EarlyMorningHours

Just received an email that we got approved. Two days shy of 6 months. I can update my time-line here, but I'm a little nervous to update the spreadsheet as I'm Android only while in Romania and the Google Sheets app says something about not supporting all of the elements in the sheet.

For my fellow RFE victims, if it helps, the RFE was on May 7, they acknowledged the response on May 19, and finally approved on May 27. I suppose it could have been worse and we are thrilled beyond words to be past this stage, but I'm also annoyed that this could mean an extra month apart from my wife for no good reason.

We wish everyone a speedy approval. This process is truly inhumane at best.

The email they sent me confirming that they received our response to the RFE indicated a decision should be made within 60 days of when they received the response. Looking at the different spreadsheets here it seems that it could be anywhere from a week to 3 months. I'm obviously pinning my hopes on the 1 week end of the spectrum.

I can totally empathize with the feeling you have, plus I had the head scratcher of wondering how it could happen when I paid a lawyer a metric ####### ton of money to avoid this very thing. We received our RFE on May 7 and today they sent me an email that they received the response on May 19. I figure that at best it's a wasted 2 weeks of our lives, but then again they could make us sit around for who knows how long while the response collects dust. I really am sorry you got this news rather than what we all want here. I wouldn't wish this torture on anyone (except our elected officials).

RFE response sent, now time to wait again

Got mine fired off today too.. can't believe what a waste of time this is.

Well my RFE wants passport photos of both of us. The funny thing is that my lawyer, who I hope had a wonderful night out with the $4,000 I paid him, never included my passport photos at all. I have no idea what the problem is with my wife's photos, so I have her getting them taken at two different places. She's going to email them to me and then I'm going to have a photo lab I've done business with in the past get them printed out to spec and overnight everything back. Going to be a busy day tomorrow seeing that I'm leaving for Romania on Friday.

I see, is there any way you can even visit your wife until this is all over? I truly feel for you and everyone else!

Very good!

Oh yes, I'm leaving Friday May 16 to see her for a couple of weeks. I'll be there for her birthday and had been hoping to surprise her with an approval. Instead I spent an hour on Skype last night trying to dry tears from 6000 miles away. First it took me a year and a half to get a completely uncontested and totally agreed upon divorce finalized. I met my current wife about a year before the divorce was finished. Well you can't even petition for a fiance visa if you're technically still married. So this entire process began about 6 months later than we wanted. But the entire time I've been going there for 2 or 3 week visits about every 2.5 to 3.5 months. The financial drain is now coming to a point where I think this may be my last trip that is planned in advance. I would hate to be there in August only to find out that I would need to stay an extra two weeks unexpectedly or have come back again in a couple of weeks to be there for the interview. Post NOA1 to visa in hand for Romania seems to be around 3 months if past timelines here are anything to go by.

What did they want??

It didn't say. The email said exactly what you would see on the website. Something was mailed out, follow the instructions, blah, blah blah. I'm going to be 45 in August. My wife and I would like to have at least one child. Needless to say I would rather not be going to a high school graduation with a Hov-a-round scooter. This has already taken too long, way too long. Particularly when the number of people who qualify for expedited processing seem to outnumber those who don't. This is one of those times, and those times are growing much more frequent, when my patriotism and love of country are seriously put to the test.

at least they're working on it.

You're being generous of description of what people do there. Maybe I just haven't noticed, but I don't think I've seen anybody go from RFE to NOA2 with anything resembling expediency. So glad I had a lawyer helping us with this. Did a lot of good.

####### RFE'd me today.

Can anyone tell me how long will take for hubby to receive the RFE in the mail? He is in New Jersey, jus want to know how fast is the mailing system on that side of town.

If they send it first class, he should have it about 2 days from when it's sent out. I'm sure no matter what rate it's sent at he'll have it within 4 business days of when it's sent. He can always opt to return the response overnight.

I know I called back to speak to a tier 2 and he told me the same #######. He said to call back in 24 days. By then they should be on November 29th.

We have the same PD, and both stuck in Nebraska. It appears as though there were 156 applications for I-130 with that PD and so far 20 have been approved. Fifteen approvals since May 1. There looks to be 1 expedite (the receipt number directly after mine) and two lucky couples that received their Christmas present on December 24 and two more that were approved on January 9. The approvals seem kind of bunched up together, not only by receipt number, but by date of approval. Closely aligned receipt numbers tend to have the same approval date. So it sort of looks like they grab a box of applications and go through them. Most make the cut, some others get RFE, and others must just get put aside probably to be forgotten until a SR is made.

They told me to call back on May 21 also. I'll be visiting my wife then, returning on June 2. If I haven't heard anything by the time I leave the country, I'm setting up an appointment with whoever does that kind of thing at Sen. Schumer's local office.

I didn't get much "work" done at work today.

I've noticed several I-130 applications with our PD 11/29 getting approved today, most with receipt numbers after mine. I can only hope something happens soon. If I wasn't going to visit my wife in 2 weeks, I'd just about be despondent right now.

So it seemed to me that I've seen way way too many September and October approvals for there to still be a completion rate anything less than 100% on the corresponding spreadsheets. Maybe I'm being a little bit Captain Obvious here, but I just started to notice that a good deal of these new approval entries were made by people who joined VJ well after those spreadsheets were created and they were never added to the spreadsheets since joining :\ Ugh, every time I saw a September/October approval, I kept thinking to myself we're a little closer to seeing those spreadsheets cleared out, and by extension, a little closer to seeing November pick up in volume. I'm beginning to remind myself a little bit of the Ren & Stimpy episode "Space Madness".

Good morning my VJ family...I just got off the phone with a Tier2 Rep after a brief 19 mins wait. I explained to her that my case shows no updated status since 12/04/2013 and I would like to know what is going on. Anyway it do seems as if they are really working on Nov cases. My PD is Nov 25 and she said the last activity on my case was 4/16/2014. I guess that is some good news. Now the bad news is she said the processing time for I130 now is 9 mths to a year. Why is the website saying 5 mths? Anyway I guess there is nothing to do but wait. Good luck everyone and congratulations to all who was recently approved.

Nine months to a year?!? Uhh.. no. F**k that news. I can't even say what heinous acts of violence I'll commit if it even takes longer than 6 months.

I sure hope this is the start of more to come because at the current rate of ~1 approval per week, November 2013 filers will be finished in about 14 months.

Looks to be another productive day at the processing centers. Approve a couple of expedites in order to manipulate the average processing times toward the mythical 5 months and call it a job well done... SOSDD

Isn't it Chuck Schumer that heads oversight?

Lol, at all SCs? Wth are pds for again?

I'm just going on memory. I'm too demoralized to go back and double check everything. I noticed another couple with the same PD, same SC as us, doesn't appear to be an expedite, had their interview on 16 April. At the same I noticed a couple just finished up after 14 or 15 months. Seeing that has me thinking of how long it will take before I get fed up enough that I'll just decide to retire (eligable in 98 days), take my pension, my investment accounts, etc and just beat feet out of here.

I didn't go back and count, but I think there are now as many, maybe even one more, December approvals to November approvals. I've officially concluded a ouija board to be as valuable as anything else when predicting anything at all at USCIS.

I work 2 (sometimes more) extra jobs and take any overtime that comes my way. Usually I'll work more than 80 hours a week. It passes the time and it's necessary to keep our financial debt from growing any further and to allow me to visit about every 8 to 12 weeks. The side jobs don't involve any heavy lifting so I usually spend the time at those listening to Pimsluer audio language lessons or using various flash card programs, etc on my phone so that I can better communicate with my in-laws. One bit of advice I would give to anybody here.. hit the gym. I still wake up at 5am every weekday and spend 1.5 to 2 hours in the gym. It's a massive help with stress relief and is hopefully helping to counteract the negative effects of this process and working too much.

Got this today:

Well, the Tier 1 peon never asked me for proof, so how the heck was I supposed to show that I'm being unnecessarily burdened financially without my wife here?!!!

Somehow I doubt whatever proof you have would sway them in your direction. I think only proof that somehow it would be financially advantageous to THEM would it make any difference. Nevertheless, if we end up at 6 months time with no approval I will likely request an expedite and offer up my $20,000+ of outstanding credit card bills.

Seems a lack of activity this week. Do they tend to send out approvals in one big lot? There are 3 guys on the facebook vj site all late October at VSC. Hoping to hear they hear something before April is out.

I don't know what's going on exactly, but every time I see a new update from an expedite my aggravation level and blood pressure go up a bit. Especially when it seems like more countries are qualifying for this status. And then today I noticed a December NOA1 received NOA2. I've never been one to begrudge the good fortune of others, but when the expedient good fortune of others seems to be coming at the expense of and delay for my wife and I and the rest of the "normal" November filers, I can't help but get a little bit resentful. I've been combing through the data here the last few days like a detective trying to solve the zodiac homicides and I have noticed a fairly decent amount of people updating their timelines who had NOA1 from June through October. Hopefully my earlier theory of USCIS cleaning up the remaining cases is at least somewhat true and they can begin approvals again in volume really soon.

I swear this process is going to take several years off my life in addition to the time wasted and thousands spent.

[/rant]

Yeah, but it wasn't even an answer to my question! lol We filed 5months and 2 days ago. So we aren't even majorly outside of normal processing times. So pissed at the email they sent.

If there was a circumstance that tier 2's were meant to handle, I would think that this is exactly that kind. Something out of the ordinary that requires both human intervention and some degree of authority to get it sorted out. Hopefully they could at least tell you if one was indeed mailed out or if they have a copy available to them, etc. Something. If have a PD and a case number and they indicate that it is indeed waiting for processing, then I would reserve panicking for a later time. I'm not the most expert person in this entire area, so maybe someone else could answer... do you need that NOA1 hard copy for later processing?

Just called USCIS for the first time and now I get why people's general comments about their first tier CSR is so...um, negative. She was basically reading off some online instructions. I asked for expedite due to financial distress and now I've got to wait 5 days for an answer. NOA1 was 11/20/13, so now I'm past 5 months wait, yet the CSR on the phone said I need to wait another month at least

Ugh, so this is what I have to look forward to 1 week from tomorrow.

At this point I can only assume one of two things is going on.. either they're mopping up the harder cases that took longer to come to a decision on or half the employees are on vacation. To see October not even 2/3 complete at this point is a little bit discouraging. The positive spin I'm trying to put on it for my sanity is that a fair number of people are way slow updating their timelines here. And this sort of mystifies me a little bit. I'll update mine in about 2 seconds after I know something, then probably make a dozen phone calls and send out emails to tell close friends and family. Hell I might even commission a crop duster to skywrite it.