blenheim

I have to admit. It does make me laugh when the late Juners complain when they hit 180!   I remember 180. Those were the good old days.  

hey my septembAMBAMBAM's
I know we'll be all busy these days so I already wish everyone happy holidays and hopefully you can spend the holidays with your loved ones <3
let's stay strong and remember how lucky we are to be loved by our SO.
 

 

When I am king of the universe (har har stupid joke), I swear I’m going to give everyone a house and a pony and I won’t interfere with people’s lives in such a dramatic fashion like this.
 
i genuinely hope that my story can help someone. I hope that people may one day look at my posts and say “wow, let’s not do what she did.” I have a friend who is currently in the beginning stages of looking into this process, and I warned her of every mistake I’ve made.
 
this was honestly my “hail Mary” card. I can look back and realize my mistakes now, and realize when and where I messed up. But even if this doesn’t work for me, maybe I can help save someone else. I’m thinking of starting a blog or something to compile all the knowledge I’ve gained. I wish I would have known what I know now in the very beginning. I wish I would have had the resources and known where to look for information. 

Believe me I know it's not fair.
 
but if you think someone "having a wedding ready" and will lose money is a rare case that would also be naive. I didn't say your case is just another case. I said then everyone can try and push those.
 
and the more expedite we would send if definitely not going to make anything easy or fast for anyone.
 
for me my case is unique and should be expedited. Then all the people who barely meet the affidavit requirements should get expedite because they need to keep their money, everybody has anxiety disorder should get an expedite cause they'll get more anxious. 
 
The main thing thats said in every visa application: do not make plans before you have the visa.
 
so if you have financial hardship? Yes you can and should apply for expedite.
 
if you made wedding plans and that's the reason: I'm sorry but you're not alone.
 
we are stating the facts not judging you because you're going to try. I would try if I saw any meaning to it. Does it hurt if 1 person does it? No I don't think so. Would it hurt if everyone with wedding plans do it? Yeah it would hurt everyone who's waiting here. Including the ones who tried and get denied the expedite.

If a wedding could expedite.. then everybody would just have a wedding date and place..so please let us know if it gets expedited... 
 
our whole town is on fire and my venue is barely saved, I'd sure as hell want to hear that expedite happening....
The process IS a joke  
 
if I could get my hands on one of those fraud cases I would punch it to the other end of the universe 

I hear you and any individual has the right to request an expedite. But at the same time, frivolous requests slow down the system for the people who are in dire need of an expedite: those who are being deployed by the military, those in war zones, those facing life and death medical conditions, those living in areas with ongoing terrorist attacks, etc.

Those were the good old days, my friend.  Me and Mr. Hall are August 25th filer. Timeline started at late December. I was pissed because I was expecting that within 3 months, we will be receiving our noa2. Boy, I was wrong! (and maybe a light KARMA for complaining for a December timeline, LOL!) It kept getting pushed further and further. Now, timeline is at last week of Feb to 1st week of March. How cruel and frustrating is that??? Damn! I wish I hadn't complained about a possible December approval. I am hoping for a miracle at this point. I pray that there will be a speed up in the coming weeks. I don't know how to feel anymore. I don't even have the energy to be angry at them now. They are sucking the life out of me.  It's really hard to think of anything for the future because you can't make fixed plans in this situation. I really hate looking at my timeline. I just wish that I could be with him again before my birthday and that would be on May next year. 

I want to do an elopement to the Poconos or a small 8 person ceremony at the Stroudmoor Inn, but my family are in New England and my parents aren’t interested enough in seeing me get married to drive that far.  They are rooting for me to finally have him here because I am sad a lot of the time, but they are just not super-involved with my life, especially my mother.  We don’t get along well.  Because it is important to my fiancé that my family be there, I will go up to Massachusetts to see them for that event, but all I want to do is spend a quiet and peaceful few days with him.  I think a wedding day should be happy and not turned into a dog and pony show for people who are indifferent and stress you out.  They would be very happy with a casual visit where they did not have to feel obliged to get dressed up, go to a venue and give a gift.  Any time at all spent around my mother is incredibly stressful for me.  At least I know that for the first time in my life I will have someone beside me who will not tolerate her saying mean and degrading things to me.  I will include them in the day in respect for his wishes, for my dad and for my two nearly-adult children.  And because immigration expects it.  But those lovely all-inclusive elopement packages sound so lovely coming off of the stress we all will have just gotten through with getting our loved ones here.  I would have a wedding every week with his family...lol!

I actually have more accurate bachelorette party plans than my wedding 😂😂😂😂 I believe my bachelorette party can be a reason to expedite! (None of my friends is in the state so it's more like a bye bye party 😭😭😭😭)

I’m thinking a lot of us who filed in August could see our loved ones arrive in May.  I had originally expected to be getting married in March, and I’m so glad that I am a bit wedding-phobic and never made any firm plans.  I never wanted that whole white dress, center of attention thing, and I’m so glad for it at this point seeing what others are going through!!!  
   We will probably do Providence City Hall and take my parents and kids out to a very nice early dinner.  I’m hoping we can all video chat with his family too.  I don’t care about a wedding.  I want to get married and finally get to live our lives together and never ever be in separate countries again no matter what.  It’s time for everyone to be together!

I feel you completely! 
 
My wedding is is booked for July 28... so I thought I was going to have my visa too early!! But we also asked if we can change the date if anything happens even though I didn't even know about any of these at that time.
 
all we can do is hope that they will get their timelines back to 150 days soon... but they don't seem to want that..

Search on google uscis and administration .
 
 1) administration misunderstood the concept of illegal and legal.... hence people got scared and there were 700.000 more cases applying to naturalization this year. Cause 1 for backlog.
 
2) h1b is also at risk which caused more people to apply to try. Oh and they also scared Dreamers.. again more cases.
 
3) administration wants stricter processing, and more rfes are sent (I just read the article about this. I'll post the link when I find it again but you can find it in nytimes - also somebody I think posted in June filers today too.)
 
4) backlog and understaffed - federal freeze of hiring didn't help in these conditions because they cannot have additional staff even though there were more applicants.
 
5) this also happens in every few years. Normally it is ideal to have 150 days and before from the point of view of uscis but last year it was really good and way under 90 days.
 
 
and maaaaany more reasons  
Well somebody decided to try expedite with that.... however don't you think if that could expedite a case everybody would be doing that.??

I really hope this works out for you! I just can't help but think it's not fair to those who have had to wait making any plans. All of us could make set in stone wedding plans and create an expedite request for financial loss no? Let us know how it goes and good luck! 

Start of summer?  I'm hoping for Christmas 2018!  LOL

Magic happened. I got approved! NOA1 - 19 June, NOA2 - 20 Dec!!! Truth to be told I didn't expect it this year, or thought we would get a RFE!!! Anyway, wish you the same guys!!! Fingers crossed!!!!

Just a June 29th filer bringing some holiday cheer.
May or may not have tweeted this @USCIS.... 
 
https://twitter.com/lindsaybytof/status/943520331033169922
 
 
 
 

Hehe exactly same  
 
I don't want too much negativity cause it will just burden all of us even more than this process already does. I'm thinking of 180 days and that nvc crisis will come down to normal soon. And I won't be moving my lovely wedding venue ( @LizM yes it didn't get damage on the fire yet!!! Going next week to Ventura to check everything and help some!)

Noa1 to Noa2 10 months is a little bit over exaggerating I believe even if it's 210 days that would make 7 months. And let's say the worst case NVC problem continues (which is not an NVC problem but uscis problem really) 1.5 months let's say. And depending on the embassy the interview could be less than a month to 2 months. 

This process is excruciatingly painful, I feel for everyone that is going through tough times especially this Holiday season and we are miles away from our loved ones. I have grown accustomed to celebrating all occasions either working or somewhere by myself but it all changed when my Fiance came all along but he's thousands of miles away and we're in a situation where we can't just fly and see each other, I have responsibilities and commitments I need to fulfill, I hope the people at USCIS would realize how hard it is for all of us. But of course we also don't know what the office is going through right now and why there is such a heavy back log but really all I want to do now is cry and then pray really hard and sincere as nothing will make me happier than to have this process go smoothly and I wish the same for all of you. Happy Holidays and keep the hopes up! God will hear and bless us.

Mr. Chow say here's to XENOPHOBIC policies.
 
....

I try to apply the randomness of case selection/processing on the working environment these petitions are worked in being quite possibly very similar to my own work condition, which is paralleled in productivity. (*clears throat* .... sorry for the long post)
 
My office receives various forms of correspondence from different people (I work at a financial institution) from multiple agencies, or that are sent directly to the CEO. These cases can range in size, number of issues, and amount of research needed. We have an intake distribution team (two people) who receive these files, build the cases, and distribute across all team members that do what I do. We all have individual queues we work independently, and varying cases, from date received, to date the case was actually built and assigned. Quite simply, and probably the most logical explanation for the varying processing dates - not all people work the same speed. I'm super fast. I type fast, I navigate fast, I'm good at my research. I try hard to get cases submitted for Quality Control review within 2 to 3 days of receiving it. The oldest case in my box right now is a case assigned to me on December 18. However, I know for a fact I have people in my office who have cases much older than that right now. This means I have customers whose cases I've worked that have already received their final response letter, while other customers who other people have worked cases for (that are older than the latter) haven't even had their final response letter completed yet. Whether it's because they just manage their pipeline differently than I do, they work slower, or the case(s) they have that are older are just more involved. The more pages/information, the longer it takes. I also believe people who send more information with their petition may require more time to review, and end up taking longer than someone else that was received close to when they were. Not that more information than others is a bad thing - but these are humans reviewing these packets, not machines.
 
We also don't know what their review process looks like. Depending on the beneficiary country and information required, do they have to reach out to different points of contact throughout the review? Do certain countries or cases require second level reviews, or an additional security check? If a case meets certain criteria, does it require any sort of escalation or second level review? We get cases at my job that often require us, in my position, to reach out to other lines of business within the bank such as Legal, Compliance, etc. This of course lengthens the review time and essentially the resolution.
 
As frustrating as it is, and as hard as it is to see outside of the blinders we all wear while trying to find that light at the end of the tunnel for our personal case....there are a lot of factors, most of which we probably don't have a clue about. Do politics play a part? It's easy to say they do, but we also can't say without a shadow of a doubt that this is the reason, or at least the sole reason. Changes to substantial legal processes, including legal immigration, require a lot more than someone coming into office and declaring their opinion. A lot of channels have to be followed before anybody would actually see or experience any significant change, such as people like us already in the midst of a legal process like immigration. (In my opinion; but I am no politician. ).
 
Shorthand version - I haven't reached that point yet where I believe skipping days or processing out of order necessarily means anything tragic. It also doesn't mean those people will be forgotten and left behind. I refuse to believe that. I still maintain my belief, as above, that it comes down to differences in human processing speeds. Which just makes me wish I could teach a typing course or something with USCIS to help these people speed up a little.

Hi everyone, it doesn't help any of us, however I found this in the New York times today.  It doesn't mention K1 visa's but I can't help feel that the same slow down is across the board. I posted it in June files 2 as well.
Without New Laws or Walls, Trump Presses the Brake on Legal Immigration
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/20/us/trump-immigration-slowdown.html

Long time lurker, first time poster. NOA1 received August 18th

Feeling so sad today. Reading posts in the May and June filer topics on how there are many still not approved makes me think we won't even be married by summer 2018  ... Every time I check my timeline it's pushed back further and further with no end in sight

When I filed in August the timeline said approx.: DEC 16-22 for NOA2 then monthly or seems like every two weeks it gets pushed back another two weeks then another two weeks, it went to dec 26 to jan2 then jan2 to jan 8 then jan 8 to jan 16 then 16 and so on and so on, just checked and it is now pushed to feb 2 to feb 6 so I expect in two weeks that will go to feb 6 to feb 13, when we send $500+ upfront and no other information until you get either noa2 or a rfe and nothing you can do about it , it needs to be changed to send $25 then when they give the noa2 then you pay the rest. This "might" motivate them faster, but then again it may not. Holidays are coming , they will start being under staffed due to employees taking time off for the holidays so I expect longer delays ahead for us august filers. I'm over the 4 month period waiting for the noa2. Just don't understand how last year this time they were getting approvals in 30 days to going to beyond 6 months!!! I don't even want to talk about the future with my fiancé because this really sucks.