I-751 applications by the numbers

[jrwh1177 12]

Here is a small table that shows how I-751 has slowed down to a crawl in 2017 under our new administration in the White House.  All data was obtained from the USCIS via the link below.

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms-data/data-set-all-uscis-application-and-petition-form-types.  Truly eye opening to see that the approval rates are way down and that the pending applications are increasing at such a large rate.  Right now there are close to 200,000 of us just sitting here waiting.  Hoping for a miracle in 2018 so that the pace of approval increases and the pending application numbers go down.

 

[Cincyman 127]

Hi jrwh1177

Thank you for your information, and I have one question:

In the 1st Quarter, how they have 133,568 pending cases, and they have received 36,263 cases only? 

Is that the total of pending cases they have? That means not just what they received in the 1st Q of 2017.

[dburnt 59]

26 minutes ago, Cincyman said:

Hi jrwh1177

Thank you for your information, and I have one question:

In the 1st Quarter, how they have 133,568 pending cases, and they have received 36,263 cases only? 

Is that the total of pending cases they have? That means not just what they received in the 1st Q of 2017.

Yes that would be the total pending, not just from the quarter

 

[dburnt 59]

2 hours ago, jrwh1177 said:

Here is a small table that shows how I-751 has slowed down to a crawl in 2017 under our new administration in the White House.  All data was obtained from the USCIS via the link below.

https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-studies/immigration-forms-data/data-set-all-uscis-application-and-petition-form-types.  Truly eye opening to see that the approval rates are way down and that the pending applications are increasing at such a large rate.  Right now there are close to 200,000 of us just sitting here waiting.  Hoping for a miracle in 2018 so that the pace of approval increases and the pending application numbers go down.

 

This is why I hate statistics...because they can be used to justify/prove anything.  What you haven't shown in your statistics is that the 1st quarter and part of the 2nd was prior to this administration.  Also missing is the rest of the data which shows over-all, a significant increase in the number of applications in general...500,000 more applications in this fiscal than last year.   I would hesitate to blame an administration, other than to say that they have not staffed up enough for such an increase (10 % is quite a hike overall)..  It isn't really a crawl - they've actually approved 150,000 applications more than the previous year.

[Name O Boy 511]

Pending cases from last year. 

[jrwh1177 12]

2 hours ago, dburnt said:

This is why I hate statistics...because they can be used to justify/prove anything.  What you haven't shown in your statistics is that the 1st quarter and part of the 2nd was prior to this administration.  Also missing is the rest of the data which shows over-all, a significant increase in the number of applications in general...500,000 more applications in this fiscal than last year.   I would hesitate to blame an administration, other than to say that they have not staffed up enough for such an increase (10 % is quite a hike overall)..  It isn't really a crawl - they've actually approved 150,000 applications more than the previous year.

 

The biggest take away here is primarily to see how many I-751 cases were received in 2016 and compare them to 2017.  In this case in 2016 there were 144,648 cases filed and in 2017 166,431, which is just 20,000 more.  The bigger thing is how many were actually processed in that year.  in 2016 there were a total of 8096 denied and 134,288 approved cases for a total of 142,384 total processed cases.  In 2017 there were a total of 6382 denied and 89001 approved for a total of 95,383 total processed cases.  There were 47,001 less cases processed, year over year.  Either rules are stricter or they are way under staffed.  That is what I got out of the numbers.

[Amhara 460]

This is true.  The historical processing time on USCIS:

https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/ptAllFormsAverage.do

This shows us in FY 2014 I-751 cases were averaging 138 days, FY 2015 was 182, FY 2016 was 230 and YTD is 394.

 

I don't know if I would equate this to a POTUS since the TSC K-1 petitions were taking a year plus during the last POTUS.  I was noticing a thread yesterday that some people filing for citizenship in July 2017 were USC's by November 2017, so I doubt that is a political tool.  

 

For those applying for USC during ROC, it's not a big deal, but there are many residents that are applying for the 10 year GC and those are the folks that are mostly affected by this slow down.

[Cincyman 127]

51 minutes ago, Amhara said:

For those applying for USC during ROC, it's not a big deal, but there are many residents that are applying for the 10 year GC and those are the folks that are mostly affected by this slow down.

Hi Amhara,

1/What does that mean? Why for N400 applicants during their pending I751 it is not a big deal? Right now there are many N400 cases that take a long time if they applied it during their I751.

 

thank you!

 

 

 

[Amhara 460]

4 minutes ago, Cincyman said:

Hi Amhara,

1/What does that mean? Why for N400 applicants during their pending I751 it is not a big deal? Right now there are many N400 cases that take a long time if they applied it during their I751.

 

thank you!

 

I am not sure.  I am now snooping around a lot of N-400 applicant's profiles to prepare for our next step, but it seems to me that the N-400 doesn't bog down the ROC.  The ROC is useless if someone gets approved for USC.  I was thinking that if someone applied for USC during the ROC, the ROC is consolidated with the USC petition, but the ROC is dead in the water?

 

I was reading over this thread and some of the folks seemed to be approved in four to five months for USC.  Given the ROC takes anywhere between 12-16 months, we are expecting to apply for USC in August 2018 and that our ROC would become irrelevant.

[Cincyman 127]

3 minutes ago, Amhara said:

I am not sure.  I am now snooping around a lot of N-400 applicant's profiles to prepare for our next step, but it seems to me that the N-400 doesn't bog down the ROC.  The ROC is useless if someone gets approved for USC.  I was thinking that if someone applied for USC during the ROC, the ROC is consolidated with the USC petition, but the ROC is dead in the water?

 

I was reading over this thread and some of the folks seemed to be approved in four to five months for USC.  Given the ROC takes anywhere between 12-16 months, we are expecting to apply for USC in August 2018 and that our ROC would become irrelevant.

When your N400 window is open you could apply even if the ROC is still pending, I searched and read a lot of N400 applicants's stories who applied to N400 before getting a response regarding their I751.

When your local USCIS office starts reading your N400 case, they will realize that your I751 is still pending. Then they will ask about your case from the I751 filing location, and from there they will decide on an answer to your applications "I751+N400"
Below is a link from the official USCIS website explicating what I said. Start reading from B.2. "Spouses with Pending Petitions and Naturalization Applications"

https://www.uscis.gov/policymanual/HTML/PolicyManual-Volume12-PartG-Chapter5.html

 

Good luck

[sddude89 31]

The numbers are obvious.

The rate of approval of I-751s has significantly decreased starting 1st Quarter of 2017 (compare approval numbers in 2016 and 2017)

32-35k approved per quarter in 2016 (Obama) vs. 20-24k approved per quarter in 2017 (Trump).

 

Of course, the slow down has nothing to do with USCIS working slower just because there is another president. 

 

To the original poster, please add to your spreadsheet the I-821D statistics 2016 vs 2017.

 

That will show that there has been a surge of I-821Ds (a significant and undeniable surge) in 2017 and most likely has re-shifted resources inside USCIS and I-751s have been given the lowest priority. (I know VSC is faster, but not much faster, only 3 months ahead).

 

The surge is probably due to panic, lots of people that were afraid or not ready to file I-821D, suddenly realized that Trump wants to terminate the program, therefore the surge and panic.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2017 by sddude89

[NewlyNaturalized 38]

1 hour ago, sddude89 said:

The numbers are obvious.

The rate of approval of I-751s has significantly decreased starting 1st Quarter of 2017 (compare approval numbers in 2016 and 2017)

32-35k approved per quarter in 2016 (Obama) vs. 20-24k approved per quarter in 2017 (Trump).

 

Of course, the slow down has nothing to do with USCIS working slower just because there is another president. 

 

To the original poster, please add to your spreadsheet the I-821D statistics 2016 vs 2017.

 

That will show that there has been a surge of I-821Ds (a significant and undeniable surge) in 2017 and most likely has re-shifted resources inside USCIS and I-751s have been given the lowest priority. (I know VSC is faster, but not much faster, only 3 months ahead).

 

The surge is probably due to panic, lots of people that were afraid or not ready to file I-821D, suddenly realized that Trump wants to terminate the program, therefore the surge and panic.

 

 

I-821D: 260k received in 2016 vs 472k received in 2017

[shell20 746]

5 hours ago, LTGermany said:

I-821D: 260k received in 2016 vs 472k received in 2017

Absolutely there was a surge and who can blame them with the political climate the way it is?  I believe from what i have read there was a cut off point to apply and that cut of point was in October, although there were a few that are still being processed due to a postal issue.  I feel/believe that California who probably had the most petitions regarding the 1-821 D will now start processing ROC and it wouldn't surprise me at all if they leave Vermont way, way behind.

[Crazy Cat 39,219]

Nice work. 

Additional statistics

1.  Number of Denials was down in FY 2017

2.  Number of Received cases was dramatically up in FY 2017

3.  1st quarter of FY 2017 (Oct, Nov, Dec 2016) was under Obama administration.

 

I just love statistics....lol

[dburnt 59]

13 hours ago, jrwh1177 said:

 

The biggest take away here is primarily to see how many I-751 cases were received in 2016 and compare them to 2017.  In this case in 2016 there were 144,648 cases filed and in 2017 166,431, which is just 20,000 more.  The bigger thing is how many were actually processed in that year.  in 2016 there were a total of 8096 denied and 134,288 approved cases for a total of 142,384 total processed cases.  In 2017 there were a total of 6382 denied and 89001 approved for a total of 95,383 total processed cases.  There were 47,001 less cases processed, year over year.  Either rules are stricter or they are way under staffed.  That is what I got out of the numbers.

That is potentially an invalid assumption.  It would only be true if the staff ONLY processed I-751s.  We don't know that is true.  For all we know, the same staff do all family related (K1, IRC, AOS, EAD, etc.)...they may even do employment based or humanitarian, so looking at only one stream of applications is an incomplete picture.  I have worked in an application processing center...staff can either get an assortment of applications, or move from one type to another as need arises.  I am not saying you are incorrect, just that you are making an assumption based on only one piece of the statistics you referenced, rather than the entire set posted.  This is why statistics are so dangerous, and should be used with caution.  My takeaway from the entire set of statistics (which you linked) was that there was more than a 10% increase in applications received, an increase in overall applications processed, but an overall increase in backlog.  We don't know if there was a 10% increase in staff; we know there was hiring done when some of the policies changed (we do know the budget was higher than they had originally requested though)

 

My personal thoughts are that the overall USCIS processes are grossly in need of overhaul so that staff can work more efficiently, but that is just based on my belief that most government processes need that ;-)