br9k

Congratulations!

Here's hoping that there are a lot of approvals tonight! I was kinda disappointed with last night's numbers...

BTW, Elena did indeed give birth today. 7.5 lbs of baby boy! He came much, much faster than the doctor had projected. Headin' out tomorrow.

Anyway, I'll still be here monitoring and in support of y'all who are still waiting. Praying for you; know it's of little consolation, but ...

As far as I understand the I129F process, "background checks" refer to the petitioner. USCIS does not seem to have a mechanism to check background of the beneficiary (that's why beneficiary has to get the police clearance, I suppose).

From what I read, USCIS checks:

- Lack of convictions for crimes against children and otherwise violent crimes by petitioner

- Previous marriage-based sponsorship

Of these, number 2 should take all of 5 minutes (this information should be handy in USCIS databases). The former might take a bit longer, especially if petitioner lived in a number of jurisdictions. That said, I suspect that "background checks" are just something they give as justification for the "service" we get.

Mine is over 2500 prior fwiw.

Boy.. Really? Mine is SRC14904222XX , over "100" before that estimate. They really didn't fancy my petition all too much, did they? I don't recall using Comic-Sans font in the letter of intent.. Hm, what could it be?

No change to 10 petitions around mine. I wonder who are those other 9 people. They've been waiting as long as I have. 8 months very soon.

After 222 days of waiting...

Im glad to tell you that we have been APPROVED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Congratulations!

Hiss..meow...

Perhaps TSC is conducting an experiment to see how far a group of people can be pushed before the breaking point.

do you think that our receipt number has some kind of code that could help us understand why some petitions go faster than others? Cause if thats the case, i'm willing to say what my petition number is.

As far as I can tell, other than service center 3 character prefix, these numbers are sequential. There doesn't even seem to be any kind of a checksum (since numbers issued with a difference of a few days are different by right about the amount of various immigration applications accepted in that many days).

Someone on the back end knows who they are assigned to, but whatever they know - they are not telling us.

From your timeline I see you are counting from date you sent your petition in, not the NOA1 date like rest of us. You are one day ahead of me so y

I saw people counting either way. In any case, NOA1 date is the 11th, so it's only 2 days off. Will be 224 on Wednesday, then

224 days today for me. As it's highly unlikely anything will be approved today, I think that number is going to be handily beaten.

I sent you a PM with my receipt number. Let me know if I am in the 11 that you are watching; kinda fun to see where we all end up. Not sure why that stack of 11 are moving so slowly. One thing's for sure: wbeem's 224 is in serious jeopardy of being surpassed. Kinda sickening, but true.

Thanks wbeem. Some of us are fast approaching your pseudo-record if you will. 220 days today for me. Best possible scenario is an approval tomorrow (HAH!) and that would make it 221. Sigh. I agree, the USCIS and TSC are definitely NOT invited to the wedding nor the baby shower (if we have one of the latter).

Same for us. I suspect that your case might be one of the 11 I129F cases "around" ours that I am following. Only 1 of these 11 was approved last week. If they keep it at 1 per week, it's up to 2 more months

221 days.

I am using an iOS app to search a range of cases before/after mine. There are 12 nearby I129F petitions in NOA1 state. They have been that way for at least a week (since I began searching). I don't know if it means anything, but if it does - can't be good.

220 days today. This is where being "above average" is not a good thing.

The problem with this type of thing is that lawsuits take a long time (years, really - more than any USCIS proceedings). In the meantime, in 3-4 months pretty much everyone here will finally get their approval and move on. Since for most people this type of immigration process is a once-in-a-lifetime thing (may be a few times, at most), there is little incentive for anyone to keep pushing through with any action.

There are about 25-30 thousand admissions on K-1 visa per year. This is one of the smallest visa categories (compare that with 0.5 million a year of H1B and many others, who face significantly longer delays). Of this already relatively modest number, how many are actually on this forum? How many have ability and desire to act?

As someone who went through variety of US immigration proceedings in the past, I'd like to add that they have always been slow (though this one is the longest yet), inefficient and lacking in common sense. It's a very large and needlessly complicated system, it is not user friendly and it is that way "by design". Even incremental improvement is highly unlikely.

This is the way government works (or does not, depending on how you look at it)

218

I don't think submitting the form (or email) will do anything to an individual case. But a significant number of submissions may at least get someone looking at things. The other choice is to just wait, which is what we are all doing anyway.

FWIW another way to contact the Ombudsman is by submitting request here: https://cisomb.dhs.gov/oca/form7001.aspx

I don't know how it is actually handled, but as with most things - the more people submit similar requests, the more it will be noticed. So, even if you are sending an email, submit a request as well. It allows you to describe your specific circumstances, and explain what is wrong with the case processing at TSC ("outside reasonable processing timeframe" and "undue burden" may come in handy).

Is there a source of information on the "longest" wait with TSC? As in - what's the known worst case scenario? Years? How many?

7 months... ?

welcome to the club

7 months. Called USCIS, spoke to a polite but useless phone answering person. Clearly everyone is aware that TSC is stuck, but nothing can or will be done until the "currently processing" date is changed on the web site. Since it has not budged in 2 months - not very hopeful.

The processing times page shows Vermont service center current date as may 4, 2014. Could that be right? If it is - TSC might be following their lead.

I am a september filer. It's been over 6 months. USCIS processing is terribly slow but, in my experience with government bureaucracy in general, any change (no matter how well intentioned) will only result in degraded service. Very disappointed (and really not sure what to do now).

So now the TSC won't do anything about our case until March 27. Then it will take several months to transfer it to another service center. Then (if it does not get lost on the way), it will be looked at with, at best, the usual speed of CSC (3 months, is it)? I had a bit of hope that the case may be decided in the next month or two. Looks like now it will be another 6 months or more. I see nothing positive in this particular announcement.

Currently anything prior to August 2, 2014.

Processing time is whatever is listed on the USCIS processing time page found here: https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processTimesDisplayInit.do

Which, of course, means they give themselves another 1.5 months extra (as they post processing times that late). Gotta love the ways of the government agencies.

6 months 3 days since NOA1. Very quiet. The uscis web site doesn't allow me to submit "outside processing time" request yet. What do they consider "outside processing time"?

Well, things are definitely going strangely for me. First USPS lost the package. After a friendly visit to local post office they found it, and off it went on its merry way. Delivered to the "lockbox" on Sept. 9. Check was cashed on Sept 12 (or, rather, it was withdrawn as an ACH transfer, curious). I did not register for electronic notifications so not sure what's going on - but no NOA1 yet.

Assuming NOA1 does not come through (perhaps my post office is at fault again, they are pretty unreliable, unfortunately) - how would I get any information from USCIS? Is there a contact number to call and find out anything about the case?