process involves filing an application for AOS with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (formerly known as I.N.S.). The alien must be eligible to receive an immigrant visa, have the immigrant visa immediately available to him at the time his application is filed and be admissible to the United States for permanent residence.

2. AOS takes time to process not only because the actual application must be processed at several processing stations within the CIS District Office or Service Center where it was filed and processed again at another location if adjudication is done offsite, but primarily because of the backlogs that are created by having exceedingly more AOS applications filed in a given period of time than those that can be processed in the same period.

3. The time period that a Non-resident alien waits in the U.S. while adjusting his/her status is not time which the alien can claim to have been a LPR for the minimum residency period that LPRs need in order to naturalize (acquire U.S. citizenship).

DISCLAIMER: The answers provided above do not constitute legal advice. The information provided is of a general nature and does not apply to specific facts. The only advice I give is to consult an attorney if legal advice is required.