I & B

[Continued from the previous post due to limit on image embedding per post...]
4. Effects of Including the DACA Apps in the CSC Total Workload Stats

So let’s look more closely at what happens when we include the DACA application data to the other CSC data. The number of pending applications rises, the number of overall completions rises as the office starts turning out DACA approvals, the increase in the number of receipts is of course evident, the CPP decreases briefly before re-converging (note from the above graph how we know this decrease comes on the back of 129F and the subsequent convergence is improvements in DACA completions, not a fixing of the 129F completion figure), and the CPR does the same as the CPP (with the same underlying mechanism at work).

All Others Pending, Completions, and Receipts trends from above, but with percentage increase figures also included for perspective.

CPP and CPR from the first effects graph, but with percentage change figures added for perspective.
5. Comparisons of Pre-Aug., 2012 Stats with Post-Aug., 2012 Stats

We can see here that the slowdown in I-129F processing times isn’t being driven by an abnormal surge in the amount of I-129F petitions pending. In fact, there was, on average, fewer pending there than at times prior to the DACA applications. Moreover, all other apps at the CSC are similar down in terms of the number pending. But, when you add the DACA apps in, you can see how they are swamping the CSC, raising the total apps pending to 19% higher than its pre-DACA average.

Here we see the true weight of CSC processing choices on the I-129F completions. Compared to prior to the DACA apps, the average number of I-129F petitions completed at the CSC is down a staggering 33%, a change that stands-out from the other application types, and in stark contrast to how I-129Fs are being completed at the VSC.

This graph emphasizes that the slowdown in I-129F processing is not caused by some general surge in application receipts. To the contrary, even when you included the DACA applications, overall receipts are down across the board compared to the pre-DACA period. This is pretty damning for the USCIS’s handling of I-129Fs following the receipt of DACA applications. They have handled more filings in the past.

Again, we can see that the I-129F petitions are bearing a disproportionate reduction in completions per pending apps when compared to other application types, though all application types at the CSC have taken a bit of a hit. This is measuring how big the building backlog has gotten. No such slowdown at the VSC, however.

Again, we can see that the I-129F petitions s are bearing a disproportionate reduction in completions per pending apps when compared to other application types. This is how a backlog is born and perpetuated. No such slowdowns for other application types at the CSC, VSC, or even nationally. Do you need more evidence that I-129F petitions are being singled out for this current slowdown?
Linear Regression Analysis to Determine Statistical Significance of the Correlation
Going beyond what intuition and commonsense should tell us about the above data, we can find more evidence for the hypothesis that the DACA applications have causes a statistically significant slowdown in I-129F petition processing by breaking out the big econometric guns and turning to Gretl.
Given the time series nature of the data, I chose to model a linear AR1 regression to capture the interplay between the variables overtime. What this means in layman’s terms is that I measured the relationships between key variables, both within their current period and with a one month lag effect, to see which variables were correlating with which other variables. In particular, I wanted to ascertain the extent to which other variables were effecting the CSC’s I-129F completion numbers throughout the 24 month period. There are some limitations to making this type of equation with the data I have because related variables (such as receipts and all other pending) cause co-correlation problems; however, I do believe the results I was able to generate by carefully choosing key variables are pretty damn convincing.

What this basically says is that the numbers of DACA applications pending and completed have a statistically significant negative correlation with the completion of I-129F petitions at the CSC. Correlation is not causation, but, I think given the other analysis I provided above, we can pretty much call this one. Moreover, the model used ended up being surprisingly robust, explaining 88% of the variation in the dependent variable (completions of I-129F petitions at the CSC). For your reference, here is a mapping of the regression versus the actual trend line. The residual, a graph of which I cannot include due to the images per post requirements, decreases on average post-Aug., 2012, further giving validity to the notion that the regression is correctly capturing the influence of the DACA applications. I rest my case.

Conclusion
The DACA applications have caused a major slowdown in the processing of I-129F petitions at the CSC. The CSC has singled out I-129F petitioners to bear the brunt of these DACA filings. But it doesn't have to be that way. Let your representatives know that you do not deserve to be singled out for a delay in reunited with your loved one while DACA applicants jump the line to approval. Use this evidence in your complaints to them if you'd like. The USCIS is playing games with our petitions, but now we have the facts to call them out on it. So what are you waiting for?

I don't think there is any requirement that you file those documents. I think this will mostly come to a head in one of two ways: (1) you get flagged by USCIS because of your previous petition during the initial review stage (if this happens, it'd probably be because of bungling on their part, but it's not out of the question that your new petition runs into your old one and causes them some confusion), or (2) it becomes an issue for your interviewer who takes it, in context, to be an indicator of potential fraud. Of course, these scenarios are not mutually exclusive (they could both happen).
In the first scenario, which seems unlikely, you'll probably just have to clear things up and submit the documentation. After that, there really is no basis for them not passing your application on to the interview. But I'd imagine you'd face delays if you didn't have the documentation handy because you sure can't expect the USCIS to be on the top of its game in having its left hand know what its right hand is doing.
In the second scenario, which seems quite likely in any case, you will probably need to have those documents at the ready during the interview. As Janice&Micah said, your problem is entirely contextual. You need to put yourself in your interviewer's shoes and think about the negative inferences he or she may draw. Since the Philippines is a high fraud country, beneficiaries from there are pretty thoroughly scrutinized. Remember, the law requires two things: (1) meeting in person in the last two years, and (2) a bona fide relationship. The second requirement is not self defining and its where their power to delay or reject your petition lies. You have to convince the interviewer that you are ready to spend the rest of your life with a person you met several months ago on the internet and then only met once. That's already atypical. And you have added burden of having that short relationship in the shadow of a previous one with an American and an attempt to immigrate. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that you may be putting the cart before the horse (immigration before relationship) based on those facts. I think most people would probably be less willing to quickly commit to marry someone new after having a previous engagement fall apart, though that is just my intuition. (Of course, the interviewer will not know that you two were already planning to marry *before* he visited, so that point will be somewhat less poignant, but--on a personal level, I think you should make sure you aren't rushing into something.)
Like I said, however, none of that means they will reject you. But you cannot go in think that they will just assume the best. You will have the burden of proving to the interviewer that your relationship is bona fide and overcoming whatever preconceptions they have based on your situation. Of course the longer you wait to refile and the more visits he makes in the meantime, the easier that will be. In any case, however, be sure to save lots of emails, chat logs, phone records, photos, etc; it may not be an easy sell.

I've seen many posts recently made by soon-to-be petitioners who wonder which USCIS service center--the California Service Center or the Vermont Service Center--will ultimately process their I-129F petition. Here's a little history of the breakdown and the answer.
Since the USCIS changed their system a few years back to require that all I-129F petitioners send their petitions to the Texas Lockbox facility, it is understandable that the ultimate destination isn't readily apparent based on the current filing directions. Luckily for us, however, the Texas Lockbox still operates to divy up and forward the petitions based on the same state-by-state rules that existed when petitioners were required to directly send their petition to the appropriate service center for their state of residence. That list is hard to find online, but I happened to stumble upon it preserved in the book Fiance & Marriage Visas: A Couple's Guide to U.S. Immigration, and would like to pass it along here for posterity.
Per the book, the breakdown was as follows:
California Service Center States/Territories:
Alaska
Arizona
California
Colorado
Guam
Hawaii
Idaho
Nevada
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
North Dakota
Ohio
Oregon
South Dakota
Utah
Washington
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Vermont Service Center States/Territories
Alabama
Arkansas
Connecticut
Delaware
District of Columbia
Florida
Georgia
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Mississippi
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Puerto Rico
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Oklahoma
Tennessee
Texas
US Virgin Islands
Vermont
Virginia
West Virginia

My view is that the current status quo merely represents an especially bad time for a system that is woefully inadequate at its best. I commend those who are willing to wait patiently out of a desire to not cause a fuss for others, but I think the reality is that K-1 filers need to be much more vocal about their displeasure with a service that almost everyone agrees is absurd and unaccountable, even if their current petition is not especially delayed by the USCIS's own arbitrary standards.
The US government is huge and complex. I'm not cynical enough to think that our elected officials or agencies deliberately do a poor job at oversight, but, given limited resources and knowledge within layers of bureaucracy, it makes sense that services will inevitably fall short of citizens' expectations if citizens just sit quietly on their disappointment and do not let their reps know when things aren't working right. The USCIS is supposed to be run for the benefit of citizens, not to make citizens' lives more difficult. The reality of administering such an agency through relatively low fees (guaranteeing access) and concerns about fraud and national security that will affect non-petitioners is always going to delay processing to an extent, but that does not mean petitioners should just throw up their hands and accept that 6-7 months, or even 5 months, is a reasonable waiting period. We need to make it clear to elected officials that we want them to pay more attention to and improve this particular service.
Why do people think the DACA filings are getting priority at CSC, anyway? It's certainly not because those petitioners were content to accept their current lot and vote for politicians who were complacent about it; it's because those beneficiaries and their friends made a huge stink about the status quo and made it clear to elected representatives that their votes depended on changes. K-1 petitioners will perhaps always lack the unity and lobbying power of hispanic groups, but that does not mean we cannot make any difference.
To answer the OP more directly, I'm right at the 5 month mark and by no means currently delayed to a point where I meet the USCIS's own arbitrary standards for expedition or review. But I can see the writing on the wall and I'm not just going to sit back and wait a few more months to start a series of inquiries that itself may take several weeks and months. So I wrote one of my senators a very thorough letter that dealt both with the USCIS's systemic problems (opaqueness, lack of accountability, manipulation of the processing time frame, operation under seemingly purely political--not statutory--priorities, etc.) and with the hardship that being delayed several more months would cause me and my spouse. I received a very thoughtful and concerned response from a staffer less than 48 hours later and have since had my complaint forwarded to the USCIS legislative liaison, who I am waiting to hear back from.
I know that I may not get my file looked at any sooner than I would have if I had not written anything. But I may. And, more importantly, I know that there is someone in a serious position at the USCIS who is receiving complaints from a senator's office. If the senator's office receives and passes on enough complaints, I'm sure the senator himself will get wind of it. And all it will take is one or two congressmen or senators who seriously look into the issue to get something changed, if not now, then when immigration reform is drafted over the summer. It might not happen because of my letter or yours. It might not happen at all. But I can guarantee you it will never happen if we don't raise a fuss, and that'd be a shame for both current and future K-1 petitioners.

A Guide to Writing Your Elected Representative about the Current Backlog in K-1 Petition Processing at the USCIS’s California Service Center
Disclaimer: The following will most likely not get your case expedited. I cannot even guarantee it will help you get a response from your elected representatives. But I do believe it will provide some valuable basic information and “best practices” that will help get your complaint to the right pair of eyes and perhaps even get some extra attention there. Most importantly, I truly believe that if more people took the time to follow these guidelines and highlight the current problem at the CSC to their representatives, then we all stand a much better chance of there being meaningful pressure on the USCIS to get their act together. That may not mean your case itself will be explicitly expedited in some way, but it could mean that the K-1 backlog starts getting processed sooner, which has the same effect.
1. Who Are My Representatives?
Since the USCIS is a federal agency, state-level representatives will be of little or no help. Instead, you should identify who your congressperson and senators are. Everyone in the US has two senators for their state and one congressman for their district. It doesn’t matter if you voted for them or even knew they existed; they are your representatives and they work for you.
You can find who your congressperson here.
You can find who your senators are here.
2. Which Representative Should I Contact?
A. Political Party
I’ve seen some conflicting reports about whether Republicans or Democrats tend to be more responsive to constituent complaints. These reports, however, have to be discounted by the fact that we do not know exactly what has been written in each individual case. Elected representatives receive dozens and dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of complaints each day and rely on their staffers to sort through and prioritize them. In my experience, these people (staffers and elected representatives) tend to want to help. That’s why they took the line of work they did. (Cynics may disagree.) But they have limited time and resources and cannot help everyone equally, so you can expect them to discount complaints that come across as rants or screeds, or complaints that are just poorly written and thought out. They might not do so consciously, but they are only human. In any case, I doubt very much that there is a significant correlation between political party and overall responsiveness. There are doubtlessly bad apples in both parties and there is, of course, always the possibility that the staffer screening your complaint has had a bad day. But don’t let that deter you!
The only caveat to that has to do with how you go about talking about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in your complaint. This program is likely the cause of the recent backlog (see Part X below) and talking about it will be an important part of your complaint. But it was a program enacted through an executive order by President Obama—a Democrat, so Democratic representatives and their staffs may be more reluctant to vigorously pursue your case if they believe doing so would amount to an attack on that program. Republicans, on the other hand, will likely be more receptive to pursuing your case if they believe you have been wronged by a policy enacted by a Democratic president. Overall, I don’t believe this should give you pause about contacted representatives of either party, but you should keep it in the back of your mind as you consider how exactly to phrase your complaint. You may want to emphasize the DACA program’s role in your woes to Republicans and deemphasize it to Democrats.
B. Committee Member?
Both chambers have a role in the oversight of the immigration process. But those roles are, by-and-large, confined to smaller committees. If one of your three representatives is a member of one of these committees, then that means they should probably be your first choice. A member of one of these committees would be most tied into the agencies involved in immigration and have the most influence over those agencies.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security:
Democratic Members
Chuck Schumer, New York (Chairman)
Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont
Dianne Feinstein, California
####### Durbin, Illinois
Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii
Republican Members
John Cornyn, Texas (Ranking Member)
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
Orrin G. Hatch, Utah
Jeff Sessions, Alabama
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Ted Cruz, Texas
Members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Border Security:
Democratic Members
Zoe Lofgren, California (Ranking Member)
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Luis Guiterrez, Illinois
Joe Garcia, Florida
Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
John Conyers, Jr., Michigan
Republican Members
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina (Chairman)
Ted Poe, Texas, Vice Chair
Lamar S. Smith, Texas
Steve King, Iowa
Jim Jordan, Ohio
Mark Amodei, Nevada
Raul Labrador, Idaho
George Holding, North Carolina
Bob Goodlatte, Virginia
You may also give similar priority to your senator if he or she is a member of the so-called “Group of Eight,” a group of senators who are currently publicly working on immigration reform legislation.
The Group of Eight:
John McCain, AZ
Marco Rudio, FL
Lindsey Graham, SC
Jeff Flake, AL
Charles Schumer, NY
Richard Durbin, IL
Robert Menendez, NJ
Micheael Bennet, CO
C. Senator or Congressman
If none of your representatives serves on one of these committees, then consider the following. In general, senators wield more influence within and without Washington than do congressmen and congresswomen. They tend to stick around longer and have deeper ties to various federal agencies. Congressmen and congresswomen, on the hand, can come and go every two years and may or more may not be plugged into the system or know how to get anything done. Moreover, The Senate is inherently more powerful than the House of Representatives when it comes to oversight and drafting new laws.
On the flip side, however, congressmen and congresswomen usually have fewer constituents (there are exceptions for states that have only one or two congresspersons, such as Wyoming), meaning they may be more responsive in general to constituent complaints and that your complaint stands a better chance of actually being seen by your congressperson (and not just staff).
I believe the balance leans in favor of contacting senators; however, there are other considerations that may tip the scale.
D. Other Considerations
First, you should do a wikipedia search of your representative to see how long he or she has been in office. A congressman who has been in office for 20 years and who thus has an experienced staff that knows the ins and outs of the USCIS may be better than a first term senator. You may also want to google the representative’s name along with terms like “immigration reform,” “deferred action for childhood arrivals,” and the like to see if you can find them making a statement that shows they may have a personal interest in immigration issues.
E. Contacting More Than One Representative at Once
My inclination about this is that it’s best to give one representative’s office some time to become invested in your case and make inquiries before you get others involved. But your mileage may vary. My whole underlying principle in this is to act towards my representatives and the USCIS in a professional and courteous—but stern—manner. I suggest you use your best judgment as, at the end of the day, all of this is going to be driven by how invested we can get representatives in our cases.
3. How Should I Contact My Chosen Representative(s)?
Once you have decided who you will contact, the best way to contact them is to submit a written copy of your complaint electronically. For most representatives (perhaps all?) you can find complaint submission portals on their congressional website. Simply go to their website, find the contact section, and follow the directions to submit your complaint.
After submitting, you should give the staff a few days to get back to you. Typically, however, you should expect to hear something back in 4-5 days, if not earlier. If you have not heard back in that time, you should call the office and leave a polite message that references your complaint and the date you submitted it. Be sure to leave your phone number and email address with anyone you speak to and ask that they get back to you as soon as possible.
4. What Should I Include in My Complaint?
NOTE: Do NOT copy anything written here verbatim. All complaints should be personalized. If you copy the language that I or someone else used, then you risk having your complaint ignored as a form letter.
A. Overview/Premise
Remember, the purpose of USCIS is to resolve immigration issue for the benefit of US citizens. It is supposed to work to bring them together, not serve as an impediment to their reconciliation. It is limited in providing super-efficient service in that (1) it accepts relatively low fees (which guarantee universal service access for even poor citizens) and (2) fee-based services must also cover the expenses of free services, such as the adjudication of refugee claims. But those two caveats in no way mean US citizens have to simply accept 8-9 month delays in processing. They don’t even mean we should be accepting 5 months.
The bigger problem with K-1 visa processing is that K-1 petitioners are not a distinct class with sustainable lobbying power. To the extent K-1 petitioners turn to the political system for a fix, it is usually just to seek an individual redress. And, once an individual’s case has been resolved (with or without help), the petitioner tends to move on and never raise the issue again, leaving the next group of poor saps to meet the same predicament. There is almost no incentive for the USCIS to fix the problem systematically and no incentive for politicians to devote their political capital to it. As long as they USCIS can generally report to congress that they are meeting their processing time frame goals, they will avoid a lot of scrutiny over their handling of non-political visas, such as the K-1.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Think back to before you applied for a K-1. Did you have any idea what a boondoggle you were in for? I didn’t. And I suspect very few do because it’s just not something that gets talked about. It’s a very particular area of policy that few have reason to think about. The silver lining to that, however, is that when people do find out how it works (or, god forbid, have to go through it like us) they quickly realize how absurd it is. The way the USCIS treats petitioners is like something out of an Orwellian satire. It’s something people can instantly understand to be wrong and in need of commonsense fixes.
Taking all that into account, I suggest generally framing your letter with four principles in mind:
(1) Show that you understand the problem
By carefully explaining the problems with the way the USCIS treats K-1 petitioners, you will go a long way to showing your representative and their staff that you are not merely some disgruntled crank (I’m sure they hear from their share of those). And the absurdity of the current paradigm is so self-apparent that it speaks for itself when carefully laid out. When staff can understand the system we are struggling against, they can better empathize with us. Moreover, they will better understand why you have chosen to escalate the problem to them and why they should further escalate your complaint through their channels.
(2) Be professional and avoid hyperbole
It’s easy to get carried away when you write about a problem that affects you so personally as this. Believe me, I know. But flying off the handle will likely only backfire in this context. Remember, you want your representatives and staff to become emotionally and intellectually invested in how badly the current system is affecting you. You aren’t fighting against the representative. The representative probably has no idea exactly how bad the current processing backlog is because I doubt anyone has taken the time to explain it. Treat them professionally and honestly. Try to make them your ally and arm them with the facts so they can better fight for you.
(3) Show that it’s not just about you, but about a systemic problem that is affecting tens of thousands
This point ties in with the first but deserves special emphasis. I’m sure many representatives still have no idea that there is such a widespread problem at the CSC. They are not experiencing it; we are. We have to educate them about it. It may not seem like it will help our individual cases, but, realistically, the best the possible thing for any of our cases would be for a senator or congressperson publicly rebuking the USCIS for their treatment of all cases.
(4) Make it clear that you expect your elected representatives to oversee such agencies on your behalf
Show that, while you are not naïve enough to expect your single representative to move heaven and earth on your behalf, you expect competent and diligent pursuit of an improved situation, both for yourself and other K-1 applicants. Give the representative’s office time to work, but make it clear you expect them to do more than just go through the motions.
B. The Content and Organization of Your Letter
The following are sections you should include in your letter, along with an overview of the content you should include in each. Again, DO NOT copy any of this verbatim. You should personalize your letters to the greatest extent possible.
(1) Introduction
Begin with a polite salutation such as “Dear Senator X”. Then include a brief paragraph that (1) notes you are a constituent, (2) explains that you are writing to seek help in regards to problems with your K-1 visa petition, and (3) provides the date and reference number of your NOA1.
(2) Content About the Scope of the Problem at the USCIS’s California Service Center
I suggest dedicating 2-3 paragraphs to describing the current problems that are apparent at the California Service Center. Many of the problems in processing can be found analyzed in great detail in my post about I-129F processing data. In a nutshell, those and other problems are as follows:
a. The Slow Down in I-129F Petition Processing Since August, 2012
Over all, the number of I-129F completions per receipts has dropped off drastically since August, 2012. When the ratio of completions to receipts falls, the backlog of apps grows, guaranteeing longer waiting times for petitioners. We only have published data through January, 2013, but, based on that data, we know that the completions per receipts of I-129F visas were 33% below their two year average from August, 2012 to January, 2013. Even worse, for the last two months of reported data—Decemeber and January—completions per receipts were down over 60% from their two year average, the lowest they’ve been on record. This has a substantial backlog of apps to build up very quickly, guaranteeing long delays for anyone who filed since the summer of 2012. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence from visajourney.com and Igor’s list suggest the trend is much worse because there have likely been no improvements to completions per receipts since January, making the current period of inattention to I-129Fs the longest on record in recent years.
b. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (I-821D, aka “DACA”) Applications Are Getting Priority at the Expense of I-129F Petitions
There have previously been slowdowns in application processing. So some delays are nothing new. In fact, it seems the USCIS operates by batch processing certain types of apps on cycles—focusing on a certain class of application for a few months and letting backlogs build for others, and then rotating to focus on the backlogs that have built up. But, after I conducted an extensive analysis of the data, I discovered that this time is different.
As I already pointed out, the resources devoted to I-129F processing is at record lows and likely has been for a record long period of time. But what I was surprised to discover is that it really is only I-129Fs that have been targeted for a slowdown these last few months. And it’s not because of an incredible flood of petitions over all, either; it’s because the CSC has been focusing on processing DACA applications at a pace that exceeds the two year average for completions per receipts of all application types. In other words, I-129F petitioners are being delayed not just so another application class can be processed—but so they can be processed quickly. This is patently unfair to I-129F petitioners and borderline outrageous from a political standpoint. Someone has got to start asking the USCIS tough questions about why they have put so much priority on a certain application class and then singled out another class so disproportionately to bear the cost.
c. The USCIS Has Blatantly Manipulated It’s “Processing Timeframe” Dates to Avoid Accountability
The USCIS will only accept service requests (i.e., will only actually look into a petitioner’s complaints) if the petitioner’s petition was filed prior to a set “processing time frame” date. This makes sense for preventing petitioners from bogging down the service center from calling every day and demanding special attention. But what doesn’t make sense is that the USCIS gets to set its own “processing time frame” dates without any apparent oversight or accountability. This means that, if they are running behind in processing a class of applications, they need not worry or respond to customer demands for better service; all they have to do is not update the “processing time frame” date and they will never have to even respond to customer complaints. Customers (i.e., US Citizens who have paid a fee and are relying on this government service), meanwhile, are left to turn to places like visajourney.com to guess about the true nature of their plight.
Well, that’s exactly what has happened with I-129Fs over the past several months. As the USCIS has deliberately shifted resources away from their processing, it has simply stopped updating the I-129F’s processing time frame date, meaning that even customers delayed up to 2-3 months longer than their “target” processing time cannot even demand and answer from the USCIS. In fact, the USCIS has not updated their “processing time frame” date for I-129Fs in over three months; it has been July 18, 2012 since December. And that is just absurd on its face. What that means is that the USCIS is claiming to the world that it has been processing applications filed on July 18, 2012 for over three straight months without finishing them. Does anyone think that’s even remotely close to what’s really been happening? No. No one could claim that with a straight face. What’s really happening is obvious: The USCIS is manipulating the processing time frame date to avoid accountability. And they are doing so in a way so blatant that it is nothing short of an insult to both their customers and to the elected representatives who should be overseeing their operation.
d. The USCIS Is Extremely Opaque In Its Operations To the Detriment of Petitoners’ Ability to Plan Their Affairs
How did I find out about the slowdowns, the priority given to DACA applications, or the processing time frame manipulation? True, I did technically learn those things from the USCIS, but only because I spent hours and hours combing through their data and past practices. Why should I have to waste my time and productive energy towards getting answers the USCIS has readily available? Why do they make it so difficult to find out what is going on? Why can’t they publish honest time frames so that people can plan their lives accordingly? These are all questions that need to be answered with changes at the USCIS. No government service should be run in a way where it is actively hiding its inner-workings from the very people who rely upon its services. The USCIS works for us but the only way they get away with such shenanigans is because they know we can’t fire them. Well, we need our representatives to get serious about firing somebody on our behalf if this continues. We deserve better.
(3) Content About Your Personal Situation
As frustrating as the USCIS’s processes and policies are themselves, do not forget to end your letter strongly by highlighting how the processing delays and lack of answers have hurt you, your fiance, and your families. Some general things to focus on are the economic hardship of supporting two households, the added costs of travel to see each other (if even possible), the emotional toll of being apart, and the effect the separation is having on any children in the custody of either parent. Talk further about how the uncertainty of the approval date makes it extremely difficult to plan for moving, for a wedding, and for arranging employment. Finally, be sure to highlight special hardships such as medical conditions, possibilities of domestic abuse or other danger for the beneficiary, or anything else that risks the well-being of you or your fiance.
(4) Closing and Signature Line
I suggest closing in a stern but optimistic tone, urging your representative to help you and assuming they will do so. Then close with “Sincerely, *Your Name*" and be sure to include an address block under your name that has the following information:
Your Address
Your Email Address
Your Personal Phone Number
5. What Happens Next?
After sending your complaint, you may have to wait a few days to hear back from the representative's office. That's normal. They will likely contact you and ask you to sign a privacy waiver so they can request info on your case. It should be ok to return this by email or fax so that their office can get right to work; be sure to ask if they don't say that explicitly, though.
Once you have signed the privacy waiver, they should hand your case off to their office's immigration liaison who will investigate. Just use your best judgment in working with this person as they can help you. Give them some time but don't feel bad about following up every few days or so if you don't hear back.
6. Final Thoughts
You may also want to consider contacting others beyond your elected representatives. If you have connections to local/regional media, it may be good to tell them your tale. Again, it’s not something many are aware is happening and I believe someone could make a very good investigative report about it. You may also want to send a copy of your complaint to the USCIS Ombudsman, though prepare yourself for a generic answer from his office.
In the end, it’s all about getting our applications back under active review as soon as possible. To do that I think we need to fully exhaust our influence in the political system. I hope this guide has been helpful to those looking to do just that. I will try my best to answer any individual questions people have, but I have to apologize in advance for not being able to read or edit everyone’s individual complaints. Just follow the guide and trust your story. Telling the truth is enough because the current truth is damning for the USCIS. We just need to get people to hear that truth. Thank you for your efforts; this can’t be done alone.

A Guide to Writing Your Elected Representative about the Current Backlog in K-1 Petition Processing at the USCIS’s California Service Center
Disclaimer: The following will most likely not get your case expedited. I cannot even guarantee it will help you get a response from your elected representatives. But I do believe it will provide some valuable basic information and “best practices” that will help get your complaint to the right pair of eyes and perhaps even get some extra attention there. Most importantly, I truly believe that if more people took the time to follow these guidelines and highlight the current problem at the CSC to their representatives, then we all stand a much better chance of there being meaningful pressure on the USCIS to get their act together. That may not mean your case itself will be explicitly expedited in some way, but it could mean that the K-1 backlog starts getting processed sooner, which has the same effect.
1. Who Are My Representatives?
Since the USCIS is a federal agency, state-level representatives will be of little or no help. Instead, you should identify who your congressperson and senators are. Everyone in the US has two senators for their state and one congressman for their district. It doesn’t matter if you voted for them or even knew they existed; they are your representatives and they work for you.
You can find who your congressperson here.
You can find who your senators are here.
2. Which Representative Should I Contact?
A. Political Party
I’ve seen some conflicting reports about whether Republicans or Democrats tend to be more responsive to constituent complaints. These reports, however, have to be discounted by the fact that we do not know exactly what has been written in each individual case. Elected representatives receive dozens and dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of complaints each day and rely on their staffers to sort through and prioritize them. In my experience, these people (staffers and elected representatives) tend to want to help. That’s why they took the line of work they did. (Cynics may disagree.) But they have limited time and resources and cannot help everyone equally, so you can expect them to discount complaints that come across as rants or screeds, or complaints that are just poorly written and thought out. They might not do so consciously, but they are only human. In any case, I doubt very much that there is a significant correlation between political party and overall responsiveness. There are doubtlessly bad apples in both parties and there is, of course, always the possibility that the staffer screening your complaint has had a bad day. But don’t let that deter you!
The only caveat to that has to do with how you go about talking about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in your complaint. This program is likely the cause of the recent backlog (see Part X below) and talking about it will be an important part of your complaint. But it was a program enacted through an executive order by President Obama—a Democrat, so Democratic representatives and their staffs may be more reluctant to vigorously pursue your case if they believe doing so would amount to an attack on that program. Republicans, on the other hand, will likely be more receptive to pursuing your case if they believe you have been wronged by a policy enacted by a Democratic president. Overall, I don’t believe this should give you pause about contacted representatives of either party, but you should keep it in the back of your mind as you consider how exactly to phrase your complaint. You may want to emphasize the DACA program’s role in your woes to Republicans and deemphasize it to Democrats.
B. Committee Member?
Both chambers have a role in the oversight of the immigration process. But those roles are, by-and-large, confined to smaller committees. If one of your three representatives is a member of one of these committees, then that means they should probably be your first choice. A member of one of these committees would be most tied into the agencies involved in immigration and have the most influence over those agencies.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security:
Democratic Members
Chuck Schumer, New York (Chairman)
Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont
Dianne Feinstein, California
####### Durbin, Illinois
Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii
Republican Members
John Cornyn, Texas (Ranking Member)
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
Orrin G. Hatch, Utah
Jeff Sessions, Alabama
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Ted Cruz, Texas
Members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Border Security:
Democratic Members
Zoe Lofgren, California (Ranking Member)
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Luis Guiterrez, Illinois
Joe Garcia, Florida
Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
John Conyers, Jr., Michigan
Republican Members
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina (Chairman)
Ted Poe, Texas, Vice Chair
Lamar S. Smith, Texas
Steve King, Iowa
Jim Jordan, Ohio
Mark Amodei, Nevada
Raul Labrador, Idaho
George Holding, North Carolina
Bob Goodlatte, Virginia
You may also give similar priority to your senator if he or she is a member of the so-called “Group of Eight,” a group of senators who are currently publicly working on immigration reform legislation.
The Group of Eight:
John McCain, AZ
Marco Rudio, FL
Lindsey Graham, SC
Jeff Flake, AL
Charles Schumer, NY
Richard Durbin, IL
Robert Menendez, NJ
Micheael Bennet, CO
C. Senator or Congressman
If none of your representatives serves on one of these committees, then consider the following. In general, senators wield more influence within and without Washington than do congressmen and congresswomen. They tend to stick around longer and have deeper ties to various federal agencies. Congressmen and congresswomen, on the hand, can come and go every two years and may or more may not be plugged into the system or know how to get anything done. Moreover, The Senate is inherently more powerful than the House of Representatives when it comes to oversight and drafting new laws.
On the flip side, however, congressmen and congresswomen usually have fewer constituents (there are exceptions for states that have only one or two congresspersons, such as Wyoming), meaning they may be more responsive in general to constituent complaints and that your complaint stands a better chance of actually being seen by your congressperson (and not just staff).
I believe the balance leans in favor of contacting senators; however, there are other considerations that may tip the scale.
D. Other Considerations
First, you should do a wikipedia search of your representative to see how long he or she has been in office. A congressman who has been in office for 20 years and who thus has an experienced staff that knows the ins and outs of the USCIS may be better than a first term senator. You may also want to google the representative’s name along with terms like “immigration reform,” “deferred action for childhood arrivals,” and the like to see if you can find them making a statement that shows they may have a personal interest in immigration issues.
E. Contacting More Than One Representative at Once
My inclination about this is that it’s best to give one representative’s office some time to become invested in your case and make inquiries before you get others involved. But your mileage may vary. My whole underlying principle in this is to act towards my representatives and the USCIS in a professional and courteous—but stern—manner. I suggest you use your best judgment as, at the end of the day, all of this is going to be driven by how invested we can get representatives in our cases.
3. How Should I Contact My Chosen Representative(s)?
Once you have decided who you will contact, the best way to contact them is to submit a written copy of your complaint electronically. For most representatives (perhaps all?) you can find complaint submission portals on their congressional website. Simply go to their website, find the contact section, and follow the directions to submit your complaint.
After submitting, you should give the staff a few days to get back to you. Typically, however, you should expect to hear something back in 4-5 days, if not earlier. If you have not heard back in that time, you should call the office and leave a polite message that references your complaint and the date you submitted it. Be sure to leave your phone number and email address with anyone you speak to and ask that they get back to you as soon as possible.
4. What Should I Include in My Complaint?
NOTE: Do NOT copy anything written here verbatim. All complaints should be personalized. If you copy the language that I or someone else used, then you risk having your complaint ignored as a form letter.
A. Overview/Premise
Remember, the purpose of USCIS is to resolve immigration issue for the benefit of US citizens. It is supposed to work to bring them together, not serve as an impediment to their reconciliation. It is limited in providing super-efficient service in that (1) it accepts relatively low fees (which guarantee universal service access for even poor citizens) and (2) fee-based services must also cover the expenses of free services, such as the adjudication of refugee claims. But those two caveats in no way mean US citizens have to simply accept 8-9 month delays in processing. They don’t even mean we should be accepting 5 months.
The bigger problem with K-1 visa processing is that K-1 petitioners are not a distinct class with sustainable lobbying power. To the extent K-1 petitioners turn to the political system for a fix, it is usually just to seek an individual redress. And, once an individual’s case has been resolved (with or without help), the petitioner tends to move on and never raise the issue again, leaving the next group of poor saps to meet the same predicament. There is almost no incentive for the USCIS to fix the problem systematically and no incentive for politicians to devote their political capital to it. As long as they USCIS can generally report to congress that they are meeting their processing time frame goals, they will avoid a lot of scrutiny over their handling of non-political visas, such as the K-1.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Think back to before you applied for a K-1. Did you have any idea what a boondoggle you were in for? I didn’t. And I suspect very few do because it’s just not something that gets talked about. It’s a very particular area of policy that few have reason to think about. The silver lining to that, however, is that when people do find out how it works (or, god forbid, have to go through it like us) they quickly realize how absurd it is. The way the USCIS treats petitioners is like something out of an Orwellian satire. It’s something people can instantly understand to be wrong and in need of commonsense fixes.
Taking all that into account, I suggest generally framing your letter with four principles in mind:
(1) Show that you understand the problem
By carefully explaining the problems with the way the USCIS treats K-1 petitioners, you will go a long way to showing your representative and their staff that you are not merely some disgruntled crank (I’m sure they hear from their share of those). And the absurdity of the current paradigm is so self-apparent that it speaks for itself when carefully laid out. When staff can understand the system we are struggling against, they can better empathize with us. Moreover, they will better understand why you have chosen to escalate the problem to them and why they should further escalate your complaint through their channels.
(2) Be professional and avoid hyperbole
It’s easy to get carried away when you write about a problem that affects you so personally as this. Believe me, I know. But flying off the handle will likely only backfire in this context. Remember, you want your representatives and staff to become emotionally and intellectually invested in how badly the current system is affecting you. You aren’t fighting against the representative. The representative probably has no idea exactly how bad the current processing backlog is because I doubt anyone has taken the time to explain it. Treat them professionally and honestly. Try to make them your ally and arm them with the facts so they can better fight for you.
(3) Show that it’s not just about you, but about a systemic problem that is affecting tens of thousands
This point ties in with the first but deserves special emphasis. I’m sure many representatives still have no idea that there is such a widespread problem at the CSC. They are not experiencing it; we are. We have to educate them about it. It may not seem like it will help our individual cases, but, realistically, the best the possible thing for any of our cases would be for a senator or congressperson publicly rebuking the USCIS for their treatment of all cases.
(4) Make it clear that you expect your elected representatives to oversee such agencies on your behalf
Show that, while you are not naïve enough to expect your single representative to move heaven and earth on your behalf, you expect competent and diligent pursuit of an improved situation, both for yourself and other K-1 applicants. Give the representative’s office time to work, but make it clear you expect them to do more than just go through the motions.
B. The Content and Organization of Your Letter
The following are sections you should include in your letter, along with an overview of the content you should include in each. Again, DO NOT copy any of this verbatim. You should personalize your letters to the greatest extent possible.
(1) Introduction
Begin with a polite salutation such as “Dear Senator X”. Then include a brief paragraph that (1) notes you are a constituent, (2) explains that you are writing to seek help in regards to problems with your K-1 visa petition, and (3) provides the date and reference number of your NOA1.
(2) Content About the Scope of the Problem at the USCIS’s California Service Center
I suggest dedicating 2-3 paragraphs to describing the current problems that are apparent at the California Service Center. Many of the problems in processing can be found analyzed in great detail in my post about I-129F processing data. In a nutshell, those and other problems are as follows:
a. The Slow Down in I-129F Petition Processing Since August, 2012
Over all, the number of I-129F completions per receipts has dropped off drastically since August, 2012. When the ratio of completions to receipts falls, the backlog of apps grows, guaranteeing longer waiting times for petitioners. We only have published data through January, 2013, but, based on that data, we know that the completions per receipts of I-129F visas were 33% below their two year average from August, 2012 to January, 2013. Even worse, for the last two months of reported data—Decemeber and January—completions per receipts were down over 60% from their two year average, the lowest they’ve been on record. This has a substantial backlog of apps to build up very quickly, guaranteeing long delays for anyone who filed since the summer of 2012. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence from visajourney.com and Igor’s list suggest the trend is much worse because there have likely been no improvements to completions per receipts since January, making the current period of inattention to I-129Fs the longest on record in recent years.
b. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (I-821D, aka “DACA”) Applications Are Getting Priority at the Expense of I-129F Petitions
There have previously been slowdowns in application processing. So some delays are nothing new. In fact, it seems the USCIS operates by batch processing certain types of apps on cycles—focusing on a certain class of application for a few months and letting backlogs build for others, and then rotating to focus on the backlogs that have built up. But, after I conducted an extensive analysis of the data, I discovered that this time is different.
As I already pointed out, the resources devoted to I-129F processing is at record lows and likely has been for a record long period of time. But what I was surprised to discover is that it really is only I-129Fs that have been targeted for a slowdown these last few months. And it’s not because of an incredible flood of petitions over all, either; it’s because the CSC has been focusing on processing DACA applications at a pace that exceeds the two year average for completions per receipts of all application types. In other words, I-129F petitioners are being delayed not just so another application class can be processed—but so they can be processed quickly. This is patently unfair to I-129F petitioners and borderline outrageous from a political standpoint. Someone has got to start asking the USCIS tough questions about why they have put so much priority on a certain application class and then singled out another class so disproportionately to bear the cost.
c. The USCIS Has Blatantly Manipulated It’s “Processing Timeframe” Dates to Avoid Accountability
The USCIS will only accept service requests (i.e., will only actually look into a petitioner’s complaints) if the petitioner’s petition was filed prior to a set “processing time frame” date. This makes sense for preventing petitioners from bogging down the service center from calling every day and demanding special attention. But what doesn’t make sense is that the USCIS gets to set its own “processing time frame” dates without any apparent oversight or accountability. This means that, if they are running behind in processing a class of applications, they need not worry or respond to customer demands for better service; all they have to do is not update the “processing time frame” date and they will never have to even respond to customer complaints. Customers (i.e., US Citizens who have paid a fee and are relying on this government service), meanwhile, are left to turn to places like visajourney.com to guess about the true nature of their plight.
Well, that’s exactly what has happened with I-129Fs over the past several months. As the USCIS has deliberately shifted resources away from their processing, it has simply stopped updating the I-129F’s processing time frame date, meaning that even customers delayed up to 2-3 months longer than their “target” processing time cannot even demand and answer from the USCIS. In fact, the USCIS has not updated their “processing time frame” date for I-129Fs in over three months; it has been July 18, 2012 since December. And that is just absurd on its face. What that means is that the USCIS is claiming to the world that it has been processing applications filed on July 18, 2012 for over three straight months without finishing them. Does anyone think that’s even remotely close to what’s really been happening? No. No one could claim that with a straight face. What’s really happening is obvious: The USCIS is manipulating the processing time frame date to avoid accountability. And they are doing so in a way so blatant that it is nothing short of an insult to both their customers and to the elected representatives who should be overseeing their operation.
d. The USCIS Is Extremely Opaque In Its Operations To the Detriment of Petitoners’ Ability to Plan Their Affairs
How did I find out about the slowdowns, the priority given to DACA applications, or the processing time frame manipulation? True, I did technically learn those things from the USCIS, but only because I spent hours and hours combing through their data and past practices. Why should I have to waste my time and productive energy towards getting answers the USCIS has readily available? Why do they make it so difficult to find out what is going on? Why can’t they publish honest time frames so that people can plan their lives accordingly? These are all questions that need to be answered with changes at the USCIS. No government service should be run in a way where it is actively hiding its inner-workings from the very people who rely upon its services. The USCIS works for us but the only way they get away with such shenanigans is because they know we can’t fire them. Well, we need our representatives to get serious about firing somebody on our behalf if this continues. We deserve better.
(3) Content About Your Personal Situation
As frustrating as the USCIS’s processes and policies are themselves, do not forget to end your letter strongly by highlighting how the processing delays and lack of answers have hurt you, your fiance, and your families. Some general things to focus on are the economic hardship of supporting two households, the added costs of travel to see each other (if even possible), the emotional toll of being apart, and the effect the separation is having on any children in the custody of either parent. Talk further about how the uncertainty of the approval date makes it extremely difficult to plan for moving, for a wedding, and for arranging employment. Finally, be sure to highlight special hardships such as medical conditions, possibilities of domestic abuse or other danger for the beneficiary, or anything else that risks the well-being of you or your fiance.
(4) Closing and Signature Line
I suggest closing in a stern but optimistic tone, urging your representative to help you and assuming they will do so. Then close with “Sincerely, *Your Name*" and be sure to include an address block under your name that has the following information:
Your Address
Your Email Address
Your Personal Phone Number
5. What Happens Next?
After sending your complaint, you may have to wait a few days to hear back from the representative's office. That's normal. They will likely contact you and ask you to sign a privacy waiver so they can request info on your case. It should be ok to return this by email or fax so that their office can get right to work; be sure to ask if they don't say that explicitly, though.
Once you have signed the privacy waiver, they should hand your case off to their office's immigration liaison who will investigate. Just use your best judgment in working with this person as they can help you. Give them some time but don't feel bad about following up every few days or so if you don't hear back.
6. Final Thoughts
You may also want to consider contacting others beyond your elected representatives. If you have connections to local/regional media, it may be good to tell them your tale. Again, it’s not something many are aware is happening and I believe someone could make a very good investigative report about it. You may also want to send a copy of your complaint to the USCIS Ombudsman, though prepare yourself for a generic answer from his office.
In the end, it’s all about getting our applications back under active review as soon as possible. To do that I think we need to fully exhaust our influence in the political system. I hope this guide has been helpful to those looking to do just that. I will try my best to answer any individual questions people have, but I have to apologize in advance for not being able to read or edit everyone’s individual complaints. Just follow the guide and trust your story. Telling the truth is enough because the current truth is damning for the USCIS. We just need to get people to hear that truth. Thank you for your efforts; this can’t be done alone.

My view is that the current status quo merely represents an especially bad time for a system that is woefully inadequate at its best. I commend those who are willing to wait patiently out of a desire to not cause a fuss for others, but I think the reality is that K-1 filers need to be much more vocal about their displeasure with a service that almost everyone agrees is absurd and unaccountable, even if their current petition is not especially delayed by the USCIS's own arbitrary standards.
The US government is huge and complex. I'm not cynical enough to think that our elected officials or agencies deliberately do a poor job at oversight, but, given limited resources and knowledge within layers of bureaucracy, it makes sense that services will inevitably fall short of citizens' expectations if citizens just sit quietly on their disappointment and do not let their reps know when things aren't working right. The USCIS is supposed to be run for the benefit of citizens, not to make citizens' lives more difficult. The reality of administering such an agency through relatively low fees (guaranteeing access) and concerns about fraud and national security that will affect non-petitioners is always going to delay processing to an extent, but that does not mean petitioners should just throw up their hands and accept that 6-7 months, or even 5 months, is a reasonable waiting period. We need to make it clear to elected officials that we want them to pay more attention to and improve this particular service.
Why do people think the DACA filings are getting priority at CSC, anyway? It's certainly not because those petitioners were content to accept their current lot and vote for politicians who were complacent about it; it's because those beneficiaries and their friends made a huge stink about the status quo and made it clear to elected representatives that their votes depended on changes. K-1 petitioners will perhaps always lack the unity and lobbying power of hispanic groups, but that does not mean we cannot make any difference.
To answer the OP more directly, I'm right at the 5 month mark and by no means currently delayed to a point where I meet the USCIS's own arbitrary standards for expedition or review. But I can see the writing on the wall and I'm not just going to sit back and wait a few more months to start a series of inquiries that itself may take several weeks and months. So I wrote one of my senators a very thorough letter that dealt both with the USCIS's systemic problems (opaqueness, lack of accountability, manipulation of the processing time frame, operation under seemingly purely political--not statutory--priorities, etc.) and with the hardship that being delayed several more months would cause me and my spouse. I received a very thoughtful and concerned response from a staffer less than 48 hours later and have since had my complaint forwarded to the USCIS legislative liaison, who I am waiting to hear back from.
I know that I may not get my file looked at any sooner than I would have if I had not written anything. But I may. And, more importantly, I know that there is someone in a serious position at the USCIS who is receiving complaints from a senator's office. If the senator's office receives and passes on enough complaints, I'm sure the senator himself will get wind of it. And all it will take is one or two congressmen or senators who seriously look into the issue to get something changed, if not now, then when immigration reform is drafted over the summer. It might not happen because of my letter or yours. It might not happen at all. But I can guarantee you it will never happen if we don't raise a fuss, and that'd be a shame for both current and future K-1 petitioners.

Much appreciated. I was actually so angry this morning upon seeing more December approvals (nothing against the approvees!) that I ended up taking the day off so I could have a long weekend to start seriously putting together an updated data thread now that I have had the benefit of thinking about the problem more deeply and hearing everyone's feedback for a few weeks.
Mark my words, USCIS, winter is coming. I'm making it my personal quest to arm people with enough info that the USCIS cannot get away with lying about this situation to petitioners, congressional staff, or anyone else.

Again, I think you are approaching the topic from exactly the right sort of cool-headed, realistic stand point. It's just when you've looked at it that way for as long as I have, almost all the plausible excuses for the way the USCIS is managed just fall apart. Case-in-point, the USCIS is self-funded. It does not rely upon the congressional budget at all; it only draws its operating budget from fees. It should thus be very insulated from the political process in how it meets its statutory mandate. And, again, it should be using a realistic fee structure that allows it more flexibility in turning petitions around in a timely manner and providing at least a modicum of competent customer service and communication. The failures in these fundamental areas are all on the USCIS, even if the current administration exacerbated them by mandating the DACA program.

Yah, I basically agree with the thrust of what you are saying, but the devil is definitely in the details. The other data analysis thread I did showed pretty well that the recent slowdown of I-129Fs (a slowdown that inarguably outstripped its normal, scheduled bust time) was due to a desire to complete DACA petitions at a very quick rate. DHS and the USCIS may have been under some political pressure to get that done, but, at the end of the day, its the job of the management there to stand up to such pressure when it unduly affects a class of petitioner. The management made a conscious choice to single out I-129Fs to bear the brunt of the DACA processing and then let them bear that brunt for far longer than their current time frames allowed. And to make it worse, no one at the USCIS even made one mention of this to the public, though it they should have known it was coming by September or October when DACA ramped up. As I'm sure you know, the logistics of moving to the US are not easy. They should have at least told us the extent of the delay as soon as possible, and there is no compelling reason why they should have to withhold the reason for that delay from the public. All of their actions in this regard stink of bad motives, a lack of accountability, and poor leadership.
Moreover, when you really boil all of the immigration processing problems down, it's a matter of fees, which the USCIS leadership gets to set. Is there anyone that goes through this process who wouldn't gladly pay double to get their fiance here twice as quickly? Heck, many couples on here have to lose multiples of the $340 every month by virtue of maintaining separate households for an extended period. That's just burning money in a way that neither the couples nor the government benefits from. It makes no sense that they maintain fee levels that put them in such a ridiculous and predictable processing predicament due to restrictions on staff hours. It's a catastrophic failure of supply and demand that could only occur at a government agency run by numb skulls. At a bare minimum, they should have tier pricing that allows some to go pay to go through the system more quickly, so long as their payments also subsidize quicker processing times for those paying the minimum (i.e., the premium user doesn't get the full benefit of the premium service to the detriment of the standard user). And don't even get me started about how crazy and kafka-esque their whole customer service regime is. No sensible manager would allow such nonsense to persist for long.
So, yah, tons of blame needs to fall on the current DHS and USCIS management. If what they are doing is their best, then they need to be fired so that someone competent can be in charge of such an important service.

Introduction
This thread is offered as a compliment to my previous CSC data analysis thread. While that thread was dedicated to showing why I-129F processing has been delayed at the CSC (because of DACA), this thread is dedicated to showing you the potential extent of that delay going forward.
All the projections done for this thread were done with the same algorithm used for my delay processing calculator (v. 2.0). If you have not tried that out yet, I suggest you do, as it can give you a more exact sense of where your petition falls on these graphs.
Once you have finished reading these graphs, I hope you will consider contacting your elected representative if you have not yet done so. You can find my guide on how to do so here.
Remember, if you find this or any of those other threads useful, please give a vote so that others can more-easily find the same information. (The churn around here tends to bury things rather quickly.)
The Graphs:
Each graph is based off of a set scenario that I programmed for my calculator spreadsheet. Each scenario relies upon the data published by the USCIS for the months of February, 2011 through January, 2013 (the latest as of the time of this post) and then uses hypothetical competition figures for the months thereafter. Due to the limits of making projections based on the published figures, these projections are limited for NOA1 receipt dates filed before the end of January, 2013.
What each graph shows is how long an I-129F petitioner on a given NOA1 receipt date could expect or can expect to wait for their petition to be completed at the CSC.
Doomsday Scenario
I will start with what I believe is the worst possible scenario--that the USCIS has greatly wound down processing of I-129Fs over the last two months and will keep those processing levels low indefinitely. To estimate this going forward, I assumed that only 200 I-129Fs had been completed in each of the months of February and March, 2013, and that the constant rate of 200 completions per month would continue going forward. The reason I chose the 200 number is because it is low enough to allow that there would still be pending July 18, 2012 petitions as of the time of this post, which is what the USCIS swears is the case. Note that this projection cannot account for the wait times of petitions submitted after September, 2013 because those petitions would not be completed before the end of 2014 and the calculator was not designed to project beyond December, 2014.

As you can see, this would be truly catastrophic for I-129F petitioners. Next, however, I will look at how bad things are under more optimistic scenarios...
Note: all scenarios from here on assume that the January, 2013 rate of 574 completions per month (which is quite low by historical standards) continued through February and March, 2013. I know that is a very optimistic assumption and that the real rate was likely much lower for those months (as I stated above, I believe it was likely closer to 200 per month), but even the optimistic projections are devastating and they should be even more persuasive to elected officials because they are still so bad, despite the optimism.
Scenario 1: Indefinite January, 2013 Pace (574 Completions Per Month)

Scenario 2: Return to Median Pre-August, 2012 Pace Starting in April, 2013 (1968 Completions Per Month)
Returning to the median processing rate in April, 2013 would only allow them to lock in a completion time frame of about 8 months for all petitioners going forward.

Scenario 3: Return to Fastest Pre-August, 2012 Pace Starting in April, 2013 (3414 Completions Per Month)
Returning to their fastest pace would help the CSC push processing times down so that were basically back on track by the time they were processing February, 2013 petitioners. But note that this is truly a best case scenario because there is no indication on VJ that April processing has been anything but extremely slow.

The last few scenarios are just variations on scenarios 2 & 3, but with the CSC increasing processing in May or June. Accordingly, they have show similar outcomes, but with bigger delays built in.
Scenario 4: Return to Median Pre-August, 2012 Pace Starting in May, 2013 (1968 Completions Per Month)

Scenario 5: Return to Fastest Pre-August, 2012 Pace Starting in May, 2013 (3414 Completions Per Month)

Scenario 6: Return to Median Pre-August, 2012 Pace Starting in June, 2013 (1968 Completions Per Month)

Scenario 7: Return to Fastest Pre-August, 2012 Pace Starting in June, 2013 (3414 Completions Per Month)

Conclusion:
All of the graphs, as optimistic as they are, show that the CSC has let an extremely abnormal processing backlog for I-129Fs build up. No matter what they do now, I-129F petitioners will continue to suffer for several months to come. But the severity of the possible suffering should behoove them to start processing again as soon as possible. And those of you who filed after the fall of 2012 should look at how you will be affected by this mess going forward. It's going to hurt you too, guaranteed. Time for everyone to start contacting elected officials and the media. We need to fight for ourselves and our loved ones because no on else is going to.

All irrelevant.

I bet Jethro knows how to spell moron.

I should also note that I do not feel one need to wait beyond the USCIS's own manipulated processing time frame date before they reach out to their elected representative. In fact, I think anyone who is at or nearing the five month target time should send their letter right away. The writing is on the wall about your delay. Why wait to let your representative know about the problem?

A Guide to Writing Your Elected Representative about the Current Backlog in K-1 Petition Processing at the USCIS’s California Service Center
Disclaimer: The following will most likely not get your case expedited. I cannot even guarantee it will help you get a response from your elected representatives. But I do believe it will provide some valuable basic information and “best practices” that will help get your complaint to the right pair of eyes and perhaps even get some extra attention there. Most importantly, I truly believe that if more people took the time to follow these guidelines and highlight the current problem at the CSC to their representatives, then we all stand a much better chance of there being meaningful pressure on the USCIS to get their act together. That may not mean your case itself will be explicitly expedited in some way, but it could mean that the K-1 backlog starts getting processed sooner, which has the same effect.
1. Who Are My Representatives?
Since the USCIS is a federal agency, state-level representatives will be of little or no help. Instead, you should identify who your congressperson and senators are. Everyone in the US has two senators for their state and one congressman for their district. It doesn’t matter if you voted for them or even knew they existed; they are your representatives and they work for you.
You can find who your congressperson here.
You can find who your senators are here.
2. Which Representative Should I Contact?
A. Political Party
I’ve seen some conflicting reports about whether Republicans or Democrats tend to be more responsive to constituent complaints. These reports, however, have to be discounted by the fact that we do not know exactly what has been written in each individual case. Elected representatives receive dozens and dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of complaints each day and rely on their staffers to sort through and prioritize them. In my experience, these people (staffers and elected representatives) tend to want to help. That’s why they took the line of work they did. (Cynics may disagree.) But they have limited time and resources and cannot help everyone equally, so you can expect them to discount complaints that come across as rants or screeds, or complaints that are just poorly written and thought out. They might not do so consciously, but they are only human. In any case, I doubt very much that there is a significant correlation between political party and overall responsiveness. There are doubtlessly bad apples in both parties and there is, of course, always the possibility that the staffer screening your complaint has had a bad day. But don’t let that deter you!
The only caveat to that has to do with how you go about talking about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program in your complaint. This program is likely the cause of the recent backlog (see Part X below) and talking about it will be an important part of your complaint. But it was a program enacted through an executive order by President Obama—a Democrat, so Democratic representatives and their staffs may be more reluctant to vigorously pursue your case if they believe doing so would amount to an attack on that program. Republicans, on the other hand, will likely be more receptive to pursuing your case if they believe you have been wronged by a policy enacted by a Democratic president. Overall, I don’t believe this should give you pause about contacted representatives of either party, but you should keep it in the back of your mind as you consider how exactly to phrase your complaint. You may want to emphasize the DACA program’s role in your woes to Republicans and deemphasize it to Democrats.
B. Committee Member?
Both chambers have a role in the oversight of the immigration process. But those roles are, by-and-large, confined to smaller committees. If one of your three representatives is a member of one of these committees, then that means they should probably be your first choice. A member of one of these committees would be most tied into the agencies involved in immigration and have the most influence over those agencies.
Members of the Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security:
Democratic Members
Chuck Schumer, New York (Chairman)
Patrick J. Leahy, Vermont
Dianne Feinstein, California
####### Durbin, Illinois
Amy Klobuchar, Minnesota
Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut
Mazie Hirono, Hawaii
Republican Members
John Cornyn, Texas (Ranking Member)
Chuck Grassley, Iowa
Orrin G. Hatch, Utah
Jeff Sessions, Alabama
Jeff Flake, Arizona
Ted Cruz, Texas
Members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Border Security:
Democratic Members
Zoe Lofgren, California (Ranking Member)
Sheila Jackson Lee, Texas
Luis Guiterrez, Illinois
Joe Garcia, Florida
Pedro Pierluisi, Puerto Rico
John Conyers, Jr., Michigan
Republican Members
Trey Gowdy, South Carolina (Chairman)
Ted Poe, Texas, Vice Chair
Lamar S. Smith, Texas
Steve King, Iowa
Jim Jordan, Ohio
Mark Amodei, Nevada
Raul Labrador, Idaho
George Holding, North Carolina
Bob Goodlatte, Virginia
You may also give similar priority to your senator if he or she is a member of the so-called “Group of Eight,” a group of senators who are currently publicly working on immigration reform legislation.
The Group of Eight:
John McCain, AZ
Marco Rudio, FL
Lindsey Graham, SC
Jeff Flake, AL
Charles Schumer, NY
Richard Durbin, IL
Robert Menendez, NJ
Micheael Bennet, CO
C. Senator or Congressman
If none of your representatives serves on one of these committees, then consider the following. In general, senators wield more influence within and without Washington than do congressmen and congresswomen. They tend to stick around longer and have deeper ties to various federal agencies. Congressmen and congresswomen, on the hand, can come and go every two years and may or more may not be plugged into the system or know how to get anything done. Moreover, The Senate is inherently more powerful than the House of Representatives when it comes to oversight and drafting new laws.
On the flip side, however, congressmen and congresswomen usually have fewer constituents (there are exceptions for states that have only one or two congresspersons, such as Wyoming), meaning they may be more responsive in general to constituent complaints and that your complaint stands a better chance of actually being seen by your congressperson (and not just staff).
I believe the balance leans in favor of contacting senators; however, there are other considerations that may tip the scale.
D. Other Considerations
First, you should do a wikipedia search of your representative to see how long he or she has been in office. A congressman who has been in office for 20 years and who thus has an experienced staff that knows the ins and outs of the USCIS may be better than a first term senator. You may also want to google the representative’s name along with terms like “immigration reform,” “deferred action for childhood arrivals,” and the like to see if you can find them making a statement that shows they may have a personal interest in immigration issues.
E. Contacting More Than One Representative at Once
My inclination about this is that it’s best to give one representative’s office some time to become invested in your case and make inquiries before you get others involved. But your mileage may vary. My whole underlying principle in this is to act towards my representatives and the USCIS in a professional and courteous—but stern—manner. I suggest you use your best judgment as, at the end of the day, all of this is going to be driven by how invested we can get representatives in our cases.
3. How Should I Contact My Chosen Representative(s)?
Once you have decided who you will contact, the best way to contact them is to submit a written copy of your complaint electronically. For most representatives (perhaps all?) you can find complaint submission portals on their congressional website. Simply go to their website, find the contact section, and follow the directions to submit your complaint.
After submitting, you should give the staff a few days to get back to you. Typically, however, you should expect to hear something back in 4-5 days, if not earlier. If you have not heard back in that time, you should call the office and leave a polite message that references your complaint and the date you submitted it. Be sure to leave your phone number and email address with anyone you speak to and ask that they get back to you as soon as possible.
4. What Should I Include in My Complaint?
NOTE: Do NOT copy anything written here verbatim. All complaints should be personalized. If you copy the language that I or someone else used, then you risk having your complaint ignored as a form letter.
A. Overview/Premise
Remember, the purpose of USCIS is to resolve immigration issue for the benefit of US citizens. It is supposed to work to bring them together, not serve as an impediment to their reconciliation. It is limited in providing super-efficient service in that (1) it accepts relatively low fees (which guarantee universal service access for even poor citizens) and (2) fee-based services must also cover the expenses of free services, such as the adjudication of refugee claims. But those two caveats in no way mean US citizens have to simply accept 8-9 month delays in processing. They don’t even mean we should be accepting 5 months.
The bigger problem with K-1 visa processing is that K-1 petitioners are not a distinct class with sustainable lobbying power. To the extent K-1 petitioners turn to the political system for a fix, it is usually just to seek an individual redress. And, once an individual’s case has been resolved (with or without help), the petitioner tends to move on and never raise the issue again, leaving the next group of poor saps to meet the same predicament. There is almost no incentive for the USCIS to fix the problem systematically and no incentive for politicians to devote their political capital to it. As long as they USCIS can generally report to congress that they are meeting their processing time frame goals, they will avoid a lot of scrutiny over their handling of non-political visas, such as the K-1.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Think back to before you applied for a K-1. Did you have any idea what a boondoggle you were in for? I didn’t. And I suspect very few do because it’s just not something that gets talked about. It’s a very particular area of policy that few have reason to think about. The silver lining to that, however, is that when people do find out how it works (or, god forbid, have to go through it like us) they quickly realize how absurd it is. The way the USCIS treats petitioners is like something out of an Orwellian satire. It’s something people can instantly understand to be wrong and in need of commonsense fixes.
Taking all that into account, I suggest generally framing your letter with four principles in mind:
(1) Show that you understand the problem
By carefully explaining the problems with the way the USCIS treats K-1 petitioners, you will go a long way to showing your representative and their staff that you are not merely some disgruntled crank (I’m sure they hear from their share of those). And the absurdity of the current paradigm is so self-apparent that it speaks for itself when carefully laid out. When staff can understand the system we are struggling against, they can better empathize with us. Moreover, they will better understand why you have chosen to escalate the problem to them and why they should further escalate your complaint through their channels.
(2) Be professional and avoid hyperbole
It’s easy to get carried away when you write about a problem that affects you so personally as this. Believe me, I know. But flying off the handle will likely only backfire in this context. Remember, you want your representatives and staff to become emotionally and intellectually invested in how badly the current system is affecting you. You aren’t fighting against the representative. The representative probably has no idea exactly how bad the current processing backlog is because I doubt anyone has taken the time to explain it. Treat them professionally and honestly. Try to make them your ally and arm them with the facts so they can better fight for you.
(3) Show that it’s not just about you, but about a systemic problem that is affecting tens of thousands
This point ties in with the first but deserves special emphasis. I’m sure many representatives still have no idea that there is such a widespread problem at the CSC. They are not experiencing it; we are. We have to educate them about it. It may not seem like it will help our individual cases, but, realistically, the best the possible thing for any of our cases would be for a senator or congressperson publicly rebuking the USCIS for their treatment of all cases.
(4) Make it clear that you expect your elected representatives to oversee such agencies on your behalf
Show that, while you are not naïve enough to expect your single representative to move heaven and earth on your behalf, you expect competent and diligent pursuit of an improved situation, both for yourself and other K-1 applicants. Give the representative’s office time to work, but make it clear you expect them to do more than just go through the motions.
B. The Content and Organization of Your Letter
The following are sections you should include in your letter, along with an overview of the content you should include in each. Again, DO NOT copy any of this verbatim. You should personalize your letters to the greatest extent possible.
(1) Introduction
Begin with a polite salutation such as “Dear Senator X”. Then include a brief paragraph that (1) notes you are a constituent, (2) explains that you are writing to seek help in regards to problems with your K-1 visa petition, and (3) provides the date and reference number of your NOA1.
(2) Content About the Scope of the Problem at the USCIS’s California Service Center
I suggest dedicating 2-3 paragraphs to describing the current problems that are apparent at the California Service Center. Many of the problems in processing can be found analyzed in great detail in my post about I-129F processing data. In a nutshell, those and other problems are as follows:
a. The Slow Down in I-129F Petition Processing Since August, 2012
Over all, the number of I-129F completions per receipts has dropped off drastically since August, 2012. When the ratio of completions to receipts falls, the backlog of apps grows, guaranteeing longer waiting times for petitioners. We only have published data through January, 2013, but, based on that data, we know that the completions per receipts of I-129F visas were 33% below their two year average from August, 2012 to January, 2013. Even worse, for the last two months of reported data—Decemeber and January—completions per receipts were down over 60% from their two year average, the lowest they’ve been on record. This has a substantial backlog of apps to build up very quickly, guaranteeing long delays for anyone who filed since the summer of 2012. Unfortunately, anecdotal evidence from visajourney.com and Igor’s list suggest the trend is much worse because there have likely been no improvements to completions per receipts since January, making the current period of inattention to I-129Fs the longest on record in recent years.
b. Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (I-821D, aka “DACA”) Applications Are Getting Priority at the Expense of I-129F Petitions
There have previously been slowdowns in application processing. So some delays are nothing new. In fact, it seems the USCIS operates by batch processing certain types of apps on cycles—focusing on a certain class of application for a few months and letting backlogs build for others, and then rotating to focus on the backlogs that have built up. But, after I conducted an extensive analysis of the data, I discovered that this time is different.
As I already pointed out, the resources devoted to I-129F processing is at record lows and likely has been for a record long period of time. But what I was surprised to discover is that it really is only I-129Fs that have been targeted for a slowdown these last few months. And it’s not because of an incredible flood of petitions over all, either; it’s because the CSC has been focusing on processing DACA applications at a pace that exceeds the two year average for completions per receipts of all application types. In other words, I-129F petitioners are being delayed not just so another application class can be processed—but so they can be processed quickly. This is patently unfair to I-129F petitioners and borderline outrageous from a political standpoint. Someone has got to start asking the USCIS tough questions about why they have put so much priority on a certain application class and then singled out another class so disproportionately to bear the cost.
c. The USCIS Has Blatantly Manipulated It’s “Processing Timeframe” Dates to Avoid Accountability
The USCIS will only accept service requests (i.e., will only actually look into a petitioner’s complaints) if the petitioner’s petition was filed prior to a set “processing time frame” date. This makes sense for preventing petitioners from bogging down the service center from calling every day and demanding special attention. But what doesn’t make sense is that the USCIS gets to set its own “processing time frame” dates without any apparent oversight or accountability. This means that, if they are running behind in processing a class of applications, they need not worry or respond to customer demands for better service; all they have to do is not update the “processing time frame” date and they will never have to even respond to customer complaints. Customers (i.e., US Citizens who have paid a fee and are relying on this government service), meanwhile, are left to turn to places like visajourney.com to guess about the true nature of their plight.
Well, that’s exactly what has happened with I-129Fs over the past several months. As the USCIS has deliberately shifted resources away from their processing, it has simply stopped updating the I-129F’s processing time frame date, meaning that even customers delayed up to 2-3 months longer than their “target” processing time cannot even demand and answer from the USCIS. In fact, the USCIS has not updated their “processing time frame” date for I-129Fs in over three months; it has been July 18, 2012 since December. And that is just absurd on its face. What that means is that the USCIS is claiming to the world that it has been processing applications filed on July 18, 2012 for over three straight months without finishing them. Does anyone think that’s even remotely close to what’s really been happening? No. No one could claim that with a straight face. What’s really happening is obvious: The USCIS is manipulating the processing time frame date to avoid accountability. And they are doing so in a way so blatant that it is nothing short of an insult to both their customers and to the elected representatives who should be overseeing their operation.
d. The USCIS Is Extremely Opaque In Its Operations To the Detriment of Petitoners’ Ability to Plan Their Affairs
How did I find out about the slowdowns, the priority given to DACA applications, or the processing time frame manipulation? True, I did technically learn those things from the USCIS, but only because I spent hours and hours combing through their data and past practices. Why should I have to waste my time and productive energy towards getting answers the USCIS has readily available? Why do they make it so difficult to find out what is going on? Why can’t they publish honest time frames so that people can plan their lives accordingly? These are all questions that need to be answered with changes at the USCIS. No government service should be run in a way where it is actively hiding its inner-workings from the very people who rely upon its services. The USCIS works for us but the only way they get away with such shenanigans is because they know we can’t fire them. Well, we need our representatives to get serious about firing somebody on our behalf if this continues. We deserve better.
(3) Content About Your Personal Situation
As frustrating as the USCIS’s processes and policies are themselves, do not forget to end your letter strongly by highlighting how the processing delays and lack of answers have hurt you, your fiance, and your families. Some general things to focus on are the economic hardship of supporting two households, the added costs of travel to see each other (if even possible), the emotional toll of being apart, and the effect the separation is having on any children in the custody of either parent. Talk further about how the uncertainty of the approval date makes it extremely difficult to plan for moving, for a wedding, and for arranging employment. Finally, be sure to highlight special hardships such as medical conditions, possibilities of domestic abuse or other danger for the beneficiary, or anything else that risks the well-being of you or your fiance.
(4) Closing and Signature Line
I suggest closing in a stern but optimistic tone, urging your representative to help you and assuming they will do so. Then close with “Sincerely, *Your Name*" and be sure to include an address block under your name that has the following information:
Your Address
Your Email Address
Your Personal Phone Number
5. What Happens Next?
After sending your complaint, you may have to wait a few days to hear back from the representative's office. That's normal. They will likely contact you and ask you to sign a privacy waiver so they can request info on your case. It should be ok to return this by email or fax so that their office can get right to work; be sure to ask if they don't say that explicitly, though.
Once you have signed the privacy waiver, they should hand your case off to their office's immigration liaison who will investigate. Just use your best judgment in working with this person as they can help you. Give them some time but don't feel bad about following up every few days or so if you don't hear back.
6. Final Thoughts
You may also want to consider contacting others beyond your elected representatives. If you have connections to local/regional media, it may be good to tell them your tale. Again, it’s not something many are aware is happening and I believe someone could make a very good investigative report about it. You may also want to send a copy of your complaint to the USCIS Ombudsman, though prepare yourself for a generic answer from his office.
In the end, it’s all about getting our applications back under active review as soon as possible. To do that I think we need to fully exhaust our influence in the political system. I hope this guide has been helpful to those looking to do just that. I will try my best to answer any individual questions people have, but I have to apologize in advance for not being able to read or edit everyone’s individual complaints. Just follow the guide and trust your story. Telling the truth is enough because the current truth is damning for the USCIS. We just need to get people to hear that truth. Thank you for your efforts; this can’t be done alone.

Speechless.
Seriously, have you even thought about this before posting? The answer is no.

My husband spoke to her in Arabic and told her exactly what she needs to do and everything is clear to her now.

You seem to be in San Diego. Go to this site: http://www.sandiego.gov/sandiegofamilyjusticecenter/ for domestic violence hotline. Number is: (888) DV-LINKS (385-4657)
Here is another 24 hour San Diego domestic violence hotline number: 619-234-3164 from this site http://www.ywcasandiego.org/inquire/24-hour-domestic-violence-hotline.html

He is in jail. He has been charged with a crime. He will most likely not be permitted to return home or be near you until he appears in court. You can remain in the home, he cannot. There is no way for you to call him in jail. At this point you have a legal situation. You need to call a domestic violence number, there should be one in the phone book or you can get the number from the police. They can act for you in contacting the court and the police to find out what is happening.
Most people who commit domestic violence have mental issues that need to be addressed. Just telling them to stop will not work. They need counseling and help to learn their actions are wrong. Even then most of them do not reform. I suggest you begin making plans for a life without your spouse or else a life of being abused.

You think the embassy is so stupid to think a womans bank account goes from 3 k to 30 k in a short time without someone dumping money there for her. she is showing obvious attempts to fake income to get to the us a huge red flag for immigration fraud. You have cursed your own attempts. she has to show she must leave not that her US based relatives will throw whatever money reuired at the process to have her with them

Are you aware that falsely claiming to be a USC when you are not results in a lifetime ban from the US, with no waiver available?
I don't give liars advice.
You're welcome.

Okay.
Your wife and step son are currently here illegally. You being married to your wife does not protect her from deportation, does not give her any rights, does not make her special. She could be deported any time. Your son is in school illegally. A tourist visa is not for moving to the US and attending school. You can't decide that you paid taxes once so you get to do what you want.
You are not going to file for their citizenship. You need to file to get their permanent residence. They will not be eligible for citizenship. It is important that you know this because if they ever claim to be citizens when they are not, they will be banned from the US for life.
The fee for the wife is $1490 + about $200 for a medical plus incidentals.
The fee for the son can be less depending on his age.
Here is the VJ guide.
http://www.visajourney.com/content/i130guide2

Seems legit.

ICE doesn't have enough manpower, money to go get just an out-of-status invididual. Your story is not simple that you fail to maintain your F1 status. Once you are in deportation, removal or rescission proceedings (one yes/no question in i-485 form,) you will have a great hard time with the AOS, you need an immigration lawyer, not Google.
Out-of-status is waived when you get married to USC, but I don't think it is applicable to someone who has an existing warrant by ICE. Please don't think a marriage and AOS right now will give you a safe card with the ICE, this is false info. Find a lawyer ASAP.

We just set two wedding dates and we waited to decide them until after my fiancee had arrived from abroad. The first was the legal wedding required to satisfy the conditions for adjustment of status within the 90 day window. The second was the real wedding for all our friends and family.

For the first, we just waited till I could get time away from work and then asked some family members to come to city hall and then go out to dinner. After that legal marriage, we just acted as if we were still engaged and set out to plan our real wedding, which we ultimately decided would need to wait almost a year.

I can't imagine trying to plan the whole real wedding ahead of arrival, honestly. I know people do it, but it seemed like too much hassle and risk for us, given that the 90 day window may wind up a moving target and I don't much like throwing deposits away.