aroabi

57 minutes ago, Steeleballz said:

 

   The hospitalization rate is what everyone should be focusing on. Some people are focusing on the 80% of people who will only get mild symptoms. The 20% of people who may need hospitalization is the key right now. If/when those people can't get medical treatment, the fatality rate will go up. We just have to look at what is happening in Italy to understand that. 

80% of people experience mild-moderate symptoms. Mild-moderate cases are the cases that do not require supplemental  oxygen. So a patient can have pneumonia but still will be considered a moderate case as long as he/she does not require supplemental oxygen. This mild-moderate classification is somewhat misleading. A lot of recovered people who had serious pneumonia will end up with permanent lung damage and the real long-term effects will only be possible to assess years after.

Here is a very informative video that I would entourage everyone to watch and share it as much as you can.

1 hour ago, Martinas21 said:

congratulation I saw your post long time ago I also has my filed in EAC 1990062 just have to wait

Thanks! Hope yours will get approved soon. It has been a long wait for all of us.

Just got a notification that my card is being produced! 😃

Case # EAC19900557**

NoA 2/5/19

Biometrics done 3/14/19

Card is being produced 3/10/20

Took 399 days from NoA to card production

No RFE and no interview.

CR6; from H1B to conditional green card

Have not filed for n-400 yet, but will once the new card arrives.

Best of luck to anyone who is still waiting! Hopefully you will be approved very soon - 6 people were approved today in the 55527-56023 range.

On 3/4/2020 at 4:29 PM, mseck8688 said:

i just received my green card i filed my papers February 11 eac Vermont

Congrats! That's great news!

Anyone who has not been approved yet and by chance falls between 55527-56023. This is for VSC.

77 Total

35 Approved

26 RFE

3 Transferred

13 Pending

12 minutes ago, newyork1234 said:

I called USCIS almost a month ago and talked to tier 2. he said your case takes 18 months . my question is that based on what he said that? is it mentioned in their system that whose case takes how long?

I highly doubt that it says in the system. However, I do believe that they somehow categorize the cases. They probably have a formula and if the case has those parameters they approve early. But we will never know.

Was not Texas service center's time line longer before? Maybe when you called a month ago the upper end was 18 month. I think the tier 2 officer gave you the upper end of the processing time for Texas at that time. And if by that time your case is not completed then you can submit an inquiry.

I remember that Vermont was the fastest center and now it is Texas (the upper end).

1 hour ago, newyork1234 said:

 

hey friends

is this reliable for texas center ?

It should be. By 15.5 month 50% cased should have been completed and by 17 months 93% should be completed. But the processing time line can change any time.

I tracked the VSC time line for almost two months and it was accurate. i-751 is one of the 4 applications that USCIS is providing accurate processing time line. 

1 hour ago, Megha13 said:

Hi Just got an update today for EAC Vermont!!

Does it mean they will send a new card?

 

Congrats! Yes, you get you card soon!

48 minutes ago, bigjailerman said:

Truly I am not trying to give you a hard time or pick the post apart but I have my own thoughts on this matter and truly I offer no disrespect. I guess I was just in the mood to respond to this a bit.

 

Thanks for you insights. You are not giving me a hard time. However, respectfully I disagree with most of your statements. Without going into details, I do not think they do a fantastic jobs at all. I am glad  that someone thinks that they do a fantastic job. They have been criticized heavily by law makers, applicants, congress and house. I do not see how you can praise their inefficient work, but to each their own.

93% completion rate by 18.5-26 month, and likely longer in the future, is nothing to boast about. Most of those 7% cases are still stuck in fingerprints were received status and no RFE's were issued. If they need more information then they have to send and RFE and/or schedule an interview and not let the cases collect duct in some shelf for 26 months. I bet if you were in that 7% and by 26 month your case was pending and after passing your n-400 interview your local office was not able to approve your n-400, because simply the service center failed to transfer your i-751 to the local office you would have had a totally different perspective.  I hope you realize that if they post 100% completion rate, their processing time will jump from 18-26 months to years.

Funding... have they disclosed how they spent the additional funds they received from the increased number of applications? If no, then you and I have no idea what they have done with it. All we can tell is that they have not effectively channeled those funds for processing the cases on timely matter. If they did, there would not be huge backlogs.

"Sure it can be a long wait but what we all should do, prior to filing applications, we shout first do some research and see which available closer offices provide you with a shorter processing time. That is especially if the location can be quite close in some cases. I lived in NYC for many years and I know for a fact that most things in government offices can be overrun with applications especially i n the city. Its not necessarily mismanagement. Now on top of that, with 45 in office, people are keen to his protocol so many people have flooded and rushed in their applications including N400 with upcoming fee increase. It is definitely conceivable."

And as far as choosing a location for your application, I did not know you could do it. If you have information that it indeed is possible and you can share it with all of us that would be helpful. To my knowledge when you submit your application you have no control where it goes for most cases and for n-400 it will go to your local office. Unless you mean that we have to move to a location with shorter processing time before we submit our applications. If that is the case, then maybe a few percent of people can do it, but majority of people have their lives in certain area, they are not going to move. And honestly I do not know how you can give such an impractical advice.

2 hours ago, xillini said:

To be fair, USCIS is not the only agency that has this kind of attitude (we don't care simply because we can). if you deal with IRS, they have same mindset where you are required to provide detailed documentations if you are in their hook.

 

The thing is in both IRS and USCIS, it is applicants' responsibility to demonstrate eligible benefits, and therefore, the burden of proof is more rigorous than other agency. 

 

Same thing goes for Veteran Affairs, HUD, and not to mention, DMV, just to name a few. 

 

We may hope someone else (such as Sen. Sanders) will become a president, who promised to abolish agency like ICE and reform USCIS, but that is different issue, political landscape is unpredictable, and most importantly, out of our hands. Since you would have your USC spouse, please tell them to vote!

 

To me, this practice is highly misleading and undemocratic, and potentially this will lead to impeach and prosecute elected officials involved in this, but for someone escaping from violence or low income countries, this is much better practice run in their country of home's government practice, and therefore, not that much gross practice, if not pleasant experience. USCIS deals with everyone from every part of the world, and will advise you that if you don't agree with our practice, you are more than welcome to go back to your home, or seek for another country's immigration benefits. Again, same thing, but they don't care daily human lives simply because they can, which is unfortunate.

Thanks for your insights. I agree with you that they simply do not care and it is largely because they can.

I personally dealt with IRS 4-5 times and found them very reasonable and fair. I was even shocked how professional and reasonable they were given their scary reputation.  Same goes for DMV. I would put USCIS in a very different category, not its individual employees but the agency itself; it is the most unreasonable, illogical, inefficient and incompetent agency I have ever dealt with.

As to voting for elections, we live in New York, so whoever the democratic candidate is will win here. There is no chance for a non-democrat to win this state.

One thing I would point out is that even though USCIS is 99% funded by the application fees, at least for some cases those funds are taken from US citizens. If USCIS does not care about immigrants minimally USCIS should treat the constituents fairly. Otherwise they are going to open themselves to lawsuits for subjecting constituents from different jurisdictions to very different processing time lines. Local congressman/congresswoman and/or senator may chose or try to protect their constituents from unfair delays by USCIS. And a lot of local representatives are doing it. USCIS is hurting US citizens as well not just the immigrants and simply telling the immigrants to go back or find a different country is not the answer. And you would think that they as an agency would have a little respect for people who "pay" their salaries.

14 hours ago, xillini said:

You can check with Glassdoor for juicy details of what is happening in USCIS working as ISO, but generally, all the comments commonly shares one point: ISO is expected to meet quota for processing cases and evaluated their job performances based on the processed cases, so if you think their life are easy, then clearly, you want to check the juicy details in Glassdoor. 

 

I agree that USCIS's convenient interpretation on timeline to justify their actions. Without knowing their tacit knowledge and practices, though, it is not easy to tell what is wrong with them. I do know, however, that in the past, USCIS outside of normal processing time is "After 50%", but when Trump assumed the office, they changed the definition of "outside of normal processing time" to 93% with a rationale that by changing definition of outside of normal processing time, it is expected that more ISOs are available for adjudicating actual cases sounds familiar when USCIS changes the infopass from making appointment to "call only" when they say more ISOs will be available for adjudicating cases. Now the problem continues because people can not even get I 551 stamps and they have to waste couple of hours to get connected and try for the best luck. 

 

Well, Welcome to USA! 

I agree that on individual level IOs may have somewhat of a hard time with quotas since their productivity is traceable  and they cannot easily slack off. But are their officers working more than 8 hours? I doubt. What are their upper management doing? Why after 18.5-26 months they still have 7% of the cases not completed? This is where the problem is. They are hiding behind the 50% and 93% completion rate and posting an eye-pleasing time line based on that. They have to post a timeline in which their upper range shows 100% completion. They do not have to approve the cases but they have to make a decision on those cases. Then we will see the real ugly picture of their true backlogs and the unreasonable delays they are imposing on the applicants. With today's technology it is not hard to know their tactics and practices. The head of this agency deserves to be fired. If this was another agency and has created this crisis a lot of people would have been fired. As to the increase in application numbers, well the population worldwide is increasing and number of the applications are increasing as well. They have to have a reasonable "IO/# of cases" ratio to be able to keep up with number of the applications. We hear about increased number of applications, but we do not hear about the extra money they got from those applicants and what they have done with it.

You mentioned earlier that they have the right to prioritize the type of applications. Fair enough, but they have to make sure that the congress/house agrees with them.

As a Manhattan resident I have to wait 13-26.5 months for N-400 processing, yet a Queens resident that lives 10-15 min subway ride from me has to wait 10-15.5 months, not to mention offices where upper range is 10 months. If this not absurd and gross mismanagement, then I do not know what it is.

1 hour ago, NOAHMONT said:

unless that has happened and they have sent the appointment for fingerprints or some rfe.  I have lived at the same address since 2016 but as I understand that it is updated on the web and it appears as you were scheduled for an appointment.  or isn't it?  on the website it should appear if you have any pending appointments but nothing is updated.  in the notification he says that I should receive a letter before March 10 with the options.

It should have been updated, but we are dealing with human beings; they could have made a simple mistake. I would not worry about it. If your marriage is real i.e. you did not marry your spouse for obtaining immigration benefits then you have nothing to worry about. Most denied cases eventually get approved anyway.

The only thing that could go against the applicant is if the spouse or someone close reports the applicant for marriage/immigration fraud with evidence.

40 minutes ago, mseck8688 said:

this been happening a lot thats why i dont belive those processing time and orders ..

i cannot wait to finis with this hell of process .

i married to a us citizen we have 3 kids born here 

They update their time line every few weeks or once a month. Usually they update the timeline toward the end of the month. When it is freshly updated it is accurate. By accurate I mean that by 13.5 months they have completed 50% of cases and by 18.5 they have completed 93% of the cases. They just care to meet those two deadlines and if they realize they are not meeting those deadlines they simply increase the processing time. Maybe I should quit my job and become an immigration officer- seems like they have a nice stress-free jobs with those stretchable deadlines.   

1 hour ago, Duncan21 said:

I assume this does not apply to the MSC cases, where almost all cases are called for an interview.

Yes, this is for cases starting with EAC (Vermont Service Center).

Anyone in this group who has not been approved yet, I did some analysis. I tracked the cases on the case tracker and put them on the spreadsheet. My case is in VSC. VSC’s timeline is 13.5-18.5-months.

For cases around 13-13.5 months wait time- VSC completed the 50% of the cases by 13.5 months. If you are lucky to be in that 50% pool than you already got approved. 25% of the cases got RFE, some cases got transferred. After VSC reached its 50% completion goal, it slowed down the approval process. Because now VSC has 5 months to complete just 43% of the cases. So, they leave the cases hanging (especially the ones that are in fingerprints received status) and will start actively working on late February/March cases to finish their 50% completion quota by 13.5 months. RFEs will be approved after certain number of days when VSC receives them. This is why cases from October-December 2018 are still pending while the February-March 2019 cases are getting approved. USCIS has target deadlines that it has to meet, they do not care about the extra wait time they are imposing on applicants

The Approval/RFE ratio is about 2:1. This seems to be quite consistent.

Here are the numbers for early February cases (500 cases on case tracker) range 5527-6027.

Total                -66

Approved       -26

RFE                  -13

Transferred     -3

Pending (Fingerprints received)  -22

So, my conclusion is that if you are not in that lucky 50%, then you have a better chance of getting approved if you got RFE than if you are in that “Fingerprints received” pool. Remember that by 18.5 months VSC  just has to complete 93% of the cases by their own admission, meaning that 7% of the cases will be outside normal processing time. So, don’t be afraid of getting an RFE!

11 hours ago, NOAHMONT said:

 

 

On February 24, 2020, we denied your Form I-751, Petition to Remove Conditions on Residence, Receipt Number SRC199008##### 

We sent you a denial notice that explains why we denied your case and your options. 

Please follow the instructions in the notice. 

The notice will explain why it was denied.

1. It could be a mistake/glitch on their side

2. Maybe you filed later than the 90-day window?

3. Or they sent you the fingerprint notice/RFE  but you did not receive it and USCIS considers your case abandoned?

4. Maybe there were mistakes on your application or your case was incomplete and they did not catch during the initial review

5. Or they consider the case fraudulent for whatever reason; for example they found a problem with your initial Green Card application.

Hard to tell.

14 hours ago, mseck8688 said:

tomorrow will be  13 month waiting after my biometric silence radio 

im going to hire a lawyer for it

 

If suing USCIS was fruitful, a lot of people would have done it. Even if you or the person involved has money, you still will be losing your precious time with attorney and USCIS. You can only sue USCIS for delays if they have not processed your case after your case is out of normal processing time, which for VSC is 17.5 month and probably will be greater in the future. Even then you should request a case inquiry from USCIS, then go through your local representative or sue USCIS. It is frustrating. For me personally the most frustrating things are how they claim that they generally process the cases in the order they receive them yet they play lottery to make their processing time more "eye-pleasing". And of course their outrageously long processing times for certain metro areas. There is no oversight on this agency, hence they show no accountability. I had a colleague who applied for H1B visa 6-7 years ago. Our employer sponsored it. After many months of silence they sent an inquiry to USCIS. USCIS claimed that they never received the case, yet they successfully cashed the check. Then they admitted that they cashed the check but lost the case. Our employer sponsored new application, applicant's position was terminated, he had to go back to his country and wait for the new application to be approved. USCIS never returned the fee from the first application. I'm sure if our employer involved their lawyers USCIS would have returned the fee, but they did nor return it voluntarily. It's small money no employer is going to involve their lawyers for it.

On 2/12/2020 at 9:42 AM, BRgirlUS said:

I recently came across this information and thought it would be interesting to share here.

 

It is another reason to NOT wait for the approval of the I-751 before applying for the citizenship. 

 

Did you know that, to be protected by law against discrimination based on national origin or citizenship status, a person has to apply for naturalization within six months of the date they first become eligible?

 

You can read about this here: https://www.justice.gov/crt/8-usc-1324b-unfair-immigration-related-employment-practices

 

 

(3) “Protected individual” defined

As used in paragraph (1), the term “protected individual” means an individual who--

(A) is a citizen or national of the United States, or

(B) is an alien who is lawfully admitted for permanent residence, is granted the status of an alien lawfully admitted for temporary residence under section 1160(a) or 1255a(a)(1) of this title, is admitted as a refugee under section 1157 of this title, or is granted asylum under section 1158 of this title; but does not include (i) an alien who fails to apply for naturalization within six months of the date the alien first becomes eligible (by virtue of period of lawful permanent residence) to apply for naturalization or, if later, within six months after November 6, 1986, and (ii) an alien who has applied on a timely basis, but has not been naturalized as a citizen within 2 years after the date of the application, unless the alien can establish that the alien is actively pursuing naturalization, except that time consumed in the Service's processing the application shall not be counted toward the 2-year period.

Thanks for sharing. What a strange rule.

1 hour ago, xillini said:

Waiting time for ROC used to be between 4-8 months in prior to 2016 if it is straightforward case, and if it was a waiver case, then it was around 12-16 months if I remember correctly (Or you can look up other immigration websites that has historical waiting time and you can opt for I 751 specifically and see how many months for decisions). 

 

In 2016, a major change has been taking a place: Trump won election, which spurred all speculating cases rushing into any immigration benefits on top of surges of N400 in election years. 

 

In addition, due to increasing numbers of OPT I 765 EAD applications as well as DACA applications, USCIS had to selectively choose what to do, and they chose, unfortunately for I 751 applicants, those two applications over I 751 with a rationale that "I 751 applicants are still entitled as a green card holder, and therefore, if needed, I 751 applicants can get 551 Stamp", whereas I 765 or DACA applicants are not entitled and in need of more emergent cases. 

 

Well, I see several cases in some metro local offices that their I 130/485 were approved 20 months after filing dates, and that only means that they will have to go through I 751. 

Well, I am sure they/we can come up with every excuse in the book, but the fact remains that USCIS is terribly mismanaged and that is the real reason of these crises. They keep increasing the fee, which is greater than the inflation BTW, but cannot ensure proper case management. They know their workload, they know their backlog they should come up with ways of solving the problem not exacerbating it. They cannot even ensure similar processing times in different boroughs of the same city (NYC), something that should be super easy to do, let alone across the country. When you track the cases every day, you realize that they are playing lottery i.e. randomly pulling the cases across the board  and deliberately leaving the cases behind to keep their 13.5-17.5 month processing time (VSC). I was checking today and some people who filed in May/June 2018, and have long passed the normal VSC's processing time are sitting in "fingerprints were received status". Yet VSC instead of attending to those cases is approving the cases that were filed in March 2019.

1 hour ago, Cryssiekins said:

Your explanation makes sense to me, but it doesn’t change the fact that ROC has always been another expense, another big filing, and another period of waiting.  
 

The original comment I made was in reference to someone who constantly complains that ROC takes so long, even though they are well within the processing times, and that there is no weekly update, as if that was ever a thing with USCIS.  You file... you wait.... you get a decision. That’s how it works.  They don’t provide a re-dates update every week bc it’s not an ongoing review process.  Anyway.

 

Hindsight is 20-20, so I’m sorry you opted for the path you did only to regret it, but I’m sure there were pros and cons of each route.  Processing times always seem to increase.  4 years ago when I first started down this K1 journey, the process of filing the i129F to date of entry to the US, was just over 6 months.  My EAD/AP took 100 days, and shortly after that my greencard was processed.  So yeah, depending on when you filed, it may have seemed like a good idea to do it when you did, so I wouldn’t feel too badly over that   I also feel is dangerous for K1’s to delay filing their adjustment solely to skip ROC bc that puts the immigrant in a terrible position after those first 90 days.  

K1 is a different situation, and probably is not worth waiting, but CR6 applicants who have steady employment/student visas can easily wait. For me there was no upside. I had to terminate my H1B visa after I got the green card.

 Some people will complain no matter what, but I think a lot people who complain are from metro areas. USCIS has failed to allocate their resources properly. It’s unacceptable that one applicant gets their n-400 or another application done on under 6 months while most applicants from backlogged metro areas have to wait 13-21months. We paid the same fee. If metro areas have more applicants than USCIS is getting more money from those applications and have to have more officers to process those cases. Likewise, if certain areas do not get that many cases than the offices from those areas have to relocated/rehired to the backlogged areas.

People in metro areas are getting increasingly tired with USCIS’s practices and especially their lack of transparency, and you see some of that frustration on those boards. 

For example, they approve an i-751 case under 10 months, yet another applicant that filed the same day and paid the same fee gets approved at 23^rd months. And the only explanation that USCIS has is that they were in different piles or were assigned to different officers. USCIS has to organize their piles accordingly, they have to impose internal deadlines to their officers so that they process the cases in reasonable amount of time and do not seat on cases for 20 months without touching it. For example VSC is possessing a case that was filed 9 months ago yet someone who filed 17 months ago is still waiting. So you do not expect the applicant who's waiting for 17 month and is seeing people approved under 10 month get frustrated? They say they process the cases in the order they receive them but do not practice it. We understand that they have more applicants and the processing times are going to increase across the board, but they have to do better job with allocating their resources evenly to avoid this terrible backlog in certain metro areas. That is all. There are i751 cases that are stuck and the only way to move them is to file n-400. Yet in NYC it takes 13.5-21 month to process the n-400. Even between different NYC boroughs USCIS processing times differ significantly and they can't even streamline that.

Their practices cost people jobs/careers, missed moments with their families etc. For example with expired green card and pending n-400, I am less likely to take a job that requires me to travel extensively or an employment that requires me to spend significant amount of time oversees.

43 minutes ago, johhny5 said:

ROC have been 12- 18 months for close to 2 years now and yes it can even go longer for some but 12 - 18 month is the AVERAGE like I said.

 

 

Dude I have no idea what you are talking about.  Being a CR6, you only get a 2 year conditional greencard.  Your conditional permanent resident’s status is valid for only two years and cannot be renewed. You must file a petition to remove conditions on permanent resident status, or risk losing your lawful status.   And if it is a lawyer who told you that, I suggest getting a new one.

 

 

If you received your conditional permanent resident status through marriage to a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident, or being admitted to the United States as a fiancé(e) of a U.S. citizen (and then marrying the U.S. citizen), your conditional permanent resident’s status is valid for only two years and cannot be renewed. You must file a petition to remove conditions on permanent resident status, or risk losing your lawful status.

https://my.uscis.gov/exploremyoptions/remove_conditional_status

 

I agree with you that you have no idea what I am talking about because you do not understand how i-485/i751 works, and that is OK (we do not have to be experts in immigration). Most CR6 applicants are already in the USA and have a valid work/student/J1 visa. They do not need to get a green card after marriage. For example they can wait 1.5-2 years after marriage to file for i-485. When they get their green card it will be the permanent green card hence no need to do ROC. And many CR6 applicants wait to get their permanent green card  and never go through ROC. What I am saying given the backlog, it was kind of stupid on my part to get the conditional green card. I could have easily waited 6-7 month and never had to deal with ROC. Based on my experience I would recommend that CR6 filers wait. ROC is costly and time consuming, why subject yourself to that if you cab easily avoid it?  You only get a conditional green card if your marriage is less than 2 years old at the time when you get a green card.

5 hours ago, johhny5 said:

 

Most people's ROC has been 12 - 18 month on average.  I don't know why you were expecting something different.

I was expecting something different because it was not 12-18 month when I made a decision to do the i-485 and even when I filed the i-751. And it can go over 18 month for some applicants. USCIS keeps adding months to their processing time. Not all, but a lot of CR6 cases are straight forward. A lot of the applicants have been in the US for many years, have a steady employment history have valid work visas, and have undergone a stringent interview process with the IO just 2 years ago.  USCIS needs some major reforms.

Again CR6 filers unlike CR1 have the choice not to go through ROC at all. Had I known that USCIS could not effectively manage the workload, I would have skipped the ROC altogether. I regret going through ROC. It was a stupid thing to do on my part.

17 minutes ago, nj59516 said:

When was your case approved? 

My case was not approved. The case directly after mine was approved 2 days ago not mine.

4 minutes ago, nj59516 said:

What was your date? When did Uscis received your case?

What was your EAC Filling date? When did Uscis received your case?

Sent it on Jan 30th 2019; NoA Date Feb 5th 2019. Biometrics done March 14th.

On 2/16/2020 at 2:33 PM, Cryssiekins said:

 So yes, it’s a burdensome filing, and time consuming, but you knew going into this process what it was going to be. 

Depends on a case. Had I known that ROC would have taken so long, I would have waited on getting my green card. I had a H1B visa and could have applied later and gotten the permanent green card. At that time USCIS did not have this terrible backlog and even the IO said "I am sorry that your card is going to be conditional, but do not worry it is a very simple process to remove the condition". Wrong. I would recommend that CR6 filers file later and get their permanent card. My 485 adjustment took 9 month. ROC is already over a year and the n-400 will take longer than 1 year since NYC is terribly backlogged. We had a very straightforward case, yet every step has been very lengthy. 

1 hour ago, nj59516 said:

Any movement on EAC Cases? It’s been almost year for me. 

EAC has lots of movement based on the case tracker. They are approving the cases in random order, however. EAC is sending lots of RFEs as well. The case after mine was approved 2 days ago, but nothing for me.