WHY IS THIS YEAR TAKING SO LONG FOR NOA2?

[pmeyer1229 331]

5 hours ago, GreatDane said:

Immigration is a long process. NOA2's for an I129F typically take anywhere from 3-6 months. The entire process overall takes a bit longer. For us, we filed in April and received the visa in August. He then entered in October so he could say goodbye to his family, as he wouldn't be able to return during AOS. 

Be prepared to wait. Timelines change all the time. We started our process back in 2013 and are still at least a year from finishing with immigration. Our ROC alone was a 6 month processing when we applied and is now at least 1.5 years. Unfortunately, it is a long, expensive, and stressful process filled with waiting. Try not to get discouraged after one month - you have plenty of waiting in the future.

I see you got your NOA2 in 82 days....WOW....that would be awesome as we could be with our fiancés and life would be so much brighter. As my princess is from the Philippines, she cannot visit here. Have not seen her since April and we are trying to make it until she comes here to save money and vacation days. I can do a ton of waiting once I have her here with me....waiting over 5 months for NOA2 is making some crazy. I think the waiting for AOS, work permits, etc., will be a piece of cake as we will at least be together. I think that is where you see the impatience. We see folks like you get your visa and all within 6 months and we are looking close to 6 months just for NOA2...our boat is definitely different than yours  Yes, I admit it, I am envious.

[GreatDane 366]

13 minutes ago, pmeyer1229 said:

I see you got your NOA2 in 82 days....WOW....that would be awesome as we could be with our fiancés and life would be so much brighter. As my princess is from the Philippines, she cannot visit here. Have not seen her since April and we are trying to make it until she comes here to save money and vacation days. I can do a ton of waiting once I have her here with me....waiting over 5 months for NOA2 is making some crazy. I think the waiting for AOS, work permits, etc., will be a piece of cake as we will at least be together. I think that is where you see the impatience. We see folks like you get your visa and all within 6 months and we are looking close to 6 months just for NOA2...our boat is definitely different than yours  Yes, I admit it, I am envious.

Ah, it's easy to be envious but timelines will change. While this initial part is taking a bit longer, hopefully it speeds up for you down the road. Being apart is definitely hard but the initial time without work is also a bit stressful. On the plus side, it gives you more time together! Based on current processing times, it looks like your application might be processed in about two weeks (here's hoping!). It is nice to be nearing the conclusion of this process, but it is a long road. I hope your K1 is processed quickly so you can see each other soon - it's definitely hard to be apart from someone you love!

[robimkos 5]

I'm seeing several May approvals. But our case hasn't been updated since May 10th. Does anyone know why this might be?..

[Crazy Cat 39,609]

6 hours ago, Dutchster said:

1) What new rules?
2) What discouragement? Putting effort into immigration? (e.g. more paperwork, fees up)

What do y'all expect? Immigrating for $100 within three weeks? 

Exactly.....we all should realize that there are thousands of applications submitted every month, and EVERY ONE must be scrutinized by human eyes.  I  wish there was a better way, but I don't know any other way.

[Delirium 114]

2 hours ago, pmeyer1229 said:

Wow....got your NOA2 in 3 months. May 2017 filers are going into 5 months now with no NOA2. People are anxious and worried. Wedding dates cancelled, more trips overseas to see our fiancé is occurring due to the wait....This is not very fun  

I understand  But you will be with your fiance before you know it! You guys will have your entire lives to share when this process is done with!

[DandY 134]

This graph tells it all:

 

Basically, for the last few years, NOA2 took between 60 and 90 days typically. In April this year USCIS decided to prioritize H1B visas (and had a press release about it)--these are requests filed to benefit foreign companies  and American companies (lower cost labor)--over family visas which benefit individual U.S. Citizens. This is evidenced by the increase in K1 backlog compared to incoming petitions and the dramatic degrease in H1B backlog. At that point, family visas almost completely went on hold. We are now at an average of 150 days (the data above is not quite right, the average day being adjudicated now is 150 days old, not 145 as the chart says).

 

In addition, they do not have appear to have fully resourced the processing of family visas yet, so the normal processing pattern has not returned. Even though it has not been the case, the USCIS has said 180 days is within the "normal" processing time--so they can bump the average out to that and still be within SLA. We have now just krept up passed the 150 average mark and it looks like it will go higher. June 2017 filers are on track to have the longest average wait time in several years, we'll see if it keeps going up or starts to play catch up.

Edited September 29, 2017 by DandY
typo

[DandY 134]

1 hour ago, missileman said:

EVERY ONE must be scrutinized by human eyes.  I  wish there was a better way, but I don't know any other way.

This is a better way.

 

If you look at what the adjudicator does in the 15 minutes of adjudication, at least 30% (and possibly 50%) of it could be automated as could the queue management to make sure they actually work them in order (which they don't). Additionally savings could be add in the overhead of file management.

[MsCompE 50]

21 hours ago, Elsalove2016 said:

Haha you never know ! But I read and article that when the applications prices go up is because suppostly they hire more people to get things done faster , but from ive been reading here it seems to me the opposite or maybe they are looking at each case more closely . 

i dont think they are hiring more people. I remember there was a federal hiring freeze at the beginning of the year til April. 

That might have caused couple more backlogs considering the amount of filers per day and (additional more filers due to immigration fear/insecurities) 

Personally, I count people I know who were initially not interested in filing citizenship and now started N400 application due to fear of immigration reform during the president's administration.  

[David & Diana R 1,005]

1 hour ago, DandY said:

This is a better way.

 

If you look at what the adjudicator does in the 15 minutes of adjudication, at least 30% (and possibly 50%) of it could be automated as could the queue management to make sure they actually work them in order (which they don't). Additionally savings could be add in the overhead of file management.

You just said nothing what-so-ever.  You have no idea of what you speak.  Go be a government investigator for 20 years and then come back and tell me you have the solutions to the worlds problems.  Good luck, david

[DandY 134]

1 hour ago, David & Zoila said:

You just said nothing what-so-ever.  You have no idea of what you speak.  Go be a government investigator for 20 years and then come back and tell me you have the solutions to the worlds problems.  Good luck, david

Clearly I said something so that statement is false. You do not know if I know of what I speak since you do not know me or my experience. Your assertion that the only qualified process improvement opinion requires 20 years in a job is demonstrably false.

 

As for why I made my claim--what I do for a living is automate document centric workflows like the USCIS ones and have done so for many state governments and large financial institutions so am very familiar with the technology and techniques. I have not performed in depth analysis of the USCIS and I am only going by descriptions of the process provided by people that work there. I have no reason to believe they have misrepresented the process, so I used a rough time on task calculation based upon their description and benchmarked against very similar types of work which average a 37% reduction if effort from the types of automation I am proposing. 

 

To claim that there is no way to automate any portion of that process and reap savings is patently absurd.  

 

[Mmango 5]

our case got NOA1 on June 27th, still hear nothing about them. We're planning to have a wedding by summer. Seem out of reach now at this rate.