Newsletter Week of May 21

USCIS Updates Review Process for the Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans 
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has announced updates to the review process for immigration applications from Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans. The changes aim to provide greater consistency and efficiency in evaluating eligibility for certain immigration benefits. Under the new review process that went into effect on May 17, USCIS will randomly select about half of the monthly total, regardless of filing date, from the entire pending workload of Form I-134A to determine whether the case can be confirmed.  

Green Card Backlog Decreases By 4% in April 
The Department of State’s National Visa Center (NVC) saw a decrease in the immigrant visa (IV) backlog, from 370,125 pending cases in February to 354,973 cases in April — a 4.3% decrease (the NVC did not release a report in March). Despite the minimal decrease in case counts, the number of people scheduled for green card interviews saw a small increase. The NVC scheduled 41,904 interviews in April, compared to 38,896 interviews in February. 

Migrant Numbers Fall by 50% after Title 42 Ends 
The number of migrants attempting to cross the U.S-Mexico border fell by 50% in the days following the end of pandemic-era immigration restrictions. Officials had braced for a massive migrant surge when the restrictions known as Title 42 lifted before midnight last Thursday, but the southern border has since been a scene of relative calm. An official told the Associated Press that border agents had encountered a little less than 5,000 migrants a day since Title 42 expired, a sharp drop from roughly 10,000 daily encounters last week.