kogu

As a data point for any December filers, I received my combo EAD/AP card today, no expedite. Submitted AOS/EAD/AP on December 21, card was produced 5/14.

AOS timeline will be interesting as we moved from SF to Chicago a month ago and submitted the address change, but so far the I485 hasn’t been transferred to the Chicago field office yet. Not sure if our case gets sent to the back of the line in Chicago when the case gets transferred or if they still go by PD date.

I’m a US Citizen and traveled with my foreign K-1 visa fiancée through JFK 2-3 weeks ago for initial entry. We arrived at night and sat near the front of the plane so there were no other flights/passengers we had to beat to get to the front of the immigration line. We were in and out in 5 minutes even having to go through a secondary room where K-1 visa holders get processed. We went through the visitor line together. There was never a doubt we would line up together — reduces risk of the K-1 holder being denied entry by being together, even if chances are remote to begin with. Even though I as the US citizen was in the foreign line, there were no issues with them processing me (they even acknowledged my global entry program).
 

Customs cards no longer need to be filled out and given at POE (they don’t even give those out anymore) but the officer may ask you verbally if you’re carrying things that need to be declared. 

1 hour ago, nena_bby said:

Hello everyone!

 

Just a little confused about the next steps at the NVC. Our NOA2 date was July 23 and our case was sent over to the NVC. I called NVC about 3 weeks after NOA2 date and got the case and invoice number. When I check on CEAC I see that our case status is: AT NVC. Does anyone have an idea for how long it stays at this step? Is 'in processing' the next step, and how long does that step take?

 

Any help would be appreciated. Just trying to get an idea for how long this NVC part is going to take  

 

 

Next step is “In Transit” when NVC ships the case to your local consulate. The time it takes to go from “At NVC” to transit depends on your local consulate — they have to request the cases to be shipped by the NVC.

Some countries are backed up significantly 6-18 months (I.e cases at NVC since March 2020 or even further back remain at NVC today), for others it takes only a couple weeks. 

They’ve quickly churned through Nov 16 dates the last 10 days (~51 Nov 16 cases between 16580-17000), and they’re hitting other dates across November as well so it does seem like pace is picking up.

Nov 16 cases moving again, there’s been about 10 approvals and an RFE the last 3 days after it went quiet for about 5-6 weeks from the end of March/early April run

20 hours ago, Ollie&miriah2020 said:

hey guys! has there been anymore approvals from November? or just the ones from the 12th & 16th so far

 

There were a batch from Nov 13 that were looked at last Thursday/Friday basically in order of the WAC number (WAC21900169XX) so it’s still moving. 

2 hours ago, J&J2021 said:

Has there been any more movement in cases? 

I saw a couple RFE’s sent today for Nov filers so looks like there’s still some movement. My guess is folks with NOA1 on certain days in November (I.e. Nov 12, Nov 16) got lucky being part of an early batch of files getting reviewed but that for most of us in November, we’ll probably be waiting another 2 months or so after they get through September and October.

1 hour ago, J&D1008 said:

Ohh okay!! Yes most of these people received notices in February. But then what about the October filers. It still doesn’t make sense to skip them? And do you mean NOA-1 or NOA-2? Still we knew from USCIS that the lockbox  delay would not affect the NOA-1 and that that the notice date was irrelevant but to count the received date as the NOA-1. I filed in January and didn’t receive my notice until March. Still I knew that my NOA-1 was January not March. 

Agreed, makes no sense at all that they skipped a large portion of the September filers and basically all of October. And yep, I meant NOA1 in my first sentence. While the lockbox said they would base it off the received date, November filers had the situation where probably 15-20% of people got their NOA-1 within a month and the rest got theirs 3 months later, so given that none of us have any clue how they allocate the batches of cases to the reviewers,  there was uncertainty when it came to the real world of whether they would come across a stack of cases from December first over those received in February. At the end of the day, it makes no sense that Nov filers for specific days are getting the NOA2 already so the whole idea that there’s a hard rule that it’s based off received date is thrown out the window anyways!

36 minutes ago, J&D1008 said:

WAC2190029948

WAC2190029949

WAC2190029954

WAC2190029955

WAC2190029961

WAC2190029980

WAC2190029983

WAC2190029989

WAC2190029991

WAC2190029993

WAC2190029995

WAC2190029997

WAC2190029999

WAC2190030003

WAC2190030004

WAC2190030111

WAC2190030297

WAC2190030298

WAC2190030300

WAC2190030599

These are the November 12th NOA-1 approvals. Not sure if they are going off WAC number because September WACs start with WAC209 then switches to WAC219 around September 28th. And all WACs go in order by received date.  September filers weren’t delayed at the lockbox. That started for our end of October/ November filers. Who knows what they are doing. It really just seems like someone grabbed this off the pile. Someone said in another discussion group ( I think December or January filers) that someone on the Facebook K1 group posted that they received there NOA2 and they were a November filer. No expedited case. They even took a screenshot of it. 

There were some November filers who got their NOA2 within a month in December while others who submitted on the same day got theirs in late Jan or even February. So their WAC number is 14,000 different even though the “received date” may have been the same since the WAC is based off when they processed the NOA1 (i.e. the notice date). But the good news for those who had to wait an extra month or two for the NOA1 is that it seems to be that they are truly going off the received date as the WAC numbers I was looking at were from November filers with December approvals, which fall in the range of WAC2190016800-17000. I’m assuming the WAC numbers you provided above are for people who received their NOA1 notice around Jan/Feb?

There’s a handful of I-129F from the mid November receipt date timeframe that have been approved the past couple days if scanning through some case ranges. I think these are for the WAC’s where “Notice Date” was in mid December so this is going to be an interesting test of whether the delay in the NOA1 for many folks impacts when your case gets reviewed because they might be going off the WAC number rather than the received date. 

On 12/18/2020 at 5:25 PM, kogu said:

As a datapoint, I mailed my I-129F on Nov 13 and it was delivered to the Dallas Lockbox on Nov 16. I finally just saw the $535 filing fee charged on my account so I guess that means the NOA1 should be coming fairly soon.

This will frustrate those who filed before me and I hope things speed up for everyone — as a follow up on this, I just got home after a 3 week trip overseas to spend time with my fiancée and came home to the NOA1 with a notice date of Dec 18. Didn’t receive a text or email so I was out of the loop on status besides having seen my CC get charged the same day as the notice date on my NOA1 of Dec 18, CA service center. So 1 month after delivery which appears to be on the faster range these days. 

As a datapoint, I mailed my I-129F on Nov 13 and it was delivered to the Dallas Lockbox on Nov 16. I finally just saw the $535 filing fee charged on my account so I guess that means the NOA1 should be coming fairly soon.