USCIS recently announced the launch of the online FOIA status check. The system is designed to provide a secure way for FOIA petitioners to check the status on their request.
While the information provided by the system is not very detailed, it nonetheless is bound to eliminate a large number of status check calls to USCIS’s FOIA request service center. There are 110,000 annual FOIA requests and the amount of status request calls they generate creates a heavy burden on USCIS.
Customers can use the online service anytime by entering their assigned control number to receive an immediate response on the status of their FOIA request. The customer will then receive either a ‘pending’ or ‘processed’ response. A pending response indicates to the customer the position of their request relative to all other requests in the same processing track. A ‘processed’ request indicates that the request was processed and the customer will be provided that processing date. USCIS will make daily updates to the status information.
