How Fast will Deferred Action Cases be Decided

By Pat young, Esq. - cross-posted from the New York State Immigrant Action Fund

Yesterday, during a conference call on the new Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, USCIS Director Alejandro Mayorkas was asked how long it would take to adjudicate applications for DREAMers. He said he expected it to take "several months" initially. He also said that the 90 day period during which a work authorization application has to be decided would not begin until after the Deferred Action application was approved. This means that applicants may wait six months before they receive work authorization. Thanks to Tom Shea over at NYIC for pointing this out.

In my experience, USCIS is slow in processing at the beginning of any new program. Often, as adjudicators gain experience, they speed up, but I have also seen programs head in the other direction.