US Immigration from Singapore

We've had tons of questions on whether the Ho Chi Min City US Consulate in Vietnam has been approving family based US Visas (and if so at what rate). To answer that, we dug into the official US State Department data and plotted visa approvals for K1, CR1, IR1 and IR5 visas over the last 2 years. Here is what we found:

• K1 Visa processing is recovering. It's still below average after a 3 month pause in processing last summer, indicating a backlog.
• IR1 Visa and CR1 Visa processing times are back to pre-Covid rates. There was a processing surge that seems to have made a dent in the backlog due to the 3 month pause last summer.
• IR5 Visa processing had a HUGE surge in April showing an all hands on deck effort to process the backlog after 11 months of being stopped. This is very promising!

The full data is below. What are your thoughts?

We've had questions on whether the Mumbai US Consulate in India has been approving marriage based US Visas (and if so at what rate). To answer that, we dug into the official US State Department data and plotted visa approvals for K1, CR1 and IR1 visas over the last 2 years. Here is what we found:

• K1 Visa stopped for 9 months. It started again in January but there doesn't appear to be any effort to clear the backlog.
• IR1 Visa and CR1 Visa processing stopped for 5 months but started again last September. There was a huge push to clear the backlog (seen by the processing spike below)

What are your thoughts? It looks like K1s are not getting any priority which means longer wait times from petition receipts to interviews -- keeping family apart.

We've had tons of questions on whether the Manila US Consulate in the Philippines has been approving marriage based US Visas (and if so at what rate). To answer that, we dug into the official US State Department data and plotted visa approvals for K1, CR1 and IR1 visas over the last 2 years. Here is what we found:

• K1 Visa processing is WAY down. In fact it's down by more than 10x from pre-Covid levels (~500 a month pre-Covid to ~50 a month now). There is likely to be a significant backlog. Even one month of cases (pre-Covid) would take 10 months to clear at this pace, assuming no new petitions!
• IR1 Visa processing is back to pre-Covid rates. There is likely a backlog that will take months to clear given the slow down last year.
• CR1 Visa processing (couples married less than 2 years) is roughly 2x higher than pre-Covid (~100 a month pre-Covid to more than ~200 a month now). Could folks be preferring the CR-1 route over a K1 visa? This seems possible given the major backlog on K1 Visas. For some couples, this could be a legitimate route to living together in the US sooner.

What do you think of the data (below)? Do you think the US consulate in Manila is artificially slowing don K1 Visa processing to prioritize other work or for other reasons?

Did anyone have a trip outside of the US longer than 6 months because of COVID and still passed the naturalization interview?

I applied for naturalization in March 2020 and left the US after.

I was abroad last year to see my father and grandmother (she has been ill) who i did not meet for 8 years,
for about 7.5 months
from march 2020- November 2020 and could not return because of the lockdown in the country I was in and extremely expensive tickets to return once they were available ( 3-5kusd).

I did not have my name on my house and car agreements ( I lived with my brother) but I constantly sent money to my brother for these payments.
I was also still enrolled in my American university and was taking lessons online while abroad, and graduated last August 2020 virtually.

I maintained my ATT Phone line, school loan and other bills the whole time i was away.

My mom (American citizen) and brother ( waiting for his naturalization interview) also remained in the U.S and never left.
i filed all my taxes and never owed any.

I also spoke with multiple USCIS agents on the phone about my long time outside of the US and they assured me that as long as it wasn t a year or longer, that i was fine.

With all this evidence of me never planning to abandon my US life, what do you think my chances are of passing the interview?

Thank you so much for any replies, I ve been stressed out from this and appreciate the feedback!

Hello all.

I just wanted to come here to tell of my experience. I am doing so because I have used this site in the past while gathering information, producing the I-129F application and while waiting. This is not to say what I think is good or bad, but just how my I-129F was and is being handled.

First:

Second:Olive and I knew from the beginning that our end goal for our relationship was to be married and live together in the US. So, with that in mind we started reading "how" and a lot of the information we collected came from this website. We know we would have to meet in person within the two years of application and we also knew we would need to document our relationship. We