I & B

I just received my NOA1 from the CSC. And I have two questions, regarding this:

1. Why have they been stuck at July 18 for 4 months? Any speculation as to why? Precedence?

2. Why have they been approving November and December applications by the load with the bulk of July-October applicants still waiting? Any speculation for this apparent leapfrog? And precedence of such a leapfrog in the past?

1. They basically stopped processing I-129Fs in meaningful numbers in November. This wind down was the result of their intense focus on quickly processing DACA petitions. There is past precedent for them slowing down the processing of one petition type temporarily and then ramping up approvals later in order to maintain a completion rate that allows them to keep a set time frame. In fact, mathematically, this approach makes a ton of sense: so long as they can keep the cycle (boom and bust) within the set processing time frames, the boom will cancel out the bust and no petition will be negatively affected; to the contrary, they would be able to apply the efficiency gains of focusing on one petition type towards completing all petitions more quickly using this system. I highly, highly suspect this is exactly what their operating plan is.

But it went terribly wrong this time. The bust far outstripped the boom and thus you see the rise in the average processing time for all I-129Fs. Note how returning to the median processing time only then locks in a steady rate at a longer average delay. That's because the median completion rate, not coincidentally, is roughly equally to the median receipt rate, which is more evidence that the system is designed for balanced booms and busts. Right now, however, we just need a really big boom to drive down the average rate. And, as you can see, even with very large booms over several months, July, August, September, and December filers will not realistically be able to get approved near the 5 month mark (unless, like the recent spate of december petitions, they are processed out of order).

2. According to posts today, the CSC claims that was a mistake. If it was, it was an unbelievably negligent one that demonstrates very poor situational awareness on the part of at least some of the managers and staff. And that actually makes me kinda believe them, haha.

I was told CSC workload has jumped from 10k app's each month to 25K app's each month. I assume if this is true,......we will be waiting 10-12 months for a NOA2. Not the normal 5-6 months. Just guessing. Sorry I dont have better information for you. Good luck to you!!!

That's absolutely not true, actually. You can find full stats on what happen at the CSC and projections for what it all means for I-129F filers going forward in the links in my profile. Don't trust what the USCIS staffers say; just looks to what the numbers say.

UPDATE: Sad but very true story...

The ex showed up for visitation, lied about not having any money for a cab (yet paid for 3 cab fares), left after 3 hours, so she could go to a sporting event with her boyfriend. Didn't have the courtesy to call back or respond to further inquiries if she wanted to spend time with her child. Also, she ran out on a return travel voucher I paid for thus just wasting more money. Not much maternal love or bonding there...

Then she had the nerve to respond to an attorney letter that she didn't know anything about immigration, but her application was in progress (this is a woman I caught seeking assistance for her green card the first month she came to the USA when she told her best friend she was going to take our child and get me for 18 years of child support after she got her green card). She went on to state she didn't want trouble with the law when it was brought up that she had requested to take her child to her home country on multiple occasions. She finished with a statement she wanted to be respected as the child's mother, and how she was working hard to give her child the best life possible (she hasn't ever contributed a single penny to the care and support of our child. Not one red cent).

She's a winner, headed for a possible VAWA approval. Didn't Obama say inventors and innovators, engineers and entrepreneurs, scientists etc?

Looks like the USA might just get another seeker of benefits based on fraud, freebies, and handouts...

Found this topic after seeing your recently posted poll. After reading all of this and especially this last point, however, I feel I gotta be the guy who slaps you back to reality: there is no way you should ever, under any circumstances, allow this woman unsupervised visitation. I understand she must still have some emotional hooks in you, but never forget that sociopaths like her never stop using such hooks to further their personal aims. Unfortunately for you, as long as she is in the US, eternal vigilance is the price you will have to pay for getting duped.

It makes my blood boil when I read what she did for you, and I don't write callously because I think you deserve scorn or blame, but I think you need to remember that (1) this woman will be around for several years to come at least, and (2) the entire time she will be scheming about how to get money from you. You have shown very good, level-headed judgment since you found out about her schemes. Just keep it up!

Is not ur fault too.

Why don't you just post the exact text? For all the time you've spent bickering with people, you could have typed it up several times over and actually gotten some answers. Do you even want help?

July 20th 2012 filer here and I've heard nothing. I've written to both senators and congressman and I'm being repeated the same scripts. My money-grubbing lawyer has proven to be useless. December filers are being approved left and right. My fiancée and I are growing tired and tired of this situation every single day, and it's hurting our relationship. What else can be done? Can any legal action be taken on my part? I've hit a wall and feel totally helpless and hopeless.

Legally? No. There isn't any practical way to sue the USCIS over this sort of thing, unfortunately. You would end up spending a lot of money on processes that (1) are no sure thing and (2) would likely take months to be completed themselves.

Have you tried reaching out to local media? Perhaps if you could get a newspaper or TV station to get invested in your story, you could have them put pressure on the ombudsman on your behalf.

Yes these are wac's

Ok. I gotta think about exactly how to use that info with my existing stats, but I'm sure I will be able to get some better Feb/March estimates with them at minimum. Thanks again for sharing.

One of the things you will need when filing the I-129F is a signed letter from her stating her intent to marry you. So it's hard to see how you could petition first and then propose later on a practical level, even if a proposal is not requirement per se.

I like the petition idea, but I do wish the actual petition submitted was a bit more factual and carefully worded.

For example, there is no statutory target for the processing time of K-1 visas; "timely" is left to the discretion of the USCIS (and possibly the courts where the USCIS is processing people in a manner that is flagrantly untimely) and the USCIS alone set the 5 month processing goal. This is an important point to recognize because one of the changes we should be lobbying for is for that discretion to be taken from the USCIS. Saying they acted illegally in this case actually misses the point.

Also, the Senate is part of the the Congress. The other part of the Congress is the House of Representatives.

Again, I don't knock your motivations or efforts. I'm there with you in trying to bring attention to and fight this mess. But those are some things to note if ever you get a chance to amend the petition text.

Your well within Timelines... Give it a break.

Venting is OK. Good Luck!

I still cannot understand this weird movement of people who went through the process years ago and now insisted that everyone going through it now merely accept the status quo, even when that status quo is far, far worse now than it was when they went through it. Yes, we understand our individual letters may not help our individual case. No, we don't really care. We are trying to draw attention to a systemic problem that is unique to the last couple of months. Blueprints for dealing with the USCIS from years ago no longer apply.

Anyway, I also believe that all those pending at the CSC should be seriously considering contacting their elected representatives if they have not already done so, regardless of whether or not their petition falls within the arbitrary 5.5 (6.5? 7.5?) month guidelines the CSC keeps shifting on us. To that end, I've written a guide and provided a good deal of statistical analysis. You can find links to all of those posts in my signature. Good luck.

For what it's worth, my calculations put September CSC filers faring slightly worse than October filers in average NOA1 to completion times under most scenarios where the CSC starts moving in the next 2-3 months, so there's that. We will at least be able to say we had it 5-7 days better than most September filers. Beyond that, yah, it's hard to see how we will not be the worst month on record for either service center.

Figured I'd throw one more graph out here:

This one is a comparison of VSC and CSC processing times over the past two years with the assumption that neither changes from it's January, 2013 pace. The divergence at the end of the graph is thus a little bit unrealistic because I do not believe that the VSC has sustained it's incredibly high 4400+ January rate, but I think the graph is still interesting to see (1) yes, my completion algorithm works constitently well for both service centers and (2) yes, the VSC has historically had a much worse processing delay than the CSC, with June, 2012 filers being the first batch in a long time to actually fare better at the VSC.

I'm an August 2012 filer (NOA1 September 11), and I've been working with Senator Baldwin's office to see what can be done about the current slowdown at CSC. Her staffer for Immigration matters has been excellent and very responsive, but I wanted to push for more than my personal case. We need our representatives putting pressure on USCIS to realign it's priorities, not just pull individual files and get them pushed through.

Tonight Senator Baldwin (Wisconsin) had a fundraiser here in Madison, so I showed up, waited patiently, and when I had the time, spent a few minutes bending her ear about what's going on. I got the impression that she was already familiar with the problems at CSC, and that she was putting her weight behind the issue. Baldwin's a pretty cool Senator in that she has a long record (as a US Representative and in our State legislature) of really fighting the good fight for her Constituents.

So here's hoping we can get some results out of USCIS and see all of our petitions move forward! Good luck to all of you out there missing your loved ones.

That's great to hear. Thanks for taking the time to attend the fundraiser and raise the issue in person. The political process may work slowly, but it's better than nothing.

You can check the the delay projection and scenario calculator threads in my profile to get a better sense of the potential processing time frames. The VJ tool is useful, but it relies entirely on the VJ sample population and lacks an ability to adjust based on exogenous information. It also does not allow you to see the assumptions it is relying upon.

In the end, there is no single right knowable answer because any answer depends upon the future I-129F completion rate at the CSC, and that rate has swung as high as 3400+ per month and then down to lows around 400 per month (and likely even lower right now). But the projections I did and the calculator I made will allow anyone to see how they will fare under a range of scenarios. The calculator even lets you tweak the scenarios based on what you find out from VJ or any other source (e.g., lowering the estimated number of completions in February and March to recognize that they were almost certainly the lowest on record, etc.)

If you would like some more data to refine your plots a bit, I can tell you there are still 550 cases still open from July 18 - July 31. I am Aug 2, with 26 cases open between us and Aug 1.

That's from the USCIS website WAC numbers? That actually could be really useful if so. I could pin down the March/Feb numbers with a lot more confidence.

The thing is, this processing out of order in high numbers is going to make it difficult to guess what the CSC will do next, or when your application will be processed. Unless they just stop what they are doing, it appears that most Mid-nov-mid Dec applications will be done in a month. So are they also putting resources on older applications, or even taking away resources to get these Nov-Dec applications through? That would not be cool.

Well, I agree that processing a lot of people out of order would throw my calculations off a bit. But one week does not a trend make. I'll give it another week before I make changes based on the Nov/Dec completions. I'm not underestimating the USCIS's incompetence; I'm merely questioning whether they will commit to completing any I-129Fs at this point.

Good job again I&B. I've been busy working on my Youtube lately and my friend is coming over today to give it a second set of eyes.

You got it. Let me know if you'd like any custom graphs or anything for the video. I didn't include the datatables for these graphs in the calculator spreadsheet because they'd slow it down too much for most users.

For those who made it through this guide and found it useful--you may also want to see the latest work I did re calculating processing times going forward given the problems outlined here.

Go and check out my post on I-129F delay projections and be sure to check the links therein to check out my calculator spreadsheet as well.

No one can say for sure because it depends on an unknown variable--the rate at which the CSC will complete the I-129Fs that were filed before yours. Historically, that completion rate has varied from month to month. At present, however, it is at an historic low and has been for some time, which has allowed an unprecedented build-up in petitions.

Though the published stats don't go far enough to deal with February petitioners, here is more information about different scenarios for all petitioners up to those who filed in January: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/424708-csc-delay-projection-graphs/

In short, things don't look good, I'm afraid.

Just realized that a small mistake on my part when transposing data caused a small glitch with the graph for scenario 1. It doesn't at all affect the analysis and only slightly alters the underlying figures. Below is the updated graph. You can see, it lacks the small jump in processing time from Oct filers that was visible in the one in the OP. That's the only change.

I am from Arizona and my application was received on July 28th. So I'm sure you can guess my frustration as all of you are just as frustrated. It just seems to make it worse when I'm at the cusp and then it all came to a grinding halt.

So now, as for my congressman...Raul Grijalva. He has been an ardent supporter of amnesty for illegal alliens.

I have a feeling any concerns I may bring to his office's attention will fall on deaf ears.

Any ideas how a letter might be crafted that might garner support?

You can try with McCain instead.

For other tips, check my guide here.

Just a small update to this thread:

This thread illustrates why I-129F petitions have been delayed. If you'd like to know more about the extent of the delay or calculator the likely delay on your petition, you should see my newer threads:

1. CSC I-129F Delay Projection Graphs

2. I-129F Delay Calculator

And if all of this compels you to try to better the situation I recommend:

3. A Guide to Writing Your Elected Representatives about the I-129F Delay

Meanwhile, back in reality, here are the real processing times going forward: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/424708-csc-delay-projection-graphs/

I've updated the calculator once again. I had discovered some minor errors while making the data tables for my CSC delay projection graphs. Those have all been fixed and the corrected calculator can be found at the original link in the OP.

D'oh, I did it again.

Mods: Could someone please change the title to "CSC I-129F Delay Projection Graphs"?

For your use, I made a color map showing which states belong to which service center.

Wow, that's awesome. Great work.