Average length of "further review" stage after interview?

[Indomex 10]

My wife and I recently had our interview which went less well than we expected. In any case, the rude I/O ended the interview with giving us a case is under "further review" notice. She did not ask for any more documentation and even rejected more photos we had brought to the interview as something she didn't need to keep. It looks unlikely that they want more documentation since we never received any RFE before the interview and the I/O didn't take anything more at the interview.

Now, I have had atleast 2 friends with whom their cases fell through a bureaucratic crack in the system and they didn't hear anything from the USCIS for years after their interview. In both cases, it became pretty clear in the end that the case just was dropped on someone's desk and never moved through the chain. I would like to know if anyone else has had this sort of thing happen to them? And if you have, is there any recourse? Can the applicant, for example, file something to force them to locate your case and continue processing it?

[Amit-N-Melody 11]

I am soo sorry Sounds like they have put your case on AP <administrative processing>... Did they keep your spouses passport and hand you back all the original documents?? Did they give you any slips of paper? Which embassy was this at?

This is what you can do:

*Call DoS bi-weekly for updates <the number is 2026631225 press 1 then 0 then > IMO totally a waste of time

*Call the embassy that you had your interview at <if it was the New Delhi I have all their info> They were also helpful

*Pray... <uuugh isnt that aggervating when someone says that...I had an operator from DOS tell me this>

I was told by the New Delhi embassy that they try to complete all AP cases in 90 days, in rare cases it takes longer but they have a quota to meet at the end of the quarter. My AP lasted 9 weeks... I wish you luck and a speedy AP!!!

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I am soo sorry Sounds like they have put your case on AP <administrative processing>... Did they keep your spouses passport and hand you back all the original documents?? Did they give you any slips of paper? Which embassy was this at?

This is what you can do:

*Call DoS bi-weekly for updates <the number is 2026631225 press 1 then 0 then > IMO totally a waste of time

*Call the embassy that you had your interview at <if it was the New Delhi I have all their info> They were also helpful

*Pray... <uuugh isnt that aggervating when someone says that...I had an operator from DOS tell me this>

I was told by the New Delhi embassy that they try to complete all AP cases in 90 days, in rare cases it takes longer but they have a quota to meet at the end of the quarter. My AP lasted 9 weeks... I wish you luck and a speedy AP!!!

This is an AOS case involving USCIS - not a visa case involving a foreign consulate.

To the OP - Give it some time and see if they make a decision. Begin following up with calls to USCIS. This will probably not produce any results at all, but at least it will be noted that you contacted them. If it gets to be a few months then schedule an infopass appointment to see if you can get any more information. Again, probably won't get the ball moving, but again it will be noted that you contacted them. If they still have not made a decision after several months then contact your congressman's immigration liaison office. They may not get any straight answers either, but at least that will put some heat on USCIS.

A case doesn't actually "fall through the cracks" unless they tell you they have no record of the case, or that it's been closed and sent to the archives. Some cases actually do take years to adjudicate, sadly.

[Amit-N-Melody 11]

ooo my bad

[Indomex 10]

Interesting stuff. Thanks to both of you for your replies. I posted this as an academic question. I think I misworded it enough to make it seem like it was happening to me (sorry!). It just seems like it happens too often (although quite rare in absolute numbers) for an issue that causes immense stress and hardship for the applicant for no fault of their own. Even 2 cases out of a 100 is too often for this sort of thing in my opinion, especially because they provide no means of redressal of the issue. I barely know 10 non-Americans who have married USCs and two of them had to wait years because no action was taken on their case. I doubt any case will take years to adjudicate if everyone is doing their job. A case can go on for years only if someone along the chain drops the ball and stops working on it. And the USCIS must create another application for people to file in case this happens IMHO. But they are not known to be very responsive to customer needs...

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

Interesting stuff. Thanks to both of you for your replies. I posted this as an academic question. I think I misworded it enough to make it seem like it was happening to me (sorry!). It just seems like it happens too often (although quite rare in absolute numbers) for an issue that causes immense stress and hardship for the applicant for no fault of their own. Even 2 cases out of a 100 is too often for this sort of thing in my opinion, especially because they provide no means of redressal of the issue. I barely know 10 non-Americans who have married USCs and two of them had to wait years because no action was taken on their case. I doubt any case will take years to adjudicate if everyone is doing their job. A case can go on for years only if someone along the chain drops the ball and stops working on it. And the USCIS must create another application for people to file in case this happens IMHO. But they are not known to be very responsive to customer needs...

Actually, there are a whole lot of reasons that it can take a long time to adjudicate a case. USCIS does occasionally just drop the ball. That's understandable, considering the millions of applications they process each year. More often, something comes up during the processing and the application has to be put on hold until it can be resolved. These often involve security and background checks. A simple lookup in the relevant security and law enforcement databases is fast and easy. When they get a "hit", that's when a manual check has to be done. There is a huge backlog with the federal agencies that perform these checks, and they have to prioritize the requests they receive. A background or security check for a police officer or a US military service member is going to take priority over one for an intending immigrant. Likewise, any checks requested by US security, military, or law enforcement agencies are going to be given priority. Sometimes they require additional information from a foreign security service. This is a diplomatic process that often takes a long time.

Many times, the intending immigrant is waiting because USCIS is waiting. Unfortunately, USCIS won't give you specific answers about why there is a delay. They tell you things like "additional processing" or "further review". Other than the steps I described in my previous post, there's not much you can do except wait.

[Indomex 10]

Actually, there are a whole lot of reasons that it can take a long time to adjudicate a case. USCIS does occasionally just drop the ball. That's understandable, considering the millions of applications they process each year. More often, something comes up during the processing and the application has to be put on hold until it can be resolved. These often involve security and background checks. A simple lookup in the relevant security and law enforcement databases is fast and easy. When they get a "hit", that's when a manual check has to be done. There is a huge backlog with the federal agencies that perform these checks, and they have to prioritize the requests they receive. A background or security check for a police officer or a US military service member is going to take priority over one for an intending immigrant. Likewise, any checks requested by US security, military, or law enforcement agencies are going to be given priority. Sometimes they require additional information from a foreign security service. This is a diplomatic process that often takes a long time.

Many times, the intending immigrant is waiting because USCIS is waiting. Unfortunately, USCIS won't give you specific answers about why there is a delay. They tell you things like "additional processing" or "further review". Other than the steps I described in my previous post, there's not much you can do except wait.

I agree with your reasoning on why some cases may take long but disagree on your proportional allocation between legitimate holdups versus the USCIS simply dropping the ball. In both my friends' cases and if I recall correctly one other one that has been discussed on VJ, they just dropped the ball. The case file just gathered dust and no amount of inquiries made them go and locate it until finally the 100th inquiry (usually through a congress member) worked to get them moving again. They were not waiting for the FBI or any other outside entity. You will agree that this sort of thing can be fixed if they agreed on a system where when the applicant inquires about his/her case the USCIS must give a specific (not vague) answer on its status. If they were forced to do that, the file that was gathering dust somewhere will have a higher chance of being located and someone will then more likely be assigned to resume work on it.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I agree with your reasoning on why some cases may take long but disagree on your proportional allocation between legitimate holdups versus the USCIS simply dropping the ball. In both my friends' cases and if I recall correctly one other one that has been discussed on VJ, they just dropped the ball. The case file just gathered dust and no amount of inquiries made them go and locate it until finally the 100th inquiry (usually through a congress member) worked to get them moving again. They were not waiting for the FBI or any other outside entity. You will agree that this sort of thing can be fixed if they agreed on a system where when the applicant inquires about his/her case the USCIS must give a specific (not vague) answer on its status. If they were forced to do that, the file that was gathering dust somewhere will have a higher chance of being located and someone will then more likely be assigned to resume work on it.

Yeah, I've heard similar stories. Sometimes, if you dig a little deeper, you find there's more to it. I remember one VJ member who said that she'd tried calling USCIS over two dozen times, and kept getting the same runaround from the customer service reps who were just reading from the computer screen. She said her congressman's office called, and two days later her case status was updated. She admitted later in the thread that she'd first contacted her congressman's office a couple of months prior, and that was not the first time they had called USCIS. Whether the final call was the one that got the ball moving, or whether it was just coincidence is something we'll probably never know.

One thing that is known is that USCIS is statutorily mandated to respond to a congressional inquiry within a limited amount of time, and a congressional inquiry will often force an adjudicator to re-prioritize the cases they are working on in order to take the heat off of them. Does this mean that some adjudicator was sitting on their butt and not doing anything about cases they could have been working on? Maybe, but I would guess not. More likely, other cases got moved to the bottom of the pile so that the adjudicator could satisfy the congressman's office. Even if everything needed to continue processing a case has become available, an adjudicator won't just drop everything they're doing to work on it. The case goes back into the queue, along with the other cases the adjudicator is currently working on. Getting your congressman involved just makes them reshuffle the queue.

I'm not making excuses for USCIS. They screw up, and they do it a LOT. However, given my past experiences with US government bureaucracies, I think USCIS does reasonably well. They don't screw up nearly as much as the US consulates do.