I-751 Receipt Notices Now Valid for 24 Months

To accommodate ever-increasing application processing times, USCIS announced on September 3, 2021, that it is extending the validity period of receipt notices for conditional permanent residents (green card holders) with a pending Form I-751 or Form I-829 from 18 to 24 months. Conditional permanent residents who properly file will receive a receipt notice that can be presented as evidence of continued status for up to 24 months past the expiration date on their Green Card, while their case remains pending.

This is a welcome measure to ease the burden that USCIS’s shockingly long processing times place on green card holders who are following all the required steps to remain in status but must deal with massive bureaucratic hurdles just to maintain the documentation — to which they are already clearly entitled — that allows them to work, drive, and otherwise function normally in society. However, it does not solve the underlying problem of USCIS’s ever-increasing application processing times. Very long I-751 processing times have been the reality for many years (previously, the validity period for the receipt notices had been extended from 12 to 18 months), but this issue is no longer unique to I-751s. Indeed, USCIS backlogs have grown dramatically in recent years for nearly all types of immigration applications. Without a deeper intervention to clear the processing backlog across the board, this problem will only worsen.