February 2015 filers - Texas Service Center

[Mad & J 25]

Kyle: I totally understand the desire to track/analyze all the information to keep from going crazy. I have a tendency to over-research everything, so I get the feeling. Thanks for the detailed answer! That's really interesting and your argument is quite convincing. If only USCIS were this transparent about their data!

Hopefully the TSC will keep working at a steady pace (or faster!) on these petitions and your prediction will come true. I would love an August approval.

I assume that the 40-something approved petitions in October to December are mostly Filipino expedites? They make up a pretty big proportion of the total numbers for those months, nearly a quarter! I had no idea before coming to VJ that there were so many K1 Filipino beneficiaries.

[Kyle and Linh 64]

Mad: Yes, I spent some time in January looking at the Filipino situation and yes you are correct in that about 20-25% OF ALL applications are from there. Of course they are working on those first so they do eat up some of the capacity in NOA1 filed after us. I am trying to figure out how to factor that in my guessing. If I am off, it will likely be due to not considering the impact of Filipino applications correctly.

Good Luck to you

[naddy 14]

Thank you for the analysis Kyle and Linh- I have a March 5 NOA1 as well and I would be thrilled with an August approval

[TabeaK 516]

On top, a significant proportion of VJers mislist their Service Center - roughly 25% in the past. They do not understand the concept of the lockbox in Tx and CSC and TSC. When you check the state they listed in their member profile, they are clearly at CSC.

Does not distract from your analysis of course, as long as CSC and TSC processing times are months apart, the 25% just show up as background noise.

I did something similar a while ago - but I essentially stopp creating spreadsheets due to the wide range of approvals - i.e. you can be the lucky one who gets processed first in the batch and you can be the unlucky one who they get to 6 weeks+ later. And god forbid you have an RFE - there are still two June 2014 (!) filers waiting for approval post RFE.

[waiting4awhile 18]

There is official data on the number of petitions received/approved/denied/pending directly from USCIS ending December 31, 2014.

FY begins October 1st, so February 2015 filers are in FY2015 QTR2. So, our numbers will be available in the next report for everything received as of March 31, 2015.

FY2015 QTR 1: http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/All%20Form%20Types/all_forms_performancedata_fy2015_qtr1.pdf

FY2014 ALL: http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/All%20Form%20Types/all_forms_performancedata_fy2014_qtr4.pdf

FY2013 ALL: http://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/USCIS/Resources/Reports%20and%20Studies/Immigration%20Forms%20Data/All%20Form%20Types/AllForms-Q42013.pdf

They also just released a report, which I pasted last week into this thread concerning how K1s are not "prioritized" petitions. I was surprised when it got no traction... I guess no one has seen it?

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/540306-official-document-shows-de-prioritization-of-family-based-immigration-petitions-by-uscis-responses-to-questions-in-12215-letter-from-senators/#entry7519264

[Mad & J 25]

They also just released a report, which I pasted last week into this thread concerning how K1s are not "prioritized" petitions. I was surprised when it got no traction... I guess no one has seen it?

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/540306-official-document-shows-de-prioritization-of-family-based-immigration-petitions-by-uscis-responses-to-questions-in-12215-letter-from-senators/#entry7519264

I hadn't, thanks for that link! I haven't been checking the NVC forums... I spend too much time of VJ already!

Well, from a brief glance at those tables, looks like the number of pending petitions was increasing until the 3rd quarter of 2014 (up to 20K petitions pending!), but the "pile" has gone back down a little bit since, to 18.5K at the end of FY2015 QTR1. That means they aren't slowing down further, at least. I'll be curious to see the next quarter. These are for both CSC and TSC combined, right?

[waiting4awhile 18]

I hadn't, thanks for that link! I haven't been checking the NVC forums... I spend too much time of VJ already!

No problem! I don't how that happened... but I obviously meant to post it in the USCIS Service Center Forums... not NVC? I don't know...

Well, from a brief glance at those tables, looks like the number of pending petitions was increasing until the 3rd quarter of 2014 (up to 20K petitions pending!), but the "pile" has gone back down a little bit since, to 18.5K at the end of FY2015 QTR1. That means they aren't slowing down further, at least. I'll be curious to see the next quarter. These are for both CSC and TSC combined, right?

Yeah, I would assume so... all service centers together. That doesn't address the discrepancy between TSC and CSC, but does shed some light on the volume argument made in previous messages here.

I would say that this data (over the past two fiscal years) shows the lowest number of approvals in QTR 2 (ending March 31st), but if you look at data before FY 2013, that doesn't hold up.

[TabeaK 516]

The report is (especially the response letter) is interesting. DAPA goes to Crystal City, but for DACA they estimate an additional 400 Staff at USCIS Service Centers. Hence, once DACA extends the I-129F filers are doubly screwed - again - as they are no priority. I really hope DACA gets delayed at least 6 more months.

[Mena28 35]

The report is (especially the response letter) is interesting. DAPA goes to Crystal City, but for DACA they estimate an additional 400 Staff at USCIS Service Centers. Hence, once DACA extends the I-129F filers are doubly screwed - again - as they are no priority. I really hope DACA gets delayed at least 6 more months.

on the danger of sounding selfish I am totally with you on that! :-D

[waiting4awhile 18]

on the danger of sounding selfish I am totally with you on that! :-D

Me too! Not worried about sounding selfish though. Hahaha.

[Kyle and Linh 64]

Naija: Thank you very much for the link to the data. WOW. My correlation with VJ data is off. The level of VJ 129F applications drops off a bunch in the last half of 2014 where the data shows very little drop.

Backlog is the key to focus on. I will try to do a little math to try to come up with a processing rate. Only problem is that TSC and CSC are both in the data. Be interesting if we could get a split and see where the real backlog is.

[sweetymcbeal 9]

Hi,I guess TSC haven't updated their latest processing time since January. Let's still have hope.

Hi,I guess TSC haven't updated their latest processing time since January. Let's still have hope.

[waiting4awhile 18]

Naija: Thank you very much for the link to the data. WOW. My correlation with VJ data is off. The level of VJ 129F applications drops off a bunch in the last half of 2014 where the data shows very little drop.

Backlog is the key to focus on. I will try to do a little math to try to come up with a processing rate. Only problem is that TSC and CSC are both in the data. Be interesting if we could get a split and see where the real backlog is.

No problem! And yeah that would be interesting, but not gonna happen. Uscis cannot admit in public documents the gross discrepancy in processing time between the two service centers.

[skins4lyfe 4]

Naija: Thank you very much for the link to the data. WOW. My correlation with VJ data is off. The level of VJ 129F applications drops off a bunch in the last half of 2014 where the data shows very little drop.

Backlog is the key to focus on. I will try to do a little math to try to come up with a processing rate. Only problem is that TSC and CSC are both in the data. Be interesting if we could get a split and see where the real backlog is.

I still don't think your too far off.. I see that the fluctuation you analyzed is in line with their data. I see the approvals speeding up. I don't think we will ever see it as fast as the CSC but it'll get better. With the winter over and no more closures at TSC, the pending list is dropping. I'm anxious to see if we start seeing October approvals early April. Then we could be seeing it back to 5 month approvals.

[sweetymcbeal 9]

Kyle and Linh: Some October filers are getting approved. Got to see some October filers timeline. If I may be right perhaps TSC is working on October files now. But does anyone know precisely what month TSC is processing??? We can use that to calculate when February filers will be approved.