By Eileen M. Martin ( January 2, 2024, 2:01 PM EST) -- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is the primary agency in the United States that adjudicates petitions and applications for benefits such as visitor extensions, work permits, green cards, and U.S. naturalization. The agency publishes the timeline for completion of 80 per cent of its cases. These timelines are sometimes accurate and can experience wide swings from long processing times to shorter, and from short to longer. While applicants, beneficiaries and counsel look to them as guidelines, there are other places to which we can turn for guidance....