mandp

I have a print copy in front of me- the story is printed just below the fold on the front page of Washington Post and continues on A6.

What's strange is that the article focuses on VisaJourney website (as if the existence of this site is newsworthy ) as opposed to talking mainly about the recent slowdown in the process, about people being forced to wait 5 months and more lately just to get their paperwork stamped and passed along by a bean counter. Things have slowed way down and people are languishing here away from their fiances for month after month- That's the news, not the fact that some people vent about it online! (Notice even the title of the article itself-- this whole thing is spun into a 'human interest' story instead of highlighting a real issue).

And as others mentioned, it seems they closed down the comments section. People should have copied the comments here, would've been nice to see.

Nice job to US Wendy for her efforts at getting this to the press!

Yes there must be something special about Cuba (not sure why) fiancees from other communist countries get the other sort of special treatment, very long processing times (9 + months) and alot of denials, China and Vietnam for example

I would conjecture that it's because the 100,000s of Cubans who came to the U.S. post-1959 were mostly the former ruling and upper/middle classes of Cuba in the Batista days, and their descendants. Now, if Castro's communist system were to fall in the future, it would presumably be many of these people who would return to lead Cuba again. So, giving preferential treatment to Cuban-Americans in exile is, at the same time, giving preferential treatment to the future economic-political ruling class of Cuba. An investment in future diplomatic relations one might say. That's what the U.S. government has thought for decades. Maybe it's unreasonable to still think that almost 50 years after the cuban revolution.

The above does not apply very much if at all to other communist countries (Vietnam, China), so our government is not so eager to help them. Heck, we're pretty close friends with China and Vietnam these days.

Cuban fiancé(e)s are treated differently as a political gesture against the communist regime there

Treating Cuba this way in 2007 (almost two decades after international communism crumbled and fell) is just silly and makes us come off as belligerent "bad guys" who want to crush a small nation just because it wants self-determination.

Cold War is long over, let's mend the fences. Why not? We are good friends with Vietnam, and Vietnamese killed 60,000 Americans in the war.

So let me get this straight. People are not protesting against the violence inflicted by the six towards one guy but because they believe they are being unfairly punished..

Yeah, what a world. A group of thugs beat a lone boy half to death in a racist hate crime, and the group of thugs are somehow the "victims"? This is the opposite sort of protest that one would expect based on all logic. If violent racist hate crime occurs, one would think the victim's group would protest at what's going on, not the attackers'!

It bears mention that the ringleader of the attacking group of six, Michael Bell (17), has no less than four previous convictions for violent crimes. Four violence convictions already before age 18...

Something that is really bothering me about all this, is that a lot of the signs on the march said "free the Jena 6". The signs should have said something else, like "be consistent with how you deal with people regardless of race"(I know, long sign, lol) or "punish equally". They should not free people who beat someone up just because someone says so.

Good point. A lot of those protesters are simply Al-Sharpton-style racial-advocates..i.e. they don't care too much about equality under the law, they just want lenient treatment for one of their own. You can bet your next paycheck that if the races were reversed in the attack, these same people would be furiously arguing the opposite of what they are now, in favor of attempted murder charges and federal 'hate-crime' charges against the hypothetical 6 whites.

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You got an NOA2 in August, just 41 days from NOA1? Wow, how did this happen!? You are very lucky

The reason for the slowdown has been the huge increase in H1B visa applications. They were received in April. The number submitted was far higher than usual, and congress increased the quota quite a bit over previous years. (A tangential question is Why did they do this. I don't know the answer to that). By now the massive backlog of those should finally be clearing up and the adjudicators can get back to picking up crates of our stuff again, instead of mostly sifting through crates of those darn H1B's.

For this reason I predict September will see a solidly increased rate of NOA2s (Wishful thinking? Yes of course it is! )

Well if nothing else, we know that they are capable of turning out NOA2s real fast when they want/need to (see July/August 2006).

And if there was ever a time they "needed" to, it's now. Lots of people have been waiting over 100 days without a word, for what should a simple stamp of approval and forwarding on to the next step (or an RFE).

2006 NOA2s issued by VSC to VJ members as reported in timelines:

January: 26

February: 40

March: 36

April: 30

May: 5

June: 2

July: 50

August: 67

September: 39

October: 44

November: 24

December: 31

Notice the BIG slowdown in May and June 2006. VSC had a reputation of turning out NOA2s in under 30 days, and they typically did this throughout 2006, with exception of the massive slowdown in May and June that you see there. During that period it seems likely that almost all the people working on I-129f adjudication were transfered to other work. Whatever the other big important workload was, eventually eased up, and a sufficient number of workers were again reassigned to I-129f duty in July. Shortly following were massive numbers of approvals very quickly (July/August '06 saw an incredible 13 VJ members approved per week [Mon-Fri]--This August [2007] it's been only a little over 3 approvals per week...), and the backlog cleared up quickly. By September 2006 NOA2s were typically going out in under 30 days once again.

The point is this: These occasional slow-downs (like the one we are in now) ARE historically precedented. And they are followed by floods of NOA2s.

So be happy everyone, for the September (and October) tidal wave of NOA2s is near at hand!

Check this out:

2006 NOA2s issued by VSC to VJ members

January: 26

February: 40

March: 36

April: 30

May: 5

June: 2

July: 50

August: 67

September: 39

October: 44

November: 24

December: 31

Notice the BIG slowdown in May and June 2006. VSC had a reputation of turning out NOA2s in under 30 days, and they typically did this throughout 2006, with exception of the massive slowdown in May and June that you see there, during which time it seems likely that almost all the I-129f adjudicators were transfered to other work. Whatever other big workload it was eventually eased up, and a sufficient number of workers were again reassigned to I-129f duty in July. Shortly following were massive numbers of approvals very quickly (July/August '06 saw an incredible 13 VJ members approved per week [Mon-Fri]--This August [2007] it's been only a little over 3 approvals per week...), and the backlog cleared up quickly. By September 2006 NOA2s were typically going out in under 30 days once again.

The point is this: These occasional slow-downs (like the one we are in now) ARE historically precedented. And they are followed by floods of NOA2s

So be happy everyone, for the September (and October) tidal wave of NOA2s is near at hand!

2007 NOA2s issued by VSC to VJ members. Notice the same slowdown in June as last year.

January: 35

February: 24

March: 40

April: 29

May: 26

June: 6

July: 19

August: 17

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The most recent NOA2s that CSC has issued have been on April and early-mid May NOA1s. See here: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...t&p=1154226 (Post #187). The latest NOA1 issue date to get an NOA2 is 5/24/07.

You have an NOA1 date of May 31? So you can expect yours within a week or two, in all likelihood.

A poster here (RosemarieL) said in another thread that from April, VSC was flooded with "H1B" work visas, and they've had a long backlog of those to deal with. They were mandated from above as having priority over family-visas, so as a result only a small number of workers were assigned to approving K visas. Now that the H1B's should be all but done, things will begin to dramatically pick up in September for us. Maybe.

RosemarieL, What is an H1B application, out of curiosity?

Does anyone know if Summer 2006, 2005 etc also had these slow downs, but the pace picked up once September came around and summer came to an end?

Ours began in mid September then it creeped in to October. Was October 16th recently, then it went to the 22nd, now it's sitting at November 2nd.

Good God, that's four and a half months from your NOA1!

I read somewhere that they had a goal of processing and adjudicating I-129f's within 30 days..not 130 days

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Does a touch really mean "you are on your way"?

We got our NOA1 issued on August 16th visa VSC.

Labor Day is only a week away now, meaning summer's about over meaning vacations are over. Back to work now, USCIS workers and start moving us through in weeks not months

Alright, I gave up and contacted my own bank in America asking for advice. They're sending me a cashier's check for the I-129f fee by Fed Ex, at the cost of $40 to me.

"The curse of success". Germany is so modern that they literally dont even do paper money transactions anymore, as I found out through bitter experience. If I had wanted to electronically transfer the money to the U.S. there wouldve been no problem.

I assume it's better if you DO file for a K1 before coming here, since that shows that you're trying to follow the rules? (waiting until she was here had crossed my mind, since it's easier to fill out the paperwork together, but I'll gladly pay for the FedEx if it will help)

Nope, they then know she has immigrant intent, eventually.

This is exactly what happened with my fiancee, who is from Estonia. We arranged for the interview, I paid the $100 fee, she went in, and they promptly denied her a visitor's visa, which quite upset her. I went in that afternoon when the embassy re-opened from its (oh-so-typical-of-government) two-hour lunch break in which no one can go in and nothing gets done, and inquired why she had been denied. The impression I got from my 15 minute conversation with the man who conducted the interview was that he denied her the visitor's visa because they knew we were already planning to file for K1--that she "already has a boyfriend in the US", so there was known intent to stay, albeit later on. The man was also apparently not impressed that her job didnt pay as much as his did, this also hurt. No sympathy at all, only a cold rejection, and no way to talk my way out of it.

The U.S. embassy in Tallinn (Estonia) is known for being really harsh on these matters. I must say that I didn't really believe what people said about it myself until I had personal experience with it. I expect Finland is a lot better/easier, because it was never a part of the USSR, and has few Russians.

It's very hard for Estonians to get a visitor visa to the USA. I know from experience... I dont know why theyre such jerks at the embassy there about it.

Ok, Deutsche Bank couldnt help me, Citibank couldnt help me without having an account (opening one requires 2,500€ permanent), and even then it's unclear what they could do. American Express told me they dont do money orders anymore, and that they're "not an American company anymore"--Very bizarre. I tried asking for advice everywhere, but the one woman at American Express said "there is nowhere in Germany to get a money-order anymore". Western Union doesnt help (apparently Western Union and American Express are the same company now anyway)...

I'm all out of ideas, and am very sad that I will have to wait two+ weeks to when I get back to the U.S. just to file. Two weeks wasted.

GrenadianCrix, what was the bank that you used to get the bank draft. You said it was a major international bank, maybe it might be here too. I'm willing to give it a shot.

Did you call around to the banks? If there is an international bank there, they may be able to do it. I am also abroad and had the Bank draft written in US dollars. it worked just fine.

No one seems to want to issue me a money-order over here. I called USCIS help line and the woman told me to go to a western union and that they could do it. Just got back from there, and they said they dont do money orders anymore. I am hesitant to go to a German bank for fear of problems at the USCIS side and them sending the whole thing back to me, esp. if the form is in German, for example. I checked with one and they couldnt help me unless I had an account there. I will try another. ...

The woman last night on the phone also mentioned something about the money must be from a U.S. source(?)/bank. Maybe I misheard this.

If anyone can reply to this question, please do it here, as someone else had the same question today, and this thread has wandered from its original intent: http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=80826

I am having a little difficulty finding a source to get some sort of international money order in U.S. dollars. I am in Berlin, Germany. Anyone have any ideas, or maybe from experience on how to do this.

I really don't want to submit a money order that the government will reject and send back to me, extending the process by weeks

I'm in the exact same problem in Berlin. I dont want to do anything wrong to have them reject the application, and make the long process even longer

American Express has an office here but they apparently dont do money orders anymore since end of '06, if I understood the man correctly over the phone.

Please help! Where can I get a money order in U.S. dollars that USCIS will accept.

Thanks YuAndDan, that's a great relief. Just for clarity, the U.S. citizen is the "petitioner", correct?