As a part of the Department of Labor's efforts to improve and centralize permanent labor certification application processing, cases filed and pending with the State Workforce Agencies and Regional Offices have been transferred to the Backlog Processing Centers in Dallas and Philadelphia. Approximately 345,000 cases have been forwarded to the two centers. Between 3,000 to 5,000 cases are still pending in the San Francisco and New York Regional Offices. These two Regional Offices are scheduled to close by January 2006. Therefore, if the Regional Office cases are not adjudicated by the end of the year, they will be transferred to the backlog processing center in 2006.

There are at least 100,000 pending cases which have not received letters asking whether the employer wants to continue with the case ("45-day" letters). During the next few months, the two centers will be working to complete full data entry on these cases and issuing the 45-day letters.

The centers have adjudicated some RIR and traditional cases where recruitment was previously completed and no further recruitment was required. The centers are not yet ready to process traditional cases that require recruitment; in the coming months, they will be preparing to work these cases and handle all related issues such as prevailing wage and job orders.