USCIS just published the 1st Quarter and no sign of accelerating the backlog of I 751 at all...

[xillini 71]

Hello, 

 

So USCIS just published its own Stats the 1st quarter of 2019 fiscal year (Oct, Nov, Dec 2018), where they received total of 44,000 Forms in the same period, and they approved 42300, and denied 1300 in regards to I 751. 

While the number of processed I 751 (including both approval and denials) have been steadily increased since the last year (i.e: 1st quarter of 2018, or Oct, Nov, Dec, 2017, USCIS processed only 25,000 cases out of 42,000 cases receipts), I don't think it accelerates the expected processing timeline in any meaningful way. 

 

In other words, if this is all coordinated efforts by USCIS to improve backlogs of I-751 after all transfer to balance out the workload, this is a drop in a bucket, which doesn't help more than at least 12 months, meaning that USCIS internally establishes this processing time as new norms. If this is all they can provide with their best available resources, this is something that should be brought to immediate attentions by congress members since USCIS thinks I 751 is merely another number of annoying workloads. While the 1st quarter of fiscal year is often break seasons such as thanksgiving break, christmas break, and this year especially about government shutdown, which could be understandable, the overall performances of the processed cases are not really acceptable. 

 

Now with H1B season started, and ambiguous political climates (such as purge of DHS and USCIS Director is often quoted as next one to be forced to be resigned under current administration), I don't think any of these help to improve backlogs. 

 

 

 

year	Forms Received2	Approved3	Denied4	Pending5	Forms Received2	Approved3	Denied4	Pending5	Forms Received2	Approved3	Denied4	Pending5	Forms Received2	Approved3	Denied4	Pending5	Forms Received2	Approved3
2018	42,913	23,385	1,340	215,780	45,745	24,017	1,213	243,300	43,592	31,649	1,608	259,207	45,424	39,332	1,376	256,186	177,674	118,418
2017	36,263	23,838	1,448	133,568	44,614	22,604	1,853	153,009	41,000	21,625	1,726	172,431	44,554	20,934	1,355	196,058	166,431	89,001
2016	35,536	32,246	1,725	122,558	37,944	30,275	2,249	127,140	35,741	39,672	2,129	120,903	35,427	32,095	1,993	121,412	144,648	134,288
2015	38,380	35,521	2,046	107,582	42,933	34,465	1,793	113,130	42,982	36,064	2,010	120,204	41,490	41,470	2,059	118,793	165,785	147,520
2014	41,807	43,876	2,638	81,444	49,602	35,878	2,719	98,413	45,140	42,223	2,263	97,779	41,810	33,006	1,892	104,883	178,359	154,983
2013	38,559	39,864	3,081	124,707	43,225	66,889	2,356	122,770	44,157	63,012	2,995	311,514	45,710	62,013	3,173	76,264	171,651	231,778

 

Please note that in fiscal year of 2013 3rd and 4th quarter, USCIS was able to approve more than 60,000 cases. I don't know how, but number does not lie. It is something to take a note when asking USCIS to further improve the backlog (if they could do it in 2013, why not in 2019 after all fees increases and staff replenishment?) 

 

Arguably, what this result implies is that if available, apply to N400 at earliest convenience depending on your local office's N400 processing timeline, which would definitely help to get out of this limbo circumstances. (Again, please note it depends on your local office N400 workload since some local offices in TX takes really long time for N400). 

 

And I hope someone delivers this type of logical concerns to decision makers (such as congress members) so that USCIS won't just get too comfortable. 

Hope this helps. 

 

Edited April 23, 2019 by xillini

[Pitaya 2,576]

My friend, I believe that you are preaching to the choir. Back in 2014 -2015 when our family was right in the middle of painfully,  euphemistically "waiting for the paint to dry" at USCIS to approve our I-751 ROC petition, I found this document from CISOMB to USCIS speaking about the exorbitant wait times for people to get approved and move on with their lives. Now, four years later, you find these discouraging stats that speak to essentially the same issue....What a mess USCIS is !!! We can try to brow-beat and extort to build walls, close down government, stop government funding, (essentially) close borders, but we still can't just fix the old beat-up and worn-out agency in the corner. A couple of years ago, we essentially put lipstick on a pig by changing the agency's name from INS to USCIS, we moved it in with a whole bunch of other affiliated Federal agencies, with new and old alphabet-soup names, like USCG, INS, USCS, ICE, USCIS, CBP, into the big mama of Federal bureaucracies, DHS. The only thing that changed were the uniforms, the stationery and few other window dressing changes. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, was more of the same. We need for our vaunted elected Federal officials to stop screwing around and thoroughly overhaul this old dilapidated and worn-out immigration system. If we can now commemorate the 50th anniversary of our country landing people on the moon, why can't we work on getting together a comprehensive system that properly addresses people landing at our borders for immigration purposes?

 

https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/cisomb-conditional-residence-recommendation-final-02282013_1.pdf

 

 

[cyclone27 710]

I751 is a waste of time - should eliminate it and just scrutinize more with N400.

[iceclub 33]

I am going to choose to look at the silver lining here. They cut down processing of cases by half in 2017 and 2018 to an average of ~23K a quarter. Now it is back to 43K processing a quarter. Otherwise we were looking at even longer delays. So essentially folks are looking at 1.6 years of processing at this rate vs 3 years without it

 

Thanks for sharing the link, I was looking for this!

[millefleur 5,035]

My case is currently at NBC and there hasn't even been official data at all released that NBC is processing I-751's. We suspect this is happening to those who came in on CR-1 visas as opposed to those who did AOS. 

 

It is baffling to me that when more and more forms and therefore fees come in, that they can't pick up the pace and hire more people. There is no official data or even an announcement that NBC is doing I-751's, we are monitoring it here on VJ to see if our cases go any faster.

[kline19 102]

I wanted to file for N400 but given that CSC had picked up speed (arguably) in last six months -- I felt it would be better to wait as my ROC applications reaches a 12 month window of processing.

[Crazy Cat 39,219]

Well, I guess the fact that in 1st Quarter FY 2019, the denial rate was only about 3%..........is a bit of good news.

Edited April 23, 2019 by missileman

[theresaL 408]

4 hours ago, millefleur said:

My case is currently at NBC and there hasn't even been official data at all released that NBC is processing I-751's. We suspect this is happening to those who came in on CR-1 visas as opposed to those who did AOS. 

 

It is baffling to me that when more and more forms and therefore fees come in, that they can't pick up the pace and hire more people. There is no official data or even an announcement that NBC is doing I-751's, we are monitoring it here on VJ to see if our cases go any faster.

Those of us transferred to Nebraska are in the same boat. No official data, just time estimate for the service center and we are receiving a monthly email message stating case is still processing with no further update and a last action taken date. If the creator of the spreadsheet would share it with me, I would create one for NSC/LIN case numbers. We are a Jan. 2019 I-751 filer from K-1 AOS without interview.

[millefleur 5,035]

1 minute ago, theresaL said:

Those of us transferred to Nebraska are in the same boat. No official data, just time estimate for the service center and we are receiving a monthly email message stating case is still processing with no further update and a last action taken date. If the creator of the spreadsheet would share it with me, I would create one for NSC/LIN case numbers. We are a Jan. 2019 I-751 filer from K-1 AOS without interview.

There's a LIN I-751 filers that has been started here on VJ:

 

 

[Crazy Cat 39,219]

2 minutes ago, theresaL said:

Those of us transferred to Nebraska are in the same boat. No official data, just time estimate for the service center and we are receiving a monthly email message stating case is still processing with no further update and a last action taken date. If the creator of the spreadsheet would share it with me, I would create one for NSC/LIN case numbers. We are a Jan. 2019 I-751 filer from K-1 AOS without interview.

Google Sheets allows you to copy an existing spreadsheet, customize it, then store it on your cloud.  You can then copy and share the link.

[millefleur 5,035]

8 minutes ago, missileman said:

Well, I guess the fact that in 1st Quarter FY 2019, the denial rate was only about 3%..........is a bit of good news.

I'm beginning to feel more and more that the whole ROC process is pointless. Think of the amount of time and energy it takes to capture that 3% of denials, who can appeal anyway so maybe some of them are legit and just botched the application or interview, versus all the other fraudulent cases running rampant out there on other types of visas. I'm also pretty sure plenty of fraudsters made it past the 2 year marriage mark just to get that 10 year GC...2 years is honestly peanuts for a marriage, it seems so arbitrary to me that they picked that number. Ranting here, sorry...it just frustrating sometimes especially when you see how low that denial rate is.

[Crazy Cat 39,219]

5 minutes ago, millefleur said:

I'm beginning to feel more and more that the whole ROC process is pointless. Think of the amount of time and energy it takes to capture that 3% of denials, who can appeal anyway so maybe some of them are legit and just botched the application or interview, versus all the other fraudulent cases running rampant out there on other types of visas. I'm also pretty sure plenty of fraudsters made it past the 2 year marriage mark just to get that 10 year GC...2 years is honestly peanuts for a marriage, it seems so arbitrary to me that they picked that number. Ranting here, sorry...it just frustrating sometimes especially when you see how low that denial rate is.

Great analysis, and logically presented.......they could eliminate the ROC requirement  and redirect that effort elsewhere......

Edited April 23, 2019 by missileman

[PolskaKielbasia 67]

17 minutes ago, millefleur said:

I'm beginning to feel more and more that the whole ROC process is pointless. Think of the amount of time and energy it takes to capture that 3% of denials, who can appeal anyway so maybe some of them are legit and just botched the application or interview, versus all the other fraudulent cases running rampant out there on other types of visas. I'm also pretty sure plenty of fraudsters made it past the 2 year marriage mark just to get that 10 year GC...2 years is honestly peanuts for a marriage, it seems so arbitrary to me that they picked that number. Ranting here, sorry...it just frustrating sometimes especially when you see how low that denial rate is.

If the i751 is anything like the I485 then the vast majority of the denials are for things like missing the interview, missing documentation, and so on. There was a statistic published recently that said something like around 1 in 400 I485s are denied for "fraud" (which like you said can be appealed, taken to court, refiled etc.), I'd wager that figure is even lower for the I751. 

 

Seems like the conditional green card should be 3 years, and then you can either choose to go down the (1) ROC path or (2) a streamlined ROC/Citizenship path.

Edited April 23, 2019 by PolskaKielbasia

[Cryssiekins 976]

15 minutes ago, millefleur said:

I'm beginning to feel more and more that the whole ROC process is pointless. Think of the amount of time and energy it takes to capture that 3% of denials, who can appeal anyway so maybe some of them are legit and just botched the application or interview, versus all the other fraudulent cases running rampant out there on other types of visas. I'm also pretty sure plenty of fraudsters made it past the 2 year marriage mark just to get that 10 year GC...2 years is honestly peanuts for a marriage, it seems so arbitrary to me that they picked that number. Ranting here, sorry...it just frustrating sometimes especially when you see how low that denial rate is.

 

9 minutes ago, missileman said:

Great analysis, and logically presented.......they could eliminate the ROC requirement  and redirect that effort elsewhere......

I definitely feel like it’s a burden filing.  3% denial rate is super low.  I can’t imagine that’s all “fraud” either.  I’m sure there’s some that were problematic filings.  I feel like as long as you check the important boxes (co-mingled finances), you’re in the clear (assuming no other issues).  I’d love to see the stats on the denied cases.

[Crazy Cat 39,219]

2 minutes ago, Cryssiekins said:

 

I definitely feel like it’s a burden filing.  3% denial rate is super low.  I can’t imagine that’s all “fraud” either.  I’m sure there’s some that were problematic filings.  I feel like as long as you check the important boxes (co-mingled finances), you’re in the clear (assuming no other issues).  I’d love to see the stats on the denied cases.

I have read somewhere that more than 75% of appealed cases are approved......so that pushes that 3% even lower, I guess.