Megan & Luke

Believe me, you are not alone in your frustrations over TSC. My fiance and I filed back on July 2, 2014. A month later we were elated to see that a lot of the March and April filers had been transferred in August to CSC. We wrongfully assumed that it would speed things along because TSC was already into processing February by then. We thought heck, how can it take them ages to finish one or two months of petitions? Well, almost 8 months later we received our NOA2 - On January 23. This was after numerous phone calls to USCIS, complaints via the Director's frequent conference calls, letters to my Senators and an official Omsbudsman complaint.
Since you're only a few months in, and with no sign at the minute of transfers coming for anyone at TSC, let me give you some advice that helped us. Don't get me wrong - the months between NOA1 and NOA2 will test your patience and make you extremely angry.
1. Acknowledge that you may have another 3-4 months wait ahead of you. Don't get excited when you see a random late filer be approved. These are most likely expedites or incorrectly listed service center in their timeline. Prepare for a 7-8 month wait for NOA2.
2. Start preparing. Read up on the next steps in the process. After your NOA2 things move VERY fast. Within a month our case had left NVC, arrived at NVC, shipped off to the consulate, my fiance had his medical and filed all of his forms. We now just await an interview date. Start gathering the documents you will need. Read up on the embassy website where your fiance will have the interview and see what the specific steps are for that consulate. Some embassies allow you to schedule the medical ahead of time, others allow police certificates to be good for up to a year. You can start gathering everything possible early on while you wait for TSC.
3. Do not read threads about CSC vs. TSC. It always ends badly, especially with the HUGE discrepancy in processing times right now.You may end up doing what we did and avoid any CSC talk at all - including approval/congratulations posts. Harsh I know.. but it really wears you down eventually and there is nothing you can do about it.
4. Start preparing letters to your Senator so you can ship them off at your 5 months. Get involved (if you want to) in speaking out about the discrepancy. It hardly ever goes anywhere, but who knows.
5. Plan your future. If you two will be moving into a brand new place, plan it out and look at finances. Save money and start thinking about the wedding day and what you will do the first day you and your fiance are together here. Shop online for things you two will want to buy.
6. If you receive an RFE (request for evidence) respond to it as soon as possible with what's been asked of you. Usually receiving an RFE signals that an officer has touched your case and once they receive an acceptable response they seem to adjudicate within 30-60 days (even slow TSC).
These next months will go by very slowly but at some point you will also say to yourself "Wow has it been x months already?". It's a very frustrating position to be in and this process is ANYTHING but romantic. We make the best of it that we can.
So sorry this post went longer than I wanted. Just know you have a lot of company at TSC - both current, former and future filers. Hopefully someone who can balance out these workloads stands up and says something that levels out the playing field. In the meantime you will gain a whole new perspective on patience You're about halfway with the current trend at TSC!
Good luck!

Believe me, you are not alone in your frustrations over TSC. My fiance and I filed back on July 2, 2014. A month later we were elated to see that a lot of the March and April filers had been transferred in August to CSC. We wrongfully assumed that it would speed things along because TSC was already into processing February by then. We thought heck, how can it take them ages to finish one or two months of petitions? Well, almost 8 months later we received our NOA2 - On January 23. This was after numerous phone calls to USCIS, complaints via the Director's frequent conference calls, letters to my Senators and an official Omsbudsman complaint.
Since you're only a few months in, and with no sign at the minute of transfers coming for anyone at TSC, let me give you some advice that helped us. Don't get me wrong - the months between NOA1 and NOA2 will test your patience and make you extremely angry.
1. Acknowledge that you may have another 3-4 months wait ahead of you. Don't get excited when you see a random late filer be approved. These are most likely expedites or incorrectly listed service center in their timeline. Prepare for a 7-8 month wait for NOA2.
2. Start preparing. Read up on the next steps in the process. After your NOA2 things move VERY fast. Within a month our case had left NVC, arrived at NVC, shipped off to the consulate, my fiance had his medical and filed all of his forms. We now just await an interview date. Start gathering the documents you will need. Read up on the embassy website where your fiance will have the interview and see what the specific steps are for that consulate. Some embassies allow you to schedule the medical ahead of time, others allow police certificates to be good for up to a year. You can start gathering everything possible early on while you wait for TSC.
3. Do not read threads about CSC vs. TSC. It always ends badly, especially with the HUGE discrepancy in processing times right now.You may end up doing what we did and avoid any CSC talk at all - including approval/congratulations posts. Harsh I know.. but it really wears you down eventually and there is nothing you can do about it.
4. Start preparing letters to your Senator so you can ship them off at your 5 months. Get involved (if you want to) in speaking out about the discrepancy. It hardly ever goes anywhere, but who knows.
5. Plan your future. If you two will be moving into a brand new place, plan it out and look at finances. Save money and start thinking about the wedding day and what you will do the first day you and your fiance are together here. Shop online for things you two will want to buy.
6. If you receive an RFE (request for evidence) respond to it as soon as possible with what's been asked of you. Usually receiving an RFE signals that an officer has touched your case and once they receive an acceptable response they seem to adjudicate within 30-60 days (even slow TSC).
These next months will go by very slowly but at some point you will also say to yourself "Wow has it been x months already?". It's a very frustrating position to be in and this process is ANYTHING but romantic. We make the best of it that we can.
So sorry this post went longer than I wanted. Just know you have a lot of company at TSC - both current, former and future filers. Hopefully someone who can balance out these workloads stands up and says something that levels out the playing field. In the meantime you will gain a whole new perspective on patience You're about halfway with the current trend at TSC!
Good luck!

Believe me, you are not alone in your frustrations over TSC. My fiance and I filed back on July 2, 2014. A month later we were elated to see that a lot of the March and April filers had been transferred in August to CSC. We wrongfully assumed that it would speed things along because TSC was already into processing February by then. We thought heck, how can it take them ages to finish one or two months of petitions? Well, almost 8 months later we received our NOA2 - On January 23. This was after numerous phone calls to USCIS, complaints via the Director's frequent conference calls, letters to my Senators and an official Omsbudsman complaint.
Since you're only a few months in, and with no sign at the minute of transfers coming for anyone at TSC, let me give you some advice that helped us. Don't get me wrong - the months between NOA1 and NOA2 will test your patience and make you extremely angry.
1. Acknowledge that you may have another 3-4 months wait ahead of you. Don't get excited when you see a random late filer be approved. These are most likely expedites or incorrectly listed service center in their timeline. Prepare for a 7-8 month wait for NOA2.
2. Start preparing. Read up on the next steps in the process. After your NOA2 things move VERY fast. Within a month our case had left NVC, arrived at NVC, shipped off to the consulate, my fiance had his medical and filed all of his forms. We now just await an interview date. Start gathering the documents you will need. Read up on the embassy website where your fiance will have the interview and see what the specific steps are for that consulate. Some embassies allow you to schedule the medical ahead of time, others allow police certificates to be good for up to a year. You can start gathering everything possible early on while you wait for TSC.
3. Do not read threads about CSC vs. TSC. It always ends badly, especially with the HUGE discrepancy in processing times right now.You may end up doing what we did and avoid any CSC talk at all - including approval/congratulations posts. Harsh I know.. but it really wears you down eventually and there is nothing you can do about it.
4. Start preparing letters to your Senator so you can ship them off at your 5 months. Get involved (if you want to) in speaking out about the discrepancy. It hardly ever goes anywhere, but who knows.
5. Plan your future. If you two will be moving into a brand new place, plan it out and look at finances. Save money and start thinking about the wedding day and what you will do the first day you and your fiance are together here. Shop online for things you two will want to buy.
6. If you receive an RFE (request for evidence) respond to it as soon as possible with what's been asked of you. Usually receiving an RFE signals that an officer has touched your case and once they receive an acceptable response they seem to adjudicate within 30-60 days (even slow TSC).
These next months will go by very slowly but at some point you will also say to yourself "Wow has it been x months already?". It's a very frustrating position to be in and this process is ANYTHING but romantic. We make the best of it that we can.
So sorry this post went longer than I wanted. Just know you have a lot of company at TSC - both current, former and future filers. Hopefully someone who can balance out these workloads stands up and says something that levels out the playing field. In the meantime you will gain a whole new perspective on patience You're about halfway with the current trend at TSC!
Good luck!

TSC and the lockbox are two different things.
The Texas lockbox is the submission point for every I-129F petition. Once it goes to the lockbox it is sorted by state of residency of the petitioner - from there it is assigned to either the California or Texas service center. You were not transferred at all - your petition was assigned by the Texas lockbox to the California Service Center.
If you were to actually be transferred (and considering CSC is processing at 30-60 days while TSC is at 7-8 months it's unlikely) they would send you a specific letter stating your petition was transferred from x Service Center to x Service Center. Please update your timeline to reflect that you were assigned to the California Service Center.

Yep, calling NVC is a test of your patience big time.
My fiance and I received NOA2 on January 23 and began calling a week later. I kept track of our case status and didn't bother calling until a few days after our status changed to 'Sent to Department of State for processing'. Each time I called I had to retry the number about 20-30 times (as said above if you hear 'Due to the high call volume...' just hang up and call again until you get something else. Ignore the messages about waiting.) and once I got past the message about high call volume I had a 45 minute wait to get an agent on the phone.
I didn't call daily, but I did call every few days. NVC received our case file and had a case number for us on February 6. TSC was fast at something at least, thanks for the over 7 month wait on that NOA2 though...

TSC and the lockbox are two different things.
The Texas lockbox is the submission point for every I-129F petition. Once it goes to the lockbox it is sorted by state of residency of the petitioner - from there it is assigned to either the California or Texas service center. You were not transferred at all - your petition was assigned by the Texas lockbox to the California Service Center.
If you were to actually be transferred (and considering CSC is processing at 30-60 days while TSC is at 7-8 months it's unlikely) they would send you a specific letter stating your petition was transferred from x Service Center to x Service Center. Please update your timeline to reflect that you were assigned to the California Service Center.

TSC and the lockbox are two different things.
The Texas lockbox is the submission point for every I-129F petition. Once it goes to the lockbox it is sorted by state of residency of the petitioner - from there it is assigned to either the California or Texas service center. You were not transferred at all - your petition was assigned by the Texas lockbox to the California Service Center.
If you were to actually be transferred (and considering CSC is processing at 30-60 days while TSC is at 7-8 months it's unlikely) they would send you a specific letter stating your petition was transferred from x Service Center to x Service Center. Please update your timeline to reflect that you were assigned to the California Service Center.

TSC and the lockbox are two different things.
The Texas lockbox is the submission point for every I-129F petition. Once it goes to the lockbox it is sorted by state of residency of the petitioner - from there it is assigned to either the California or Texas service center. You were not transferred at all - your petition was assigned by the Texas lockbox to the California Service Center.
If you were to actually be transferred (and considering CSC is processing at 30-60 days while TSC is at 7-8 months it's unlikely) they would send you a specific letter stating your petition was transferred from x Service Center to x Service Center. Please update your timeline to reflect that you were assigned to the California Service Center.

You need to use the CEAC tracker page. It will change to 'Ready' once your embassy has received your file.
You will need your NVC case number for this. If you do not have it - call the NVC and ask if they can provide it for you.
CEAC

I'm not sure where you got that information from on VJ but it was absolutely incorrect. They never processed any September applications at the TEXAS service center in January. In the CALIFORNIA service center? Sure. But that's because of the dramatically different processing times everyone has been talking about. Nebraska does not handle K1s anymore. To date there has only been 4 random September cases completed for reasons we haven't any idea. Right now they are working on August cases.
What do they do at a service center? It supposedly only takes 15 minutes to look at your case which we all probably spent days and weeks on to put together. The rest of the time who knows. Probably numerous cups of coffee, youtube videos, the Sims, and plenty of bathroom breaks.

You don't require a background check to be done pre-AOS.. If the United States government needs to run one, they will. If you went through K-1 they probably already did that for both of you - definitely ran it for the petitioner already. It's not a required step in the AOS process. Now, I am not familiar with every type of visa, and you didn't fill out a timeline so I'm not sure what visa you are adjusting status from - IR/CR1, K-1, K-2, etc...
There is a reason the fees are so high to file these petitions - it includes any fees that may be required for a background check and processing.
Either way that money most likely went to waste and you may want to review how long you have to file the AOS. For example, K-1 has 90 days from POE. If you have to wait 6-8 months you will be out of status for a number of months. Granted it's forgiven once you file for AOS, but you can legally be deported during that timeframe. (Again, this is assuming K-1 - I can't speak for others I have not researched).

You don't require a background check to be done pre-AOS.. If the United States government needs to run one, they will. If you went through K-1 they probably already did that for both of you - definitely ran it for the petitioner already. It's not a required step in the AOS process. Now, I am not familiar with every type of visa, and you didn't fill out a timeline so I'm not sure what visa you are adjusting status from - IR/CR1, K-1, K-2, etc...
There is a reason the fees are so high to file these petitions - it includes any fees that may be required for a background check and processing.
Either way that money most likely went to waste and you may want to review how long you have to file the AOS. For example, K-1 has 90 days from POE. If you have to wait 6-8 months you will be out of status for a number of months. Granted it's forgiven once you file for AOS, but you can legally be deported during that timeframe. (Again, this is assuming K-1 - I can't speak for others I have not researched).

Agreed. Many congressmen/women have stated they have no way to affect a USCIS petition any longer.
That said some have had either downright luck or coincidental luck with contacting theirs.
I was a July 2014 filer and after we hit 5 months I contacted my state's Senator. Their office was amazing - they got back to me promptly, followed up with USCIS on our behalf numerous times and kept me up to date on our case. "Coincidentally" two days after I spoke with my contact at the Senator's office and she strongly inquired on our behalf (we were a few days shy of 7 months), we had an approval. Surprisingly she continued to follow up for us until it hit the London embassy this past week. She contacted NVC on our behalf, asked for updates, and sent them along to me. Granted I was already on top of all of that myself, but it was extremely helpful and comforting to know that someone at least cared besides my fiance and I.
So really it comes down to how much effort your Senator or Congressman is willing to put into it. Some just accept USCIS's canned message and pass it along as "shucks, I can't do anything, sorry." I personally wrote a letter stating our information, case number, and expressing my frustration at the inconsistent processing times (we were at TSC).
Either way do whatever makes you feel better. If it feels like you are progressing by following up and giving it a shot, go for it. There's some templates of letters floating about the site, try the search function for 'senator letters' or 'congressman letters'. Just don't expect too much from it and if you are pleasantly surprised that's great! If you do decide to take that route - check your Senator or Congressman's website first. Most have a consent form you will need to give them in order for them to contact USCIS on your behalf. It helps to send this along with the letter to speed it up because they will not do anything until they have the signed consent form.
Good luck!

You can enter the case number on the CEAC status page - https://ceac.state.gov/CEACStatTracker/Status.aspx?
In Transit means it is in the process of being transferred to your consulate. Once it changes to 'Ready' - that means the consulate has received your case and is now awaiting your next steps... DS-160, visa payment, medical results, etc... Some consulates require medical exam results before scheduling your interview. Others allow you to schedule your own. You will have to check on your specific consulate's processes beyond that.
Be sure to select 'immigrant visa' on the CEAC status page.. K-1 is a hybrid but the international embassies consider it immigrant. Then input the case number AAAxxxxxxxxxx

So I was approved for my K1 at London today!
Just wanted to say a huge thank you to all the VJ members who have helped me with this first big step in my journey, Dan and I cannot express enough how grateful we are, and also how lucky we are to be able to call some of you friends thanks to this website.
Who needs a lawyer, eh?!
See you all for AOS!

Unfortunately, this works well for those at CSC because most from that service center fill their timelines in correctly. If you are unfortunate enough to be stuck at TSC, your estimated dates won't do anything for you. Too many people incorrectly fill in their timeline, assuming that because they used the Dallas Lockbox they are at TSC.. Even though everyone files at Dallas. The sad reality is that it will be off because many of those people actually ended up at CSC and were approved in 30-60 days, skewing EVERYONE'S timeline at TSC.
I would ignore Igor's list and the estimated adjudication date. Browse TSC only threads because reading anything from CSC will eventually make you angry, bitter and resentful Each filing month seems to have it's own TSC-only thread lately. Look around - if there isn't one you can always make one!
Remember that some countries like the Philippines are expedited, so you may see some from TSC being approved before you but they filed after you.
My fiance and I did well with the estimated dates until we hit 5 months and then we just got really really annoyed at everything. It slowly wears you down to be honest, this process is anything but easy and fair.

The only downside to jumping around - and there is no guarantee that an address change will trigger a transfer - is that the backlog can sometimes be at CSC as well. With USCIS it's a crapshoot it seems. TSC has historically been the service center with the backlog, but there were times where CSC were the ones with the backlog.. There's just no telling either way. It's up to you, you can try to trigger a transfer by changing address.. Perhaps I missed if you actually have a valid address in that state or are attempting to get one in order to move the process along? I didn't get a chance to read the entire thread.
Also, I agree with the post two above me - CSC takes significantly longer to transfer to NVC. For example, I know of a friend who waited almost a month and a half for a transfer. Our NOA2 was January 23 and TSC shipped our case to NVC on January 27. CSC seems to wait for batches, TSC sends in smaller batches or however they do it. Either way they are quicker on the second part than the first.

My fiancé was APPROVED this morning in U.S. embassy in Sarajebo BIH ))))) I couldn't sleep all night how nervous I was am still in shockkkk !!! I want to THANK YOU VJ members for all your help advice and msgs you wrote to me it was a lonngggg journey but GOD almighty was on our side !! He was asked few basic questions I'll write them later am tooo excited now ...I want to wish all of you GOOD LUCK be patient it will pay of at the end . ??????

More good news guys! Remember was talking earlier about the mess on Igors list and wrote that people should be required to put in their receipt number or at least the first 3 letters to identify which service center they are at? I posted this in the suggestion forum and an admin said this was actually a reasonable idea and also said : "I can make it optional (or at least the foirst 3 digits). This information would then "override" the service center in case they input that incorrectly."
Igor's list will probably not be fixed during "our times" but for all the future users of VJ this could be really awesome!

At least the dang date changed. They are still absolutely lying, but it's more on par than May... which has been May for months now. -.-
Still absolutely absurd though - my fiance and I are over 6 months and because of their stupid 'date' I can't file an inquiry that will do anything for our case. TSC needs a swift kick in the rear.

hang on in there, we were july 1st and just got our NOA2 tonight, July 12th! Thought it was never coming, but it will!

At least the dang date changed. They are still absolutely lying, but it's more on par than May... which has been May for months now. -.-
Still absolutely absurd though - my fiance and I are over 6 months and because of their stupid 'date' I can't file an inquiry that will do anything for our case. TSC needs a swift kick in the rear.

I believe the Embassy will run the background checks on you themselves. You need to obtain police certificates, that is all. Your fiance (petitioner) will have background check done when they are processing the I-129F petition, but yours is done at or around the interview stage.

Just wanted to update this thread that my baby finally had her POE last Wednesday, Dec 31st. I'll have a review up later. Everything's good & we're just super happy to be together. We will have a tiny beach wedding on South Padre Island this Saturday, Jan 10. AOS will be in the mail by Jan 13.

Wishing everyone a happy holiday! Hopefully we see July approvals in the coming month.
I had a strong urge to send TSC an open letter, which apparently the Tier 2 agent said I could do.
Dear Texas Service Center,
Thank you for the inability to spend the holidays with my fiance. Your lackadaisical attitude towards the future lives of the petitioners you handle cases for and speak with on the phone everyday is appalling. I hope you enjoy spending the holidays with your loved ones as you refuse to promptly assist in doing your jobs to ensure others have the same opportunity. While California petitioners are now being approved within one month's time and flying in at the last moment to be with their fiance's, I sit here over 3,000 miles away waiting for you to judge my relationship. Our concerns fall on deaf ears as you forge ahead in lying to us about the processing date and, as Christmas neared, seemed to give up entirely on processing petitions. If I did my job as poorly as you do I would have been fired long ago. At least someone is having a Merry Christmas, but I can assure you that is not me.
Sincerely,
Megan
..... I am really really contemplating it.