RooDee

I am considering starting a letter-writing campaign to my senators and anyone else I can think of. Granted I have not been waiting nearly as long as some people here (who I really feel bad for because being separately from your loved ones is never easy) but enough is enough with the K3 applicants at VSC being the only ones subjected to long and inexplicable delays.

If CSC can be processing August K3s, if VSC itself can be churning out K1 approvals for people who filed in September, while transferring standalone I-130 applications (as recent as the ones filed in September) to CSC and approving May or later standalone I-130 applications by themselves, what is the reason they have been stuck working on March K3s for the last several months ? They have barely started working on April and unless they start clearing 2-3 months worth of applications in each month from now, they will never be able to catch up.

Deepak

I just saw that a July filer (standalone I-130) got approved after being transferred to CSC. This is getting to be ridiculous. It seems that the I-129F which is intended to speed things up (at least get your spouse to the US faster) is what is holding things up. Granted that the fact that they have two applications to process (for the price of one - since they waive the I-129F application fee) unlike in K1 or standalone I-130 adds more burden but why even come up with a process that is a lose-lose situation for both the applicant as well as the service center ?

Even if VSC doesn't quite catch up with CSC in the new year, I really hope they do an internal review and try to bring about more parity in the processing times for K1 vs. standalone I-130 vs. K3. It is just not fair for the K3 applicants to be singled out for the longest wait times.

Deepak

Congrats ! If I had applied in CSC I would have been approved too. But since I filed at VSC I have to wait another 5-6 months

Deepak

Granted VSC approved more K3s in December compared to the previous few months but I still don't think there is any reason to cheer for us who filed in summer/fall 08. If you take a look at the number of cases filed each month and the number approved (just going by the timeline data on VJ), you will see what the reason for the huge backlog is. When it comes to K1, VSC seems to approve about the same number of cases each month as it receives (assuming the VJ data is a proportionate sample of the total number of cases out there - it may not be totally accurate for approval data because some people forget to update their timelines after approval). But look at K3 - Feb alone had 62 cases filed, March had 48 and the rest of the months roughly 30 each. VSC has approved a whopping 10-15 cases each month for the last 5-6 months. Just in December they picked up the speed and approved close to 30. But what does that mean when it comes to reducing the backlog ? Even if they keep up the same pace, it could still be a long wait for those of us that filed in summer/fall 08. I just hope that with the transferred standalone I-130s out of the way they have the resources to approve 2 months worth of applications in each month starting Jan 09.

Deepak

Hopefully this is good news for some of us who filed there i-130 much earlier than there

i-129f. I filled my i-130 in May and my i-129f only in august. hopefully that means an approval sometime soon.

I just saw a post from another April filer who was approved yesterday. There is good news in it for you kirstg. They also filed their I-129F in August and that did not make a difference. Seems that they go by the I-130 NOA1 date only. If they keep up the same pace into the New Year you should get your approval sometime in January.

Deepak

There has been a standalone I-130 approval for someone with NOA1 in May but no K3s as far as I know. Going by the I-130 dates alone, VSC still seems to be working on March NOA1 cases (they approved just one from April yesterday). I sure do hope they pick up the pace because the difference in processing times is too glaring (CSC vs. VSC, K1 vs. K3, IR-1/CR-1 vs. K3 - in each case VSC K3 processing is behind sometimes by several months). A friend of mine who filed K1 at VSC a month or two later than me just got his approval and it sucks that I probably won't hear anything for another 4-5 months.

Deepak

Hi All

So, i have been keeping a close eye on the approvals for K3 visa's from Vermont and they really seem to be picking up the pace. I havent seen approvals on a monday for a long time and there seems to be a few. Also those approvals seem to back up the assumptions that they are going by i-130 NOA1 dates and not I-129F dates. All the past approvals seem to have i-130 NOA1's from late March, April and even may!! Hopefully this is good news for some of us who filed there i-130 much earlier than there

i-129f. I filled my i-130 in May and my i-129f only in august. hopefully that means an approval sometime soon.

Anyone else got and NOA1 for their i-130 from May??? Any more approved that havent posted???

Please give me some more hope!!!

Merry Christmas to everyone and hopfully 2009 will see speedy approvals for us all.

Good luck

Kirst

Soniasharmin,

If my post on this thread rubbed you the wrong way, let me apologize sincerely. It was not my intention to come across as a smart-###. I was merely pointing out the fact that having filed your I-130 in June 08, it was probably a little premature for you to expect an approval (given that April & May filers are still waiting). But of course I was going by the timeline you posted and had no clue that you had started this process in last June. In that case you do deserve to be approved before anyone else here. You do need to get your husband to contact his senators/congressmen right away because it is simply not right for you two to have to wait 18 months or more to be together in the US.

Deepak

CJ-G along with few June filers got approved today....All my best wishes with them for the future journey @ NVC...

To all members who were very aggressive towards me for being later filer than them, I have only TWO WORDS for them "GOD HELPS"

Best of Luck CJ-G....

Most importantly if your case is indeed a K3 one (you filed I-129F in addition to I-130), it would be the first K3 case to be transferred from VSC to CSC. Can you please confirm you filed I-129F as well (and whether it got transferred too) and of course your timeline ?

Thanks,

Deepak

Soniasharmin,

I don't mean to play spoilsport here but do remember that between now and the end of the year is the holiday season - I would expect most people at VSC to be taking time off and spending it with their families. And so I wouldn't expect much to happen in terms of approvals until people start coming back to work in the New Year. I really hope that they start tackling the backlog with renewed vigor when they come back and give us the news we have all been waiting to hear.

Also as bad as your situation may seem to be, please remember that there are a number of people who applied (especially for K3) even before you, that are still waiting. Just give it some time and I am sure you will hear something positive soon (luckily for you VSC seems to be moving on the CR-1/IR-1 cases faster than K3).

Deepak

Maybe you have the receipt number wrong for the USPS package. I wouldn't be so sure it did not reach Chicago. You may want to wait a few weeks and call USCIS if you don't have your NOA1 by then.

Deepak

Great news ! :dance: I feel happy not only for you but also the fact that VSC seems to be clearing the last of the February/March backlog and so there may be hope for those of us who filed later than you. Congratulations once again !

Deepak

The bottomline seems to be that if you filed K3 at VSC you are screwed. That is a blunt way of putting it, but consider this

filing at CSC vs. VSC - CSC approves the I-129F much faster (typically in 2-3 months) than the I-130 - which was the original intent of the K3 visa (to reduce the wait time for people who filed I-130).

filing K1 vs. K3 at VSC - for some reason VSC gives higher priority to K1 and approves it in 4-5 months.

filing only I-130 (IR-1/CR-1) vs. I-130 + I-129F (K3) at VSC - there is a likelihood of standalone I-130s getting transferred to CSC and therefore approved faster.

I just hope that all the transfers to CSC means that VSC is freeing up more resources to work on the K3 backlog. Of course that doesn't offer any comfort to the March/April filers who have already been waiting 8-9 months but hopefully at least the filers for May and beyond have a shorter wait ahead of them.

Deepak

The I-129F filing date seems irrelevant at VSC because they seem to treat the I-130 and I-129F as a single entity and process them in the order of I-130 filing date. A number of people who got approved recently filed their I-130 in March and I-129F a few months later (one even as late as August). So the bad news that even the estimated I-129F approval dates as per VJ timelines is optimistic.

I don't mean to be a spoilsport but if you are a July/August I-129F filer and the gap between your I-130 and I-129F is one month or less, you could be waiting at least 3-4 months. So it is still a little premature to be getting anxious for approval They haven't even begun working on the April I-130/May I-129F applications and so there is still a long way to go ...

Of course like everyone else I am hoping that VSC picks up the pace and rapidly clears the backlog but it is a case of hoping for the best and being prepared for the worst.

Deepak

WOW You sent you I-129F in july and already got an approval??? Thats awesome! Congrats. Does this then mean that they are going by i-130's now??? IM SO CONFUSED!!!!

Two recent cases have confirmed that VSC seems to go by the I-130 date rather than the I-129F date when it comes to determining your priority in the adjudication queue (both applications are essentially treated as one entity). It doesn't offer any hope to us July/August or later filers who sent in their I-129F within a month of I-130. Still a long wait ahead for us methinks.

Deepak

ladydaisy2003 filed I-129F in June. Does this support an often-debated view that the I-129F filing date is irrelevant and what really matters is the I-130 filing date ? They seem to process the I-130s in the order they were received and in case there is a I-129F too, it gets approved at the same time. Of course it doesn't make a difference for most of us when the two applications are filed within a month of each other.

Deepak

Yes ladydaisy2003 is a K-3 that was approved 12/2/08. Check out their posts

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...t&p=2452084

I think there's two approvals so far.

CJ Vasani we know

I also believe ladydaisy2003 is a K-3 that was approved on 12/3/08. Their timeline only reflects CR-1 but if you look at their post from yesterday, they said both their CR-1 and K-3 petitions were approved. I found an earlier post confirming that they had filed a I-129F.

I have been waiting only a few months during which the expected date of approval (as per VJ timelines) has gone from February to June 09. I just hope that for each month I wait, the expected date of approval moves farther by a few months and I can never ever catch up. Waiting is so much fun that I wouldn't want to give it up for anything else in this world.

Deepak

Hello, yes i filed in July and have been approved. Case was sent to Manila and we now have interview date of jan ,5 2009. Good to luck to us all !

My hopes were raised for a second until I noticed that this person is a K1 filer posting in the wrong forum. But this illustrates how VSC seems to be partial towards K1 for some reason (some K3 filers from February and March are still waiting). There is still a long wait ahead for us July, August and in my case September filers. I think I should just stop monitoring this forum on a daily basis because it makes it even more frustrating (given that based on current processing timelines I have at least another 5 months to go).

Deepak

I think it's a common complaint on VJ about spouses/fiance priority with many people believing their case should take priority over others due to their marital status. Not sure I entirely agree with that, as it opens up a whole can of worms. There are always many aspects to consider; for example, did the spouse-petitioner know that the wait would be longer than a K1 and decide to get married anyway? What if a fiance-petitioner has been with their partner for a lot longer than a spouse-petitioner? Should time together take priority? What about older petitioners? Should their case go first because they're not as young as others? What about a few petitioners that are more depressed than others? Bottom line, in my opinion, is that we're all waiting this horrendous amount of time, some a lot longer than others for many different reasons.

I am not expecting a higher priority cause of my marital status but I don't think it is fair that based on the current trends the K3 petitions are taking twice as long as the K1. However I don't think VSC is doing this on purpose - it's just the way they have assigned the cases to the adjudicators or something.

Deepak

Gemmie,

You are confusing the K3 with the IR-1 which is a green card. With the K3, the process after arriving in the US is quite similar to the K1. The AOS application costs another $1000 or so and there is another long wait to get the actual card. When the K3 visa category was created it was intended to alleviate the long waits involved with the IR-1 (at least the petitioner could be united with their spouse in the US a lot sooner - at least that was the original intent). But with VSC processing the K3 petitions at a snail pace, they almost make it not worth pursuing the K3 option. I might as well wait a little longer and go for the IR-1.

Deepak

Not that there is a rhyme or reason to the way that VSC operates but why do they penalize the spouses of US citizens (and not to forget the US citizen petitioners themselves) ? From a quick scan of the timeline data it seems that the I-129F petition for K1 is processed in 3-4 months on the average but one for the K3 takes 8 months or more. It almost seems that they place a higher priority on uniting US citizens with their fiancees than with their spouses. Not that I am suggesting that it should be the other way around (everyone is entitled to be united with their loved ones) but is a little more parity too much to ask for ?

There is much more parity at CSC where both types of petitions take about the same amount of time (which makes more sense) - the K3 even being slightly faster than the K1. I started the K3 process in September and I am getting a little depressed just thinking about how long of a wait I have ahead of me before I can get on with my life with my wife in the US with me and the sad thing is there is not much I can do about it. Thanks for reading this rant. Any insights if any into VSC's rationales would be appreciated.

Deepak

Thanks CJ i just tried that, hopefully i'll get something but i just find out i could send someone in my behalf if i give them a written consent. so i'm sending my mom today wish us luck

I have been following this thread out of general curiosity (I don't expect to get approved until mid next year). One thing to keep in mind while contacting your congressperson is that with the election just days away their staff may be a little preoccupied right now (let's hope not !). Just my guess though. This is not an issue with Senators whose terms are not expiring this year.

Deepak

I posted the exact same comment a few days ago. The timelines seem to be disconnected from reality and yet they are supposed to be derived from actual member timelines. I don't get it - unless of course they accidentally swapped the VSC and CSC labels. The sad part is that I actually used these timelines as a guide for several months before I started reading the forums and realizing that the K3s weren't being processed anywhere as quickly as the timelines had led me to believe.

Deepak

Could someone tell me if they know how the processing time tables on this website are generated? They don't seem to reflect the data given in the timelines.

For example, if you look here:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...ge=k3historical

it says that I-129f (k3), noa1 to noa2 at vsc takes on average 70 days. Now, when I look at all k3/vsc timelines with recent I-129f noa2s, there are no cases where that time is anywhere near 70 days, and the average is closer to 200 days. Whether I look over the last week/month/3 months, I just can't see where they get 70 days from (or anything close to 70 days).

Thanks,

David

I had the same situation. K3 (I-129F) packet received by VSC on September 12 and still no NOA1. The I-129F for K3 does not require a processing fee and so I did not even have a cashed check. I called the customer service number and explained my situation to them. They were very helpful. They asked for my name, address, date of birth, country of birth (I am the petitioner) as well as my wife's name and gave me my case number. I have given up on receiving the NOA1 but I can check my case status with the case number.

Deepak

Thanks ! I am not sure if it is helpful to project the timelines like that based on past history. Suggesting that applications from August are currently being processed gives the casual reader a wrong impression that it is only taking 2 months to process a I-129F when in reality it seems to be taking 7-8 months. I mention this because for a while I was using the VJ immigration timelines as a guide to figure out when I would be done with this process and now am quite dismayed to learn that my wait may be much longer than I had anticipated.

Deepak

What are the timelines on this page based on ? They are supposed to be based on VJ member timelines but suggest that it takes about 70 days for a I-129F (K3) to be processed at VSC. How come there are still people here that applied in March waiting for approval ?

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...ge=k3historical

This newbie would appreciate some insight.

Deepak

It's an average - based on those who have updated their timelines with the NOA2 date(s). (It's not based on those with NOA1 dates but still waiting - when those that are waiting finally get a NOA2 and update their timelines, the figure may go up.)

What are the timelines on this page based on ? They are supposed to be based on VJ member timelines but suggest that it takes about 70 days for a I-129F (K3) to be processed at VSC. How come there are still people here that applied in March waiting for approval ?

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.ph...ge=k3historical

This newbie would appreciate some insight.

Deepak