New fees... possible mess??

[Shannon And Marco 2]

Hello everyone!

I sent off our petition on July 25th postmarked and recieved certified on July 26th, so thankfully on the old fee schedule. However.... I was wondering what kind of mess this new fee structure will have on the timeliness of proccessing our petition. It seems that there are only two processing centers now . I'm hoping that there is a lag in new applicants because of the high fees... wishful thinking??? Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts during this tumultuous time.

Hope all is well and speedy proccessing for all!!!

Shannon

[Mags 112]

Hello everyone!

I sent off our petition on July 25th postmarked and recieved certified on July 26th, so thankfully on the old fee schedule. However.... I was wondering what kind of mess this new fee structure will have on the timeliness of proccessing our petition. It seems that there are only two processing centers now . I'm hoping that there is a lag in new applicants because of the high fees... wishful thinking??? Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts during this tumultuous time.

Hope all is well and speedy proccessing for all!!!

Shannon

I would have thought that there may be a possible slowdown in processing times, simply because of all the people filing before the fee increase. There have certainly been many members of VJ who have been submitting their petitions before the 30th of July.

There is no way to be sure of this though...we'll just have to wait and see.

[Jaseball 0]

I think they probably got 10x the amount of applications and people filing because of these stupid fee hikes. Even if it was a $10-40 fee hike there would be a spike, however they raised rates 150-300% or more and with the fees already high it just means they created a huge demand for people to file, especially people on the fence or those who were being lazy about AOS or filing for Citizenship or anything else.

I would not be surprised if we see delays of 1-2 months additional because we know the US government is not going to become more effective, more efficient, or more customer service oriented no matter how much money we throw at them.

There just isn't anything we can do. At least I filed in early July. I only proposed in early June and had to use snail mail to gather documents, pictures, and signatures, so there was no way I could have filed any earlier.

Just glad my package was accepted and should be reviewed. Probably in November or some #######.

Even if it takes a long time as long as there are no problems and I got NOA2 ASAP I will hold off on my complaints.

[Jaseball 0]

I forgot to add...

I found it interesting the news reported the fee hikes AFTER it was too late for people to get a filing in. They reported it yesterday over here, so unless you had an attorney who paid attention, was actively looking for visa information like me, or caught one of the hidden messages on the USCIS site it was pretty hard to see the fee increases.

In fact, my fiancee in China at the end of June told me about it and it was only after I checked and looked that I found out about the fee hikes.

[Urge To Race 2]

You forgot to add to your list, "were a VJ member" as we have been discussing the fee hikes for quite some time in various threads and at great lengths

I forgot to add...

I found it interesting the news reported the fee hikes AFTER it was too late for people to get a filing in. They reported it yesterday over here, so unless you had an attorney who paid attention, was actively looking for visa information like me, or caught one of the hidden messages on the USCIS site it was pretty hard to see the fee increases.

In fact, my fiancee in China at the end of June told me about it and it was only after I checked and looked that I found out about the fee hikes.

[*julez* 124]

There have only been 2 processing centers for a while now. (Petitions were forwarded to CSC from TSC and NSC) With the fee change they are now dividing the states a bit more evenly between the two that actually process I129f petitions, so, in theory CSC times will be shorter and VSC times will be longer. However, reality is what we're faced with and only time will tell what the true effect of all this will be! Sit back and try to relax. That's what I'm doing!

Good luck on your journey!

[Urge To Race 2]

There probably was a huge spike of people trying to beat the increase, and now the number of petitions filed will drop greatly as some many would be August filers got in before the deadline. It will take some time for them to process all that they got I am sure.

As for the 2 service centers, only CSC and VSC have been adjudicating I129F and I130s for quite some time. Now, instead of people in certain areas having to send their I130 petitions to Nebraska or Texas and have them forwarded to CSC, they can send them directly. And everyone who does a K3 can send their petitions directly to the adjudicating center instead of the Chicago lockbox.

Hello everyone!

I sent off our petition on July 25th postmarked and recieved certified on July 26th, so thankfully on the old fee schedule. However.... I was wondering what kind of mess this new fee structure will have on the timeliness of proccessing our petition. It seems that there are only two processing centers now . I'm hoping that there is a lag in new applicants because of the high fees... wishful thinking??? Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts during this tumultuous time.

Hope all is well and speedy proccessing for all!!!

Shannon

[Bill y Bella 0]

A couple of thoughts...

The number of applicants behind you should not impact your processing time, assuming they process the applications in the order they were received.

I also thought there would probably be a spike in July applications but so far the VJ stats do not support this theory.

All Submitted Visa Applications With Visa Journey Timelines:

Month-----------2006---------------2007

May--------------196-----------------140

June-------------176------------------120

July--------------187------------------124*

*Data as of 7/30/07. There will probably be additional application timelines created for late July filers and applicants new to VJ.

Now remember, these are VJ stats and there is no guarantee that USCIS stats mirror VJ stats.

It is interesting that overall, the number of applications has declined 06 vs 07. Are less people applying? Has VJ become less popular?

As to the number of centers processing applications, I think that is irrelevant. What is important is how many adjudicators are working. Did the number go down when they decided to use only CSC and VSC? Or did they transfer people so that the number of adjudicators remained the same?

Something has made the VSC processing time increase over the past couple of months but I'm not sure what it is at this point.

It could be that employment based visa applicants do not tend to use VJ so increases in the number of those applicants could drive up the processing time without being reflected in the number of VJ timelines.

Lots to think about, none of which can get our visas any faster.

Edited July 31, 2007 by Bill y Bella