ghepardo

Congratulations @jolyn69 and to all the others trekking down to Portland for interviews.  That's good news and encouraging to hear that at least same day oath ceremonies are being conducted, at least for some.  Although I can imagine that others on this forum who went to Portland and were not given same day oath are perplexed and irked they weren't given the options (I would be).  
 
I'm wondering if conducting same day oaths are a relatively new procedure in the last year.  I think that before the pandemic slowed down office procedures in the last 15 months, USCIS (across all offices) was only conducting same day oaths in very isolated and specific cases?  Then with the growing backlog in some offices (e.g. Seattle field office) they began to rollout same day oaths in a few offices to help expedite things and clear the log jam.  From what I gather from perusing the Portland N-400 threads, the same day oath was rarely offered in that office - even for Oregonians, unless coming from the opposite side of the state. 
 
Just wondering if same day oaths is something new for the Portland office, that they're just beginning to dip their toes into based on the success of other regional offices.  Of course, there could be other factors as well, for example they may have some newer employees (interviewing officials) that are not well versed on setting up the same day oath (?)...
 
It just seems from the context of improving efficiency and productivity that conducting same day oath procedures (or immediately following the interview) would be built into the entire interview package, just like the option to submit a passport application through the same system at time of interview.  
 
btw- Portland had great food, there are some really fantastic food carts and restaurants around the city, so that's always a bonus for the trip 😋
thanks again for the updates!      

Early this morning (14 Apr) I sent a message via the USCIS account inquiring about the RFE notification and ask why nothing has been uploaded or received in the mail (so far).  I just logged on to my account a few minutes ago and see that the RFE notification has disappeared.  I still haven't received a response from USCIS, but I'm hoping that the RFE notification was just bug that has been corrected.  No guarantees, but it's a good sign that perhaps this was just a glitch in the matrix...
I'll update again as I learn anything new.  I'm sure if it's happened to a few of us, there's probably more people who it' has happened to who may be reading this, but aren't commenting on this this thread.  

I think you're asking why they prefer to update one over the other?
I updated both, and its my understanding that the VJ timeline is quantifying all months across years for each service center and generating estimates based off of the entire "population" for that service center across time (although I could be wrong, moderator??).
The text table is for a group filing during that particular month (e.g. October group) to view and keep track of what dates for each step along the way for that particular month group, which may not be reflected in the VJ timeline if people are not going through the trouble of updating it. Not sure why anyone would not update both if they are registered members of VJ and actively posting, it just helps everyone keep track. Typically I referred to the text table of this October group and other groups, and made my own estimates based off of those dates, versus the aggregate VJ timeline.
Perhaps someone else has another opinion on use of one over the other...?

Hello, I'm a July filer with some information to pass along to the August folks...
Looking at the pattern of approvals, there obviously is no computer-controlled scheduling or any other form of strict queue or regulatory process controlling the flow of cases within a given month. USCIS is stuck in the bad old days of manually processing paper files, and approval time is a crapshoot. This is true not only of the July 2013 approvals, but also the prior month's. There are original CSC people from June 3rd, June 13th (with EARLY BIO) and June 17th who are STILL waiting!!!
Looking at the June group's messages, the approval letters (and presumably the approval decisions as well) are coming from regional offices (the VA office for a WV applicant, the Atlanta office, etc.) rather from CSC. Unfortunately, the online system doesn't tell you whether your case has been sent to a regional office or not, so it's hard to track regional offices and their speed or lack thereof. In theory, it should be possible to assemble the territories of each regional office and infer their processing speed - if VJers start reporting the identity of their regional office along with their approval dates.
The June approvals are at 70% for CSC (including VSC transfers) and 50% for VSC. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/433684-i-751-june-2013-filers/page-37
Looking at the following month (July), they are at 25% approvals for CSC (11% approval rate for the VSC transfers) and 0% approvals for VSC. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/439351-i-751-july-2013-filers/page-29
Going back to the May filers, they are at 95% for CSC and 61% for VSC (multiple applicants from 4/30 and 5/1 are STILL waiting!). A non-RFE VSC case from 5/3 got approved on 10/1, and a non-RFE CSC case from 5/24 got approved on 10/10! http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/427555-i-751-may-2013-filers/page-54
Going back to the April filers, they are at 73% for CSC and 69% for VSC (people from 3/29 and 4/1 are STILL waiting!) All the recently reported (October) approvals have been RFEs though, so maybe it's just a case of people not reporting their approvals to VJ. http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/422393-i-751-april-2013-filers/page-63
August filers - when you are approved, please state your location and the location of the regional office that sends you your approval letter along with your approval date!

Just wanted to update the October group that some of the August filers are just now beginning to see a few approvals. That's encouraging!
Also it seems people are receiving their approval letters from local offices rather than from CSC or VSC (unless that happens to be your local office). Unsure if this indicates that final approval is "stamped" at the local offices or if the cases are just routed from CSC. There is a good post by Ivriesling (post #449) over on the August filers' thread that discusses the current approvals.
http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/440263-i-751-august-2013-filers/page-30
It seems that based on the May, June and July threads that many people are approved 6-8 weeks after the biometric appointment (barring any long RFEs or unforeseen circumstances). Of course there are many of those whose wait is has been much longer than 8 weeks, and even a few who seem to fly through the process and have green card in hand within 5-6 weeks post biometric appointment. Just thought I'd update the group that things are moving, albeit slowly, but eventually we'll get there.
-cheers-

bravo!
I have to admit after working as a biologist in Costa Rica for a few months, I was smitten with CR. Then I discovered Colombia and worked and traveled throughout that beautiful country. I have to admit CR and CO are two spectacular places. Although, all countries have issues and dangers, I agree completely and I do appreciate living here and treasures like our National Parks make me appreciate what we have.
But eating good food in CO and CR, and exploring their jungles, swimming in warm seas, jubilant salsa music and dancing, make me scratch my head when I think of some of our terrible food here and coldness we have towards one another. People don't really dance in the US. We like our space here, and places like Italy, Mexico, CR and CO people are so use to living close to one another and living passionately.
so many places to see..at the risk of sounding like an idealist, I just wish we could all get along.

bravo!
I have to admit after working as a biologist in Costa Rica for a few months, I was smitten with CR. Then I discovered Colombia and worked and traveled throughout that beautiful country. I have to admit CR and CO are two spectacular places. Although, all countries have issues and dangers, I agree completely and I do appreciate living here and treasures like our National Parks make me appreciate what we have.
But eating good food in CO and CR, and exploring their jungles, swimming in warm seas, jubilant salsa music and dancing, make me scratch my head when I think of some of our terrible food here and coldness we have towards one another. People don't really dance in the US. We like our space here, and places like Italy, Mexico, CR and CO people are so use to living close to one another and living passionately.
so many places to see..at the risk of sounding like an idealist, I just wish we could all get along.

Congrats A&M! A long time coming! Wow! they really had you jumping through the circus hoops. I read that you had indicated in your IV package cover letter that you included your military record. This tells me that the reviewers may not reading the cover letters as closely as they should, if it all.
I may be assuming to much that all reviewers are not reading cover letters, but it seems to me that either the reviewers are so accustomed to processing these IV packages over and over, everyday, that they probably toss aside the cover letter when they receive a IV package and just start looking for the "standard" items, jumping to certain questions on the DS-230 that are commonly missed or misinterpreted. When a case is missing one of those items and/or falls outside of the "norm" CR-1/IR-1 cookie-cutter processing, they just send an RFE and place the burden on you to justify.
I think that the folks working on NVC cases see so many cases a year, and then "quickly" look for certain items and have an internal checklist, if it's there then they stamp it in the corner and done. If something makes them search more than a few minutes, then RFE, without taking the time to check a cover letter that we carefully type out for them. After processing thousands of these things they probably become separated from the fact that people's lives and family cohesion are at stake. I'm sure their supervisors try to remind them at their weekly or monthly team meetings, that "applicant's are real people waiting", but the fact remains that it is human nature that they become somewhat desensitized in their cookie cutter methodology...
A big issue to me is the lack of transparency in this process. Of course the DOS will cite "national security" and immigration fraud issues, but really as we all know on this forum, we have little knowledge of the internal workings, and little recourse to challenge or inquire. Got to love those "NVC inquiry response" emails, makes me feel, well, almost helpless and at the whim of a private contracted SERCO employee who could care less about my family.
but maybe I'm reading to much into the NVC
congrat A&M! now the wait...now hopefully we don't have to wait to long for an appointment between all the Embassies holidays (they get both US and foreign govt holidays paid days off).