A significant reduction in I130 approval

[IndigoSkies 168]

Since I'm the self-declared number ####### of VisaJourney, I decided to find more interesting information about USCIS. I was able to plug into USCIS data regarding the total number of case approved versus how many new cases were received for the past 24 months, starting March 2010 and going back 24 months. What I found saddens me.

As you can see from both the table and the graph, USCIS is receiving nearly constant count of new application each month. But in March 2010, the number of new application jumped a lot. Inversely, number of new application approved have been droping from its spike July 2009. Since the insane rise and the drop, there have been only two small up trends. Where the approval count stands as of March 2010, people who hoped to get approved in April, May, June can only cry assured of knowing their cases took longer, or will take longer. There are no factors indicating the approvals will pickup. USCIS isn't neither hiring new staff nor increasing pay. As I know of.

By the way, this data deals with California Service Center. It should still give you some idea about other centers or the picture of national picture.

[Rich and Bey 1]

this sucks.. man stop sending this data unless it is for the good. they need to go crazy like on the k-1's. they r in april already

[payxibka 10,044]

it would be better to know the backlog of apps.... is it constant, growing or decreasing

[Indy90 21]

Interesting as always. I think that it is always good to know information like this.

Interesting as always. I think that it is always good to know information like this.

[ScottThuy 140]

You may be missing something here...

Not sure why you would be concerned with them having more NOA2's than NOA1's in the past year.....

It goes to show that they have reduced the number of pending applications over the past year... its a good thing... it goes to show that they have been working to reduce the lag in the past year since they instituted the 6 month guidelines...

Let me clarify this for you.. they had 280,282 NOA1's in the past 24 months and issued 532,533 NOA2's or completed over 500k cases.... working much harder in past 12 months...

Edited June 8, 2010 by ScottThuy

[kruz_patz 22]

By the way where did you find all these data ?

[IndigoSkies 168]

These data are public-ally available on USCIS dashboard. http://dashboard.uscis.gov/

I can't find a back-log, case-load count. Will dig around more for this.

[Kittyfang 6]

If you don't spend too much time on June 09, July 09 and August 09 (which were not really consistent with the rest) you can see that their numbers of completion is slowly increasing really.

Also, does Completion mean Acceptance?

Furthermore, it's really not a lot of data. So making a claim like "they're approving less petition now" is not really founded.

Maybe it has nothing to do with it, but I'm really curious to know what the heck happened in June 09, July 09 and August 09 for the number of completed petition to go up like this.

[Darnell 8,478]

I would not put much credence into data, yet, that starts in March 2010.

Not yet.

You must not forget the 6 month duration from acceptance till approval.

Each time you do that, you throw a new element into the data mix, skew all.

Why six months, you ask ? 'Cause 'approval rates' are useless , counting from March 2010, until ALL cases submitted in March, 2010, come OUT on the other side.

Which needs 6 months 'for that travel', to the other side.

I am big stats person, but I always vette data first. IMO, you are not vetting 'complete' March 2010 data set. You can't, it's not been 6 months duration.

[Ronald and Elvira 0]

It seems the USCIS made a big push during last summer to clean up the back log of petitions that's why so many looked to have been completed and now there back to normal.. 3 to 5 months is about normal time to get your NOA2 from the date of the NOA1 Always Interesting to see how data affects people

[IndigoSkies 168]

Since you say MAR-10's counts aren't six months old, then everything younger than six months should be excluded. Right? In that case, you end up with data that ends in SEP-10 showing a huge-#### drop in completed cases. And shouldn't it be five months; or in truth 3 months? Six months ago, the graph shows a dip. Five months ago, a dip. Three months ago, a dip. So the conclusion is fewer and fewer cases are being approved now a days. But the number of new cases is constant or increasing.

Aren't the February filers waiting longer than January filers (in general)? This only re-affirms the above graphs, trends, counts, etc.

PS: Completed, I believe, means either accepted or denied.

[Kittyfang 6]

Since you say MAR-10's counts aren't six months old, then everything younger than six months should be excluded. Right? In that case, you end up with data that ends in SEP-10 showing a huge-#### drop in completed cases. And shouldn't it be five months; or in truth 3 months? Six months ago, the graph shows a dip. Five months ago, a dip. Three months ago, a dip. So the conclusion is fewer and fewer cases are being approved now a days. But the number of new cases is constant or increasing.

Aren't the February filers waiting longer than January filers (in general)? This only re-affirms the above graphs, trends, counts, etc.

PS: Completed, I believe, means either accepted or denied.

So there you go. Saying that they're approving less isn't right. They are completing more. To know how much they are denying, we'd need more data.

I mean, it is a good graph and can give you an idea of how much volume they're going trough. From what I can see, I think they're handling more than they use to. Still would love to know ####### happened in June, July and August, but all in all, they seem to be handling this at a higher rate.

[IndigoSkies 168]

I have a few gander into what happened during the huge spike in mid-2009. According to http://tinyurl.com/29dmsxq, back in 22-JUN-2009, FBI and USCIS eliminated the backlogs of name checking. This significantly sped up the both the processing time on a given application, and increase the number of cases that were denied or accepted. It appears the result of most name checks were "no records found." Rather than doing more research, USCIS just accepted that and moved on to acceptance.

Also according to this http://tinyurl.com/274ohug, in April 2009, USCIS hired 1,700 new employees. No doubt that definately contributed to higher number of application being processed. I didn't read the whole PDF; but, perhaps the hiring of these employees were temporary assignments for say like 3 months. To me, these two factors quite completely explain the spike in the graph in middle of 2009.

PS: What would you guys do without me? I bring you a portion of the USCIS world that you were unaware of previously. What I bring is completely irrelevent to you or relevent. Who knows!

Edited June 8, 2010 by IndigoSkies

[Kittyfang 6]

I have a few gander into what happened during the huge spike in mid-2009. According to http://tinyurl.com/29dmsxq, back in 22-JUN-2009, FBI and USCIS eliminated the backlogs of name checking. This significantly sped up the both the processing time on a given application, and increase the number of cases that were denied or accepted. It appears the result of most name checks were "no records found." Rather than doing more research, USCIS just accepted that and moved on to acceptance.

That would make sense. I remember now reading something about FBI check backlog. It was a pretty big time sink I guess, during the whole process.

[ScottThuy 140]

The data you have, only shows you the volume coming into the system and being output by the system. There are fluctuations in applications over time as are there fluctuations in processing.. We all saw the push last year which is evident by the data... there was a report out there last year with more data, I would have to spend the time to find it again as I dont remember its exact location, but it says how many petitions are pending by category... I just tried looking for it but no longer see it there..

If I come accross it I will post the link.. it included input, output, pending and denied... by qtr..

They don't like to show denial or reffusal #'s.... DOS has been really good lately showing their throughput, but dont show refusals much either...

Edited June 8, 2010 by ScottThuy