NOA1 - NOA2 current wait-time is 3 MONTHS?!

[Heather&Kevin 25]

When I seen the K1 Visa Timelines it seems to have taken an average of a month, why is it different all of the sudden?

Well, our I-129f was approved in 21 days from our NOA1 date.

But... I AM ENGLISH

But seriously - I wish you all the very best for a smooth and easy process. At the time it all seems daunting and way too long. After the event it's just a memory. I can't believe how far our lives have come since we met. Bless you.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Heather&Kevin

[Heather&Kevin 25]

oh... and it just seems that Texas got fixed at last, but at the expense of Cali...

[A'n'L 735]

They're doing their best :-) 3 months processing time is hardly anything compared to what it could've been. They're concerned with safety, not with love

[Georgia16 2,858]

oh... and it just seems that Texas got fixed at last, but at the expense of Cali...

They are not fixet. No one is going to Texas just people son't understand that sending the application to the lockbox in texas ain't the same as the texas service center.

[minions2 24]

ir5 on mine is 5 months

ir5 on mine is 5 months

[Dutchster 1,106]

I might have been too direct/harsh on OP but on first sight, it is the tone of the message. However, that doesn't mean I don't hope OP gets her NOA2 soon. It's a shitty wait in between, not knowing what is with your case or if anyone is working on it.

[zoieeee 0]

We got our NOA1 on January 28th and then received our NOA2 on March 18th. The NVC then took a month to get everything processed and sent to the NZ consulate. Hopefully they manage to process everything a lot quicker so that you can move on to the next step. All the best!

[Hypnos 6,576]

Three months is close to the historical low in processing times for I-129Fs.

It's a good job you weren't trying this a couple of years ago, when your wait time would have been twice that and then some.

[Dutchster 1,106]

We got our NOA1 on January 28th and then received our NOA2 on March 18th. The NVC then took a month to get everything processed and sent to the NZ consulate. Hopefully they manage to process everything a lot quicker so that you can move on to the next step. All the best!

It took them a month? That's 'good' to hear because we called the NVC yesterday, three weeks after NOA2, and the friendly woman told us we're not in the system yet and we should allow them 35 days in total.

[Foreign Fantasy 52]

Yeah sorry for my tone too, just some people wait much longer and your post triggered a lot of us haha.

You are in the right place with a community of information. Good luck

[TiffanyJennifer 0]

Your Canadian citizenship gets you nothing. You go through the same process as everyone else. Be thankful its only 3 months. I waited 8 months before getting NOA 2. Just enjoy your last few months with your friends and family. Things get backed up and wait times change just relax, USCIS doesn't care about your personal timeline.

[yuna628 9,530]

OP: I'd like to shed some additional light on processing times at California for you.

There used to be two service centers handling the volumes of cases for K1. Texas handled everyone from the east coast, and California handled the west.

Now, I don't have hard statistics but logic dictates to me that in this way, Texas most likely got more applications, just through the sheer number of potential persons applying living on the east coast. Texas became backlogged, according to the USCIS, and data crunched by members here pretty much proved that. The backlog though, while admitted by some in the USCIS was frequently denied by those on the info line and even by some politicians. California meanwhile, were cranking out cases sometimes... in days.

It's a difficult issue for one group of Americans waiting 300+ days to even get started on their process and for another group to have finished their entire process in as little as a month. So an effort was made to raise awareness of this issue within the administration, and eventually a move was made at direction from the top to 'correct' the problem. The fix however was bittersweet and did not affect any of those in Texas currently still waiting.

As of early last year all newly filed cases were then going to be routed to California. This means, that after Texas finished completing their remaining cases, California is the sole bearer of K1 cases filed by every state from that time to date. This has slowed things down and that trend will probably continue. Since picking up your case is completely random - it's why I always say you can expect a wait of a few weeks to a few months. The standard processing time for the USCIS is 5-6 months, even after that, urging them to move on a case can be difficult. You are still well within processing time as posted and acknowledged by them.

While I say that any noticed slowdown is probably because of case-load, there are other factors that could potentially be at play. The shooting spree perpetrated by individuals who went through a K1 process was the first breach of security for a visa of this type. This has led to additional scrutiny of cases I'm sure, and additional work for immigration officers.

[Pennycat 880]

Hi,

My USA fiancé and I received our NOA1 5 days after filing, however we just received an email from our attorney today stating that the current wait-time is 3 months for NOA2. That doesn't seem right, especially since it's being processed at the California Center and I'm Canadian.

The attorney said not to expect anything before the END OF JULY.

Any one else receive this information or aware of potential backups at the CA center? Thanks.

Your country of citizenship has nothing to do with it. A line is a line. They don't spend 3 months looking at your case. You case spends 3 months sitting in a box waiting for someone to spend 30 minutes looking at it, Canadian or not. 3 months is a gift. The stated processing time from USICS itself is 5 months and thanks to backlogs in the past, 6 or 9 months was common (I got through in just under 6 months and was a VERY lucky one). The only service center handling i-129fs these days is CSC which is also a gift because of how fast it is. So even though they are now slower than they were in the past, they are still WELL within USCIS's stated goal time for processing i-129fs.

Your attorney may be incorrect, here at VJ the average seems to be about 2 months but I bet your attorney told you three so that you don't start calling him off the hook every day starting on day 59. Given your reaction here, I'd say he probably made a wise move.

[Pennycat 880]

The average processing times for I-129F petitions at the CSC is actually FIVE months. https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processingTimesDisplay.do

Your attorney was being optimistic when he said not to expect anything before the end of July. In reality, if your case follows what is average, you may be waiting until September. This is normal and within normal processing time frames.

Expect it to take at least 5 months from your NOA1 date. Be surprised if you are approved much earlier than that.

Common misconception. Read that chart a little closer.

It says:

"If the field office or service center is meeting its goal for processing a form, you will find the timeframe listed in months. For example, if the office is processing Form N-400 naturalization applications in five months or less, then the chart will say "5 months." However, if the office is experiencing a processing delay, you will find the filing date of the last case that the office completed before updating the chart."

That basically says "we have a goal time for processing. If we're within goal, we'll tell you so. If we're outside of that goal, we'll give you a date of the last processed application to give an idea of how big a delay we're having". We can tell from VJ user-input statistics that they're beating that goal by a lot (average time as of today is 60 days). 60 days is within 5 months, so the USCIS site simply says "we're processing within 5 months". They don't give more precise information because if they did, they'd have everyone who is 5 minutes past the stated estimate/average/whatever calling off the hook demanding answers.

OP's attorney likely uses VJ statistics, or maybe has a group of attorneys who keep their own. Either way, the attorney is right that they're coming in faster than goal, and probably gave himself a month's wiggle room to keep OP from harassing his secretary for the entire month of June (and possibly July, which is the month he "bought" himself giving a higher-than-average estimate).

[Pennycat 880]

oh... and it just seems that Texas got fixed at last, but at the expense of Cali...

NO! Oh my goodness doesn't anybody read this site before posting inflammatory statements like this?!

Texas is closed to new applications and has been since March 27, 2015. The only files getting approved out of Texas on Visajourney statistics are (1) those unfortunate souls who had to wait 13 months for their NOA2 and (2) people who are actually at CSC but don't pay attention to details, or read enough to know what is going on (ahem) and so put their "Service Center" as Texas just because they happened to mail their application to the "Dallas Lockbox". Two completely different things, but a lot of people simply refuse to have a clue and so mess up the data.

Once again, CSC is the ONLY USCIS Service Center taking new applications and has been since late March 2015.

You are all in the same line. Sometimes, like the DMV, it will be a long line and sometimes it will be a short line.

To continue with the DMV theme, what was happening up until March 2015 was that there were TWO lines. One for... blue eyed people and one for brown eyed people (east/ west of the country). When you walk into the doors of the DMV (send file to Dallas Lockbox), there is a security guard there, ushering you to the correct line (referring to a Service Center). Problem was, that the line for the blue eyed people went to 3 open windows while the line for the brown eyed people went to only one window (CSC had far more staff than TSC).

This was particularly difficult to bear because there are more brown eyed people in the world to begin with (more people applying from the TSC states than the CSC states). Eventually it got so imbalanced that there wasn't a line for the blue eyed people at all--they'd show up, get immediately processed and leave in 10 minutes (CSC average: 21 days... though seriously in Dec 2014 there were people getting their NOA2 emails before the NOA1 even arrived in the mail. NO JOKE), while the line for the brown eyed people was out the door and around the corner and brown eyed people were waiting an hour and 40 minutes (10 times longer-- TSC average 210 days).

Eventually, DMV says, screw it with the lines, one line to go to all windows (shut down TSC, send all petitions to CSC) because this is unfair and now everyone stands in line for 25 minutes (~60 days), which does totally suck, and is definitely a longer wait than 10 minutes, but it's the freaking DMV what do you expect? Also just notice, that after a YEAR of getting 100% of applicants, the average only increased 5 weeks. When the average wait time at TSC was 7 months (210 days, or 30 weeks however you want to think about it). THAT is how bad the workload-to-staff ratio was at Texas. I could have sworn that the move to close TSC would have increased CSC to *at least* a 5 month processing time but nope! 2 or less. And people STILL find room to complain (there were CSCers during my wait time who had absolute meltdowns if they hit Day 30). Unbelievable.

Oh, also the particularly lovely part of this was that if you were already in the brown eyed line when the change was made, you stayed there and 100% of new people went to the blue eyed line, watching them fly by you. And complain about the "increased wait times". Good times were had by all.

Edited April 27, 2016 by CatherineA