grEedY gLuTTon

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/us/program-benefiting-some-immigrants-extends-visa-wait-for-others.html?hp&_r=0
Thank you to everyone involved in this and well done!
Many thousands of Americans seeking green cards for foreign spouses or other immediate relatives have been separated from them for a year or more because of swelling bureaucratic delays at a federal immigration agency in recent months.
The long waits came when the agency, Citizenship and Immigration Services, shifted attention and resources to a program President Obama started in 2012 to give deportation deferrals to young undocumented immigrants, according to administration officials and official data.
The trouble that American citizens have faced gaining permanent resident visas for their families raises questions about the agency’s priorities and its readiness to handle what could become a far bigger task. After Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio said on Thursday that the House was not likely to act on an immigration overhaul this year, immigrant advocates are turning up their pressure on Mr. Obama to expand the deferral program to include many more of the 11.7 million immigrants in the country illegally
Andrew Bachert is one citizen caught in the slowdown. After he moved back to this country in August for work, he thought he and his wife, who is Australian, would be settled by now in a new home in New York State, shoveling snow and adjusting to the winter chill. Instead his wife, Debra Bachert, is stranded, along with the couple’s two teenagers and two dogs, in a hastily rented house in Adelaide, where the temperature rose in January to 115 degrees.
At loose ends, Mr. Bachert, 48, spent Halloween and Thanksgiving without his wife and children, and he opened his Christmas presents for them himself — on a Skype call so at least they could see what he had gotten for them.
“I’m sitting over here on my own, and it’s unbearably hard,” Mr. Bachert said. At the current pace, Mrs. Bachert will probably not travel to the United States before August.
Until recently, an American could obtain a green card for a spouse, child or parent — probably the easiest document in the immigration system — in five months or less. But over the past year, waits for approvals of those resident visas stretched to 15 months, and more than 500,000 applications became stuck in the pipeline, playing havoc with international moves and children’s schools and keeping families apart.
“U.S. citizens petitioning for green cards for immediate relatives are a high, if not the highest, priority in the way Congress set up the immigration system,” said Gregory Chen, director of advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the national bar association. “This is a problem that needs to be fixed quickly.”
Many Americans are awaiting visas for spouses they recently wed, including Mukul Varma, 31, a naturalized citizen who works as a software consultant near Chicago. On a trip to India to visit relatives, he fell in love with Neetika Gupta, 26, also a software engineer. They married in India in May.
“To be honest with you,” Mr. Varma said, “because I was a U.S. citizen I thought it would not be an issue to get a visa for my wife. I didn’t put any thought into it.”
In mid-January Mr. Varma flew back to India to see his bride for the first time in nine months. He applied for her green card soon after the wedding, and since then it has not advanced. Their plans to start their life together in this country are in disarray.
“First it was surprise,” Mr. Varma said. “Then dismay. Then it just becomes very discouraging. You feel helpless. You feel as if you did things the right way and you are penalized for it.”
Christopher S. Bentley, a Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman, said the agency had seen “a temporary increase in processing times” for the citizens’ green card applications because of the deferrals program and “the standard ebb and flow” of visas.

Last year, officials said, the agency detected the problem and tried to speed up the green cards by spreading them out to three processing centers. In November, the agency reported it had reduced waits to 10 months, calling that a “significant step forward.” Officials said they hoped to reduce waits to five months, but not before this summer.
.Launch media viewe Because there are no annual limits on green cards for citizens’ immediate relatives, there are no systemic backlogs. But initial approvals are centralized at the immigration agency in the United States. After that step, generally the longest, the visas must also pass through the State Department and foreign consulates. The law prohibits foreigners who want to become residents from entering as tourists while their documents are in process.
After Mr. Obama announced the deferral program, known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, in 2012, he gave Citizenship and Immigration Services only two months to get it running. Agency officials scrambled. As of last week, 521,815 youths had received deferrals, with the agency handling more than 2,000 applications a day.
The agency drew rare praise from immigrants and advocates for the efficiency of the program, which is highly popular among Latinos. It has been widely regarded as a successful dress rehearsal for a larger legalization.
But soon after the deferrals were underway, Americans with green card applications felt the impact.
“You end up seeing a steep decline in approvals for people like me who followed the law,” said Forrest Nabors, 47, a political science professor at the University of Alaska in Anchorage, who filed in July for a green card for his wife, Zdenka, who is Czech.
An immigration service center near Kansas City assigned to handle both the green card applications and many of the deferrals was rapidly overwhelmed, officials said. But although the agency is financed by fees and does not depend on congressional appropriations, no new employees were brought on at that center, because of “unanticipated hiring difficulties,” officials said, without elaborating.
For some families, prolonged separations have been especially hard on children. Jessica Veltstra, 32, applied in March for a green card for her husband of eight years, Andre, 41, who is Dutch. But he is still in the Netherlands, and she is rooming with relatives in New Jersey, unable to make plans.
Their older daughter, who is 4, refuses to speak to her father on the phone in Dutch, her first language, and bursts out crying when she sees a photo of him.
“My husband has done nothing wrong,” Ms. Veltstra said. “But they can do whatever they want because they have your spouse basically hostage.”
Mr. Bachert was so certain he would see his family soon when he left Australia last summer that his children, both American citizens, did not go to the airport to see him off. He had little doubt his wife would qualify: They have been married for 17 years, and she had a green card once before, when Mr. Bachert, who works with electric utilities, had an earlier job in the United States. But the document expired, and she could not renew it when they were living in Australia.
Some lawyers urged Mrs. Bachert to come as a tourist to join her husband. After deliberating for two sleepless weeks, she said, she decided she would rather bide her time apart than lie to American customs officials about her intentions to remain in the United States.
Mr. Bachert, who will eventually work in upstate New York but is camped out in a temporary apartment near his company’s headquarters in Hartford, said his lowest moment had been a frantic predawn phone call from his wife. Their son was in a hospital heading for emergency surgery after shattering his forearm and wrist in a bicycle fall. Two months later, Mr. Bachert shuddered to recall the episode, although his son’s bones have healed. “No parent,” he said, “should be separated from their family in periods such as that.”

Hey everyone,
I just wanted to take a moment to say thanks to everyone who ever helped me on VJ. My husband had his interview 2 days ago and it went well. The officer told him that he will be getting the visa in a week.
I JUST WANTED TO SAY THHAANNKKK YYYOOUUU and I pray that everyone is reunited with their loved ones soon.
07/16/12 Sent I-130 07/20/12 Priority Date 07/25/12 NOA1 01/07/13 Approval of I-130 01/30/13 Receipt of NVC case #, invoice #, DS-3032, and i-864 fee invoice via petitioner's email 02/01/13 Paid i-864 fee 03/16/13 Paid visa application fee 03/18/13 Sent i-864 package 04/03/13 Received RFE for i-864 05/10/13 Case sent back to USCIS for further review 9/17/13 Case sent back to NVC - Back on track! 10/10/13 Sent additional documents for i-864 10/10/13 Filled DS-260 online and mailed required documents 11/29/13 Received email containing notification of interview date 01/30/14 Visa Interview. Approved!

This is incorrect. For a IR1/CR1 (if thats what your I-130) visa after Case Complete (There is no NVC approval. They review and accept). Then you get case Complete and are put in the interview queue. Your case-file stays at NVC (unless its an expedite) until a interview is scheduled.
By mid April unlikely because one its taking 2 to 8 weeks for your petition to even get to NVC than inputted in system and a case# generated is another wait. Expect 2 months at least at NVC (you may get lucky and your case-file and case# gets done faster).
Then as you say no checklist you are waiting for a slot at your embassy. I admin over the case complete interview thread so if I knew your embassy I could give you a guesstimate how long they take. some embassies you may be waiting 2 to 6 months for a date.
So to help us help you what Visa type IR1/CR1, F2A and what embassy?

Same here! Still waiting too. And I do know people who already got their MCN even though others was approved earlier than them. No one can really explain how NVC does these process, it is indeed unfair. :/

It can be anywhere from 2-4 weeks. I will recommend calling everyday after one week.

hello visa journey members,
I called NVC today and the lady that i spoken told me that they received our documents yesterday but no NVC case number yet as of today, how many days normally before it gets a case number??....highly appreciated any input..

Stay tuned!!! I think you will be approved very very very soon

Oh, cool! Didn't know you were transferred as well! Good luck
Maybe try and call CS/Tier 2? I think some people here were able to find out which service center their file went to.

good news and do not worry you will get few more updates very soon
later you will receive hard copy that your case is transferred to the following service center

I filed at the Chicago lockbox..

I try to be grateful for the little things. Before long distance relationships only had mail or phone calls... now with new technology like skype and the variant forms I can see my husband everyday... this doesnt substitute his presence but it eases some of the pain of separation. Not alot of people understand my situation in my life and are always asking why this takes so long to get my spouse here. Just take it one day at a time and be so happy you are a day closer to the end because at some point you have to get an approval or some action taken. Lets pray for approvals

Just be thankful. Thats all. The people here are nice and friendly.

You can say that I'm a hopeless broken hearted wife. I'm talking to my husband 24/7 and it just can't replace his presence... Irreplaceable!!! Can't cope with the separation Thank God for technology, Skype, whatsApp and so on...

I am trying to save you a little grief. If you look back in this thread, you can see that another K-1 filer did the same thing and about 1 million angry CR-1 people piled on to them and told them not to post here. Also, if not to compare, then why did you post that? "Angry" or not I am just trying to help.

Again, you applied for a K-1 VISA, not a CR-1 VISA. You applied for your fiance, we have applied for our wives and husbands. Please do not compare the two as currently the processing times could very hardly be farther apart.

FYI
lately people are getting their NOA2 fast, ours we got in amonth. I would say for those who applied after July things are going prety fast. Good luck to all of us.

Three posts violating the Terms of Service have been removed (personal attacks). I can appreciate the frustration people have when something like this happens but please do not resort to name calling and insulting each other in your frustration. If you can't post constructively, then do not post.
moderator hat off . . . .
greenivy, congratulations on your quick approval. Over my years here I have seen a few cases like this - and during my own visa journey there were a few instances. Upon investigation, it turns out that when USCIS is training new staff they will often just grab a petition/application from the most recent applications received that haven't yet made it to an adjudicator's desk. They aren't trying to circumvent the waiting time, just that those are the applications that are just coming up from the mail room and are readily available. It looks like they are training new adjudicators right now so there are going to be a number of petitions/applications processed quickly, and as we have a large membership here on Visa Journey, it is not surprising that some of these quick approvals will go to our members.
Is it fair? Nope. Is it frustrating? Absolutely. Is there anything you can do about it other than wish the beneficiary of this largess congratulations? Not likely. Many people - including me - have complained to USCIS about this over the years, and yet, it still happens.

Yep!
I seriously knew this would happen. Ugh.
The unfairness of it...

If someone's just messing around, i think i have an idea who it is..
BUT...dont wanna judge so congrats greenivy!
So if a k1 filer got approved in 19 days....well here's a 19day approval coming from our group.

NOA-2 approved in 19 days, yay!

Hey there! Most cases that are currently being transferred are those with beneficiaries from the Philippines. I think this means they will be processing your case sooner. Im still waiting for mindpe to be transferred, hopefully they wont forget me.

Hi .. i just check my case status today and i got this notice..
On November 22, 2013, we transferred your I130, IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR RELATIVE, FIANCE(E), OR ORPHAN, to your local USCIS Office for further processing. The new office has jurisdiction over your case and will send you a decision as soon as processing is complete or you will be notified if further information or action is needed. If you move, please use our Change of Address online tool to update your case with your new address.
Is this a good news or bad news? I read a lot on the forum who are also transferred.
Thank you