Waiver 2021

Here is my timeline as of today: 
2/2021       USCIS received I-612 application 
11/2021      I-612/I-613 case transferred to DOS
9/2022       DOS received I-612/I-613 ( I-612/I-613 appeared on the DOS website)
10/2023      The case is still pending ( 2 years and 8 months with USCIS and 13 Months at DOS).

Theoretically, you can file a Supreme Court case for the unconstitutional hardships waiver waiting times violating your constitutional rights. But it requires very substantial financial investments, maybe a decade of legal effort, and would only help those who face this challenge after you. Most of us regular people eventually go through this and even get our green cards and prefer never to forget this difficult time. On top of that, you will need evidence that your constitutional rights were violated, and DOS can always counterclaim that they are understaffed and under-budgeted, likely resulting in the case dismissal without a hearing. With DOS being quite a black box, it's hard to build an argument. There was a person who tried to collect the hardships cases and run some analysis on them; remember what happened to him? Furthermore, the strongest argument against any J-1 hardship seeker can be "Nobody forced you to take the J-1". It's not like they do not tell you that there is a 2YHR. It's just they are not clear enough about how big of a trouble it can be. Many people have no idea about J-1 2YHR until they encounter it. This is actually the biggest fallacy of the J-1: if you can get hired as a J-1, you most likely can file for the NIW green card. In summary, as an individual, you probably can't do much to change this situation as it has remained unchanged for the past 30 years. Wait it out if you can, or file mandamus if you can afford it. If you win a couple of million in the lottery and would be willing to spend it on a legal battle with DOS in the supreme court, let me know. 

Nope. The most recent waiver statistics available is for year 2021 on the website. Nothing for fiscal year 2022 and fiscal year 2023 is almost coming to a close. 

I have never hated the word (Pending) so much in my life until the this nightmare waiver case. I have been looking at this word every day for the last two years and just started my third one. 

In my case, DOS spent 5 months to upload i-612/i-613 on their system. However, when I emailed DOS, they claimed to have received these forms about two weeks after USCIS sent them. In short, It's a black box. 

Hard to say. Mine did not show up in the DOS system for 3 months and USCIS claimed to have sent it and DOS told me they did not receive anything from USCIS. Then an Emma chat agent told me that USCIS actually did not send it to DOS. I sent a complaint to Ombudsman but they could not say anything other than what USCIS told me. So I am really sorry, but it seems like they wasted 11 months of your time... 

16 months at the DOS and more than two years for the whole process. 

Unfortunately, nothing to update. Case transferred to DOS Nov. 2021. All documents recived by DOS Sept. 2022. It's been pending since then. I don't know when this horrible nightmare will be over. 

me too. I have returned to my home country due to the end of J1. My whole family is wating for the waiver and wish to come back to the US ASAP.

Unfortunately, nothing to update. Case transferred to DOS Nov. 2021. All documents recived by DOS Sept. 2022. It's been pending since then. I don't know when this horrible nightmare will be over. 

16 months at the DOS and more than two years for the whole process. 

16 months at the DOS and more than two years for the whole process. 

Me too. I hate PENDING. It’s my life now. I have few more months for my J1 to end. Been waiting for 17+ months now at DoS alone. Every single day. Every. Single. Day. I keep checking with stupid hope that the status changed. It’s almost mental. 

I have never hated the word (Pending) so much in my life until the this nightmare waiver case. I have been looking at this word every day for the last two years and just started my third one. 

I have never hated the word (Pending) so much in my life until the this nightmare waiver case. I have been looking at this word every day for the last two years and just started my third one. 

I have never hated the word (Pending) so much in my life until the this nightmare waiver case. I have been looking at this word every day for the last two years and just started my third one. 

Unfortunately, nothing to update. Case transferred to DOS Nov. 2021. All documents recived by DOS Sept. 2022. It's been pending since then. I don't know when this horrible nightmare will be over. 

This is the latest one. Go to bottom of this page. 
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-statistics/nonimmigrant-visa-statistics.html

DoS publishes this information. Someone posted it in this forum not too long ago

Good point! My question is why only hardship cases are being delayed? This category should be given similar to priority like any other categories as it's part of five bases that constitute J-1 waiver if it's established. 

Applying for J1 waiver nowadays is like gambling. Basically, just be prepare to lose everything at the end. It is insane to think about giving all the suffering that families are going through. 

It makes me feel that such delays are almost intentional to make people give up. I just started my third year of waiting on this nightmare to be over . 

Yeah, I'd really like to see that case. We got a not favorable recommendation this morning (no sponsor) and we had been waiting for 77 weeks.

With the processing time taking over 3 years between USCIS and DOS.  In my opinion it's a clear and indirect message to everyone who wants to apply for 2 years waiver, the message is that do not to apply because the suffering and the hardship will continue either way, here in the states or country of origin. I applied to USCIS back in Feb. 2021, next month will be the beginning of my third year in this painful process.  I'm still struggling to find explanation this situation.