USCIS Email sent August 15, 2019
Dear U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Newark Asylum Office and
Boston Asylum Sub-Office Stakeholder,
This message is to notify you that, in response to shifting priorities and the
continued influx of cases at the Southwest Border, both the Newark Asylum Office
and the Sub Office in Boston will be diverting a greater number of staff to the
APSO caseload.
Effective Monday, August 19th, both offices will assign a majority of interviewing
officers to the Credible Fear/Reasonable Fear workload. Officers will continue to
travel to the Southwest border, and an increased number of officers will be
assigned to interview Credible Fear and Reasonable Fear cases either in-person or
telephonically from the home offices.
This will necessarily have an impact on our Affirmative caseload. We intend to
continue to interview a small number of cases in the Newark (Lyndhurst) office. In
Boston, staff will continue to complete the process of interviewed cases, but no new
interviews will be scheduled for the time being. In both offices, the caseload will be
monitored and we will resume a more robust interview schedule as soon as possible.
To the extent that cases are scheduled for an interview at all, the scheduling will
continue to follow existing priorities. We will continue to maintain and schedule cases
from our ‘expedite’ list and our ‘short-notice’ list, although, of course, the
opportunities to do so will diminish.
We are disappointed not to be able to continue to cut into our backlog or to
adjudicate affirmative cases. We appreciate your understanding.
Sincerely,
Susan
Raufer
Director,
Newark Asylum Office
Meghann Boyle,
Sub-Office
Director
Boston Asylum Sub-Office