Still waiting!!! Everyone else is being approved but we're still waiting after 2 and a half months

[Rmmm12345 15]

basically I'll just put up the email I sent to the CSC to get information. Could anybody help out here. Been waiting with no information at all and it seems everyone else is being approved already. So aggravating

To whomever it may concern,

My fiancée and I filed for my K1 visa and got our NOA1 on February 2nd , the date that the visa was accepted on was January 29th. Now, as we are both obviously new to this we signed up to visa help sites to be able to follow other people's journeys whilst ours was pending. However, we've now noticed that the number of NOA2's and even those with RFE's are going a lot faster than ours... The average waiting time in between NOA1 and NOA2 appears to be between 31-50 days - we are now on day 63 (which I understand there is a 5 month waiting time suggested by yourselves) however when everyone else around you is being accepted, and informed of what's going on with their K1's I feel that we have been kept somewhat in the dark. My Fiancée called your customer service team whom were less than helpful, and didn't want to offer any advice which I find somewhat saddening as we're going through the most stressful, yet exciting time of our lives and it is being dampened and made even more stressful by people like this - unwilling to help.

I would like to take this opportunity to request some form of further details as to what is going with our process. Even if we were number 32 million in the queue an you had a turnaround of 100,000 a day at least I'd know we were going somewhere. But now it seems like we've just been put at the bottom of a pile and forgotten about. Which I understand a lot of others must feel also. I would appreciate a response adequately and efficiently.

Side note to this - I can see that somebody accessed our file on the 3rd February (one day after it was stated on our NOA1?) Secondly, according to the website visa journey.com the processing date for the CSC is February 11th (9 days after ours?) and we still haven't heard a thing. It's starting to get a bit frustrating to be waiting and waiting and have no further information or anything to base our time on. I work full-time as well as attending university and would need to give plenty of notice to be able to attend the next stages of the process. I'd basically just like to know where we're at so that I could be able to plan ahead of time and make sure I have the correct money saved etc.

[Georgia16 2,858]

Calling them won't help a thing. You can't do anything until 5 months have passed.

Dates on VJ is just estimates of what members put in there timelines.

There are still a lot of people waiting around your date and even before. Lately they have approved people from late January as well as February filers so a bit more patient even though I know it's hard when everybody else gets their approvals.

[vpalermo85 62]

Unfortunately the processing date that visajourney.com provides is only an estimate and not an actual date to expect your NOA2 date approval. The USCIS website states that processing for K-1 applications at the CSC office take an average of five months. Since you received your NOA1 on 2/2 they're still well within that time frame. I can understand how frustrating it might be to be waiting like you are, but USCIS is very rarely helpful when it comes to status updates. You just have to force yourself to not think about it and when you least expect it, your application will most likely be approved. I don't know much about your case, so I have no idea if there's any red flags, but even so just try not to worry about it and ignore other people's timeline because every case is unique and different and there's no exact science as to why one file is approved before yours. Just try not to analyze it even though I know at one point we all found that impossible when we were in your shoes.

[baron555 934]

Paralysis by analysis. Stop. Do not bring any conclusion regarding other cases' timings to your own.

Plan for 10 months, be happy with 5.

[Pitaya 2,576]

~Moved from K1 Process to K1 Progress Forum~

~Inquiry/commentary about case status~

~duplicate copy removed~

~Please refrain from multiple posting of same topic~

Pitaya

VJ Moderation

[Rmmm12345 15]

Thank you everyone for the comfort. Good to know that I'm not the only person that's experiencing this - as I was well aware but nice to hear it in person. I just do not understand in which order they process the files. It seems so obscure that they will file some from Jan some from Feb and even before that. Weird!!!

[Rmmm12345 15]

Unfortunately the processing date that visajourney.com provides is only an estimate and not an actual date to expect your NOA2 date approval. The USCIS website states that processing for K-1 applications at the CSC office take an average of five months. Since you received your NOA1 on 2/2 they're still well within that time frame. I can understand how frustrating it might be to be waiting like you are, but USCIS is very rarely helpful when it comes to status updates. You just have to force yourself to not think about it and when you least expect it, your application will most likely be approved. I don't know much about your case, so I have no idea if there's any red flags, but even so just try not to worry about it and ignore other people's timeline because every case is unique and different and there's no exact science as to why one file is approved before yours. Just try not to analyze it even though I know at one point we all found that impossible when we were in your shoes.

Red flags? Pretty much we met online last year (may) on a straight edge dating site 4 and a bit years age difference I'm in my final year at uni in Scotland and work as a store assistant manager, my fiancé works with the usps and we've met 4 times now combining a time of around 3 months in total together. We've spoke every single day since we met and he's coming over in June again so 5th time. A lot in common and both share very similar lifestyle views etc. I hope they don't see that as dodgy:/!!

[vpalermo85 62]

Red flags? Pretty much we met online last year (may) on a straight edge dating site 4 and a bit years age difference I'm in my final year at uni in Scotland and work as a store assistant manager, my fiancé works with the usps and we've met 4 times now combining a time of around 3 months in total together. We've spoke every single day since we met and he's coming over in June again so 5th time. A lot in common and both share very similar lifestyle views etc. I hope they don't see that as dodgy:/!!

It will all work out in the end--as corny as this might sound just have faith in your relationship and the strength of your bond and it'll keep you grounded. Mind you, I told myself that every day until our interview approval this past week and I still had this little niggle in the back of my mind that the world was going to strike us down and deny us just to be a pain in the butt. I still don't believe we were approved on some levels lol. There's no rhyme or reason why one file shoots ahead of the pack. We just have to remember there are people at the CSC office like us trying to do their job--some are fast, some are slow and take their time, some are lazy, and others are on organizational freaks like me lol. There's no way to know which officer is on our case as much as we would like them. You just have to sit tight until you hear back from them--whether that's an NOA2 or an RFE, you'll hear something from them and you know how strong your application and relationship is so you won't be denied if you met their requirements and it seems like you have

[etrangais 926]

This is the way I look at it:

If every adjudicator gets 10 cases at a time to work on, case # 1 for the second adjudicator (which will be case # 11 in the list) will go as fast as case # 1 on the list since it will be the first case the second adjudicator will work on, once done, cases # 2-10 for the first adjudicator will feel frustrated because case # 11 was completed before them. This is just my guess ....

hoping to be case # 1 on some adjudicator's list hhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Rmmm12345 15]

It will all work out in the end--as corny as this might sound just have faith in your relationship and the strength of your bond and it'll keep you grounded. Mind you, I told myself that every day until our interview approval this past week and I still had this little niggle in the back of my mind that the world was going to strike us down and deny us just to be a pain in the butt. I still don't believe we were approved on some levels lol. There's no rhyme or reason why one file shoots ahead of the pack. We just have to remember there are people at the CSC office like us trying to do their job--some are fast, some are slow and take their time, some are lazy, and others are on organizational freaks like me lol. There's no way to know which officer is on our case as much as we would like them. You just have to sit tight until you hear back from them--whether that's an NOA2 or an RFE, you'll hear something from them and you know how strong your application and relationship is so you won't be denied if you met their requirements and it seems like you have

Thank you so so much! And congratulations. I can't wait to be at your stage and just be filled with excitement. Yeah it must be so surreal. Great for you guys though!!!

[yuna628 9,528]

OP: You won't get a response to that email, nor will phoning the USCIS get you any help. Until you are outside of 'normal processing time' you cannot get them to budge on your case, and even then you may have trouble without seeking assistance from government officials.

That being said California Service Center, is the faster of the service centers at this time. Five months is not the typical time you see processed by the figures shown here based on data and experiences of members. However, that isn't to say some cases don't take that long. Cases coming out of CSC can be completed in as little as a few weeks, a few days, or a few months. You have a Feb NOA1, and we are now into April, and that is not an unheard of amount of time to wait. Understand that, before CSC was exclusively handling these cases, Texas Service Center was also taking cases and so much so they were severely backlogged. People were waiting up to 300+ days to be processed while those who went to CSC could be finished within a week. Thanks to directions from higher up the food chain as it were, all newly filed cases were then handled by CSC. This means CSC now bears the entire load of caseswork. I think this additional burden has increased waiting times there a little bit for some, but all typically within the projected processing time.

There is no general sense or order to how a person gets your file. Imagine your file is in a giant wheelie bin with thousands of others. Maybe the caseworker takes a stack off the top, maybe they take one letter of the alphabet a week, maybe they handle one from each country... who knows. Yes things happen, and yes sometimes files become lost, but there is no evidence of this for you at this time.

Waiting is an art you're going to have to bear with the USCIS unfortunately. They care very little.

[Rmmm12345 15]

OP: You won't get a response to that email, nor will phoning the USCIS get you any help. Until you are outside of 'normal processing time' you cannot get them to budge on your case, and even then you may have trouble without seeking assistance from government officials.

That being said California Service Center, is the faster of the service centers at this time. Five months is not the typical time you see processed by the figures shown here based on data and experiences of members. However, that isn't to say some cases don't take that long. Cases coming out of CSC can be completed in as little as a few weeks, a few days, or a few months. You have a Feb NOA1, and we are now into April, and that is not an unheard of amount of time to wait. Understand that, before CSC was exclusively handling these cases, Texas Service Center was also taking cases and so much so they were severely backlogged. People were waiting up to 300+ days to be processed while those who went to CSC could be finished within a week. Thanks to directions from higher up the food chain as it were, all newly filed cases were then handled by CSC. This means CSC now bears the entire load of caseswork. I think this additional burden has increased waiting times there a little bit for some, but all typically within the projected processing time.

There is no general sense or order to how a person gets your file. Imagine your file is in a giant wheelie bin with thousands of others. Maybe the caseworker takes a stack off the top, maybe they take one letter of the alphabet a week, maybe they handle one from each country... who knows. Yes things happen, and yes sometimes files become lost, but there is no evidence of this for you at this time.

Waiting is an art you're going to have to bear with the USCIS unfortunately. They care very little.

Thank you so much for all of this information. Definitely puts my mind at ease a little! So, I read before on here that when a file is "touched" it gets scanned therefore leaving a footnote on the system. However, ours got touched the day after the NOA1 notice date. Does this mean someone picked it up again and didn't finish it maybe it requires an REF? Or something! I don't get it at all. But oh well, fingers crossed we don't need to wait another 2 and a half months. Although I did manage to successfully visit last month so maybe I'll just go for another - who knows!

Thank you again!

[Ebunoluwa 6,136]

The service centers bounce back and forth, over the years I have seen the usual time processing being 5-6 months, then a few weeks, then

9 months, it's all over the map. In perspective, 2 1/2 months is pretty short and nothing to be worried about.

[russandraquel 86]

The rolling averages on visajourney are smaller than the true average, because the unapproved petitions do not count in the average.

Think of it this way:

If I have a group of 100 people that I observe from birth and record their death in years, I won't know the average until they are all dead. Until then, my average will be too small.

[larida0704 4]

Please do not compare your timeline to others or you will go crazy. My daughters case took almost 10 months to be approved at Texas Service Center. Once approved it never got to NVC stage and after an info pass it got approved and moved at almost the 1 year mark. I am sure this will not happen to you but stressing will not help. Keep reaching to this site for advise and best of luck!