Unreliable processing times - I-129F NOA2

[Irisandjoel 52]

6 minutes ago, Diane and Chris said:

The I-134 was the main document of interest at the embassy interview. The officer looked it over very carefully. Just saying that was our experience. Good luck!  

Yeah I see. That's what I would have thought. 

He started to fill it out and then was confused because it seemed more designed to be for a family member than a spouse, so we had a few questions about how to fill it out, so I contacted my embassy, they just said we don't need it. My fiancé tried calling immigration and they won't answer any questions regarding the form through phone, they want him to make an appointment at the nearest office that is like an 2 and half hour drive away... like what the heck? 

 

But I think we will just fill it out anyway as fun as it is and I will post any questions we have about it here since the people at the consular and the offices are being super unhelpful about this.. 

Edited June 13, 2017 by Irisandjoel
grammatical errors

[BrittSlav 7]

Hope you hear back soon! We just heard back about ours, it was literally bang on perfect with the projected times on the timelines on this website. 

[Charlesvb12 61]

I have a NOA1 date January 17th and still waiting, unfortunately my case took a weird turn and got transferred on may 25th to Nebraska and ive spoken to Tier 2 and supervisors, none of them give me a reason why just keep saying so they can process the case faster. 

[Pennycat 880]

You've got a lot of good advice here but two quick tips for the rest of your immigration journey:

 

First: treat any information you see that is more than 6 months old as suspect. It is *likely* still right but things can and DO change all the time so it's best to double check with more current information.

 

Example: the Dallas Lockbox (not Texas Service Center-- you were never there, although the Dallas Lockbox is in the state of Texas, they are not the same thing) has  been sending new I-129f packets to only California Service Center for about two years now (my fiance and I have the dubious honor of being among the last ones processed by that miserable place), so the information you got about how they route packets based on what state the petitioner lives in is really, really outdated.

 

Second: do not listen to anything that USCIS hotline says to you. They really, really don't know what they're talking about. It is counter intuitive, I know but trust me (and anyone who has dealt with them for any amount of time can confirm) they are useless. We call them the misinformation line.

 

Example: They don't have any information beyond what is on USCIS's official processing time page (https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processTimesDisplayInit.do). Click on processing times for California Service Center. There you will see your "December 15". But also look in the gray bar above the chart. It says: "Field Office Processing Dates for California Service Center as of: March 31, 2017". So, that's saying that *ten and a half weeks ago*, they were processing December 15th petitions. Useless, huh?

 

I am 90% sure that they not only report like this on purpose (and it used to be worse if you can believe it), but then they hide that "as of" information (and clearly don't train the Misinformation Line folks to see it.... or maybe they tell them to make it sound like that's the current processing time). Why? Because the longer you think the timeline is, the less likely you're going to call every day as soon as you're past normal processing time. Imagine that was accurate to-the-day.  Everyone would be calling off the hook if they think they'd been skipped somehow. So, they release the processing times once a month  "as of" 6 weeks previous, so those dates are always off by 6 to 10 weeks. Then they don't make it clear how out of date the dates are, effectively buying them between 6 and 10 weeks worth of petitions that don't have people calling because they feel like they got skipped. And if/when you call and they make it sound like they are taking seven months to process these, you're not going to call back until you hit seven months. You'll be sad and stressed and come complain on visajourney but they don't care. They just want to keep the phone calls to a minimum. Welcome to USCIS, this is how they operate.

 

Stick to the VJ timelines, they're more accurate (but far from exact). 

 

 

 

[Irisandjoel 52]

On 6/12/2017 at 5:51 PM, Lenchique said:

Iris,

our NOA1 was 2/10/17

NOA2 was 5/5/17 (80+ days), also processed by California center. Avg is 90-115 days. We got lucky with a just wee bit shorter wait. So don't panic. Start reading feb/March filers forum and you'll see where you are at in comparison to others. You are about a month behind our time table.

 

My my finace just went through his physical exam. We hope to get the interview first week in July. So I hope to have him here in early August. 

My fiancé just got an email saying our case was approved!!!

I expected waiting at least another month! So happy and relieved!

On 6/13/2017 at 4:39 PM, CatherineA said:

You've got a lot of good advice here but two quick tips for the rest of your immigration journey:

 

First: treat any information you see that is more than 6 months old as suspect. It is *likely* still right but things can and DO change all the time so it's best to double check with more current information.

 

Example: the Dallas Lockbox (not Texas Service Center-- you were never there, although the Dallas Lockbox is in the state of Texas, they are not the same thing) has  been sending new I-129f packets to only California Service Center for about two years now (my fiance and I have the dubious honor of being among the last ones processed by that miserable place), so the information you got about how they route packets based on what state the petitioner lives in is really, really outdated.

 

Second: do not listen to anything that USCIS hotline says to you. They really, really don't know what they're talking about. It is counter intuitive, I know but trust me (and anyone who has dealt with them for any amount of time can confirm) they are useless. We call them the misinformation line.

 

Example: They don't have any information beyond what is on USCIS's official processing time page (https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processTimesDisplayInit.do). Click on processing times for California Service Center. There you will see your "December 15". But also look in the gray bar above the chart. It says: "Field Office Processing Dates for California Service Center as of: March 31, 2017". So, that's saying that *ten and a half weeks ago*, they were processing December 15th petitions. Useless, huh?

 

I am 90% sure that they not only report like this on purpose (and it used to be worse if you can believe it), but then they hide that "as of" information (and clearly don't train the Misinformation Line folks to see it.... or maybe they tell them to make it sound like that's the current processing time). Why? Because the longer you think the timeline is, the less likely you're going to call every day as soon as you're past normal processing time. Imagine that was accurate to-the-day.  Everyone would be calling off the hook if they think they'd been skipped somehow. So, they release the processing times once a month  "as of" 6 weeks previous, so those dates are always off by 6 to 10 weeks. Then they don't make it clear how out of date the dates are, effectively buying them between 6 and 10 weeks worth of petitions that don't have people calling because they feel like they got skipped. And if/when you call and they make it sound like they are taking seven months to process these, you're not going to call back until you hit seven months. You'll be sad and stressed and come complain on visajourney but they don't care. They just want to keep the phone calls to a minimum. Welcome to USCIS, this is how they operate.

 

Stick to the VJ timelines, they're more accurate (but far from exact). 

 

 

 

Our case just got approved today!! 

[Pennycat 880]

2 minutes ago, Irisandjoel said:

My fiancé just got an email saying our case was approved!!!

I expected waiting at least another month! So happy and relieved!

Our case just got approved today!! 

Congrats!  And look, just two days beyond what VJ is showing as the average . 

 

http://www.visajourney.com/content/k1historical  (Ignore TSC and VSC-- there really aren't many if any people at those service centers right now. TSC is people confused thinking they're at TSC because of the reason you did. VSC is where some cases get referred to for reasons that I personally think have to do with more complex stuff than most of us will ever see).