Blob18

It is true that they don't promise a certain time frame, but they do represent their time frame as being the approximate average.
Since most petitions are now running 5 1/2 to 6 1/2 months, the approximate average is 6 months, not the 5 months they claim it to be.
Therefore, their published information is false and misleading.
As to the man who hung up on you, he needs to be fired immediately. It is clear that he is not mature enough to handle a position involving customer contact.

Then the USCIS website is blatantly misleading or presenting false information.
https://egov.uscis.g...TimesDisplay.do
Here is their information copied and pasted from their site:
"If the office is processing a particular type of application in less time than our processing goal, you will see the processing times expressed in months (for example, if the office is processing naturalization applications in less than our 5 month goal, the processing time will state "Five Months"). However, if that office is taking longer than our processing goal to handle the form type in question, you will see the filing date (e.g., "April 10, 2003") of the last case we processed on the date the website chart was last updated. The charts are updated on or about the 15th day of each month."
"I-129F Petition for Alien Fiance(e) K-1/K-2 - Not yet married - fiance and/or dependent child 5 Months"
Please explain the above 2 pieces of information to me because when I read it over and over, since it says "5 Months", it sounds to me that they are still meeting their time window goal. If they're not meeting their goal, they would write an exact date. Otherwise, since they last updated their table on November 30, 2010, basically their website is out-of-date and presents misleading or false information, and we should not trust their site at all.

Yeah - ok, we all know the waiting sucks, and I'm SO thankful to have found VJ, because only the people here understand what I am going through. Each person deals with the waiting differently, and that is what makes us DIFFERENT. So let us freak out, let us complain about VSC and USCIS and whoever else we feel like complaining.
Stop attacking the people who come here to vent their frustrations with the system. Personally I am sick and tired of waiting, and it doesn't matter how many times people tell me to suck it up and wait, I am still going to blame VSC for the worst 5 months of my life.
I am stressed out, can't sleep, having enough problems as it is, so yeah, I'm gonna log on the VJ, check that my timeline has yet again been pushed back, see that no one has been approved my VSC today and HELL YEAH I'm gonna get pissed off about it. I KNOW is not "accurate" information, but its a pretty good sample in my opinion.
So for all you people who already have your NOA2 and got it in less than 5 months, and for all of you super strong people who can wait for your approval forever, please, just please, let us come in here and complain, if that will make us feel better.

Frontload it, it can't hurt. Just organize the packet so it is easy for USCIS to find what they need to.
Problem with bringing more evidence to the interview is that many embassy persons doing the interviews don't even bother to look at any evidence the person has brought (and approve)or they deny the person for some reason. A lot of the time, the person has evidence with them that would make the reason they were denied 'untrue' but they (embassy staff)doesn't want it. (Read numerous instances of this on VJ)
This is why people recommend you frontload, even if it isn't a high fraud country. Whatever you include in the packet to USCIS has to be accepted by the embassy.
Short Version: Better safe than sorry. Frontloading doesn't hurt.

Yea keep paying your taxes and quit your bitching. How dare you expect a reasonable processing time frame when there are millions of illegals that they need to provide social services for first. Be grateful for mediocrity you schmuck who decided to do things the legal way.

Tell yourself that in 3 weeks Oh and Federal Agencies are "open" on weekends. People can choose to work on them depending on their schedule. It's overtime pay.

Been a lot of bad weather up there in the last week or so. Now in the past week of this weather, U.S. government has had offices closed for a day there. VSC was not closed. Only thing I can realistically think of as to why they would have slowed down. Now,based on the new data USCIS listed recently, VSC has about 33,000 petitions to go through (k-1), which means they are backlogged majorly.
VSC K-1s from August-November 2010: http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=6&office=6&charttype=1
Recieved: 7,116 new K-1 petitions filed (Blue)
Awaiting Customer Action (RFE I guess): 1,506 (grey line)
Awaiting Action (IE: Have a human look at them): 32,248 Petitions (yellow line)
Completions: 5,226 (Green Bar)
Not very good looking statistics if you ask me.
Also just to highlight: https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processingTimesDisplay.do
"If the office is processing a particular type of application in less time than our processing goal, you will see the processing times expressed in months (for example, if the office is processing naturalization applications in less than our 5 month goal, the processing time will state “Five Months”). However, if that office is taking longer than our processing goal to handle the form type in question, you will see the filing date (e.g., “April 10, 2003”) of the last case we processed on the date the website chart was last updated. The charts are updated on or about the 15th day of each month."
Field Office Processing Dates for Vermont Service Center as of: November 30, 2010
I-129F Petition for Alien Fiance(e) K-1/K-2 - Not yet married - fiance and/or dependent child 5 Months
Based on their wording they are processing I-129Fs under the 5 month goal as of November 30th, 2010. BS.

It is good to read that you finally agree with me. That site will always say 5 Months, just to make them look good. Unfortunately, it is not true. We are well passed our 5 month goal for a whole slew of "customers". I am just taking it day by day now. Everything will be fine and one day I will walk out to grab my mail and my letter will be there. Other than that, I gave up on checking USCIS.gov and habitually checking this site for others approvals, because in all honesty, someone elses approval means nothing to yours.

Been a lot of bad weather up there in the last week or so. Now in the past week of this weather, U.S. government has had offices closed for a day there. VSC was not closed. Only thing I can realistically think of as to why they would have slowed down. Now,based on the new data USCIS listed recently, VSC has about 33,000 petitions to go through (k-1), which means they are backlogged majorly.
VSC K-1s from August-November 2010: http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=6&office=6&charttype=1
Recieved: 7,116 new K-1 petitions filed (Blue)
Awaiting Customer Action (RFE I guess): 1,506 (grey line)
Awaiting Action (IE: Have a human look at them): 32,248 Petitions (yellow line)
Completions: 5,226 (Green Bar)
Not very good looking statistics if you ask me.
Also just to highlight: https://egov.uscis.gov/cris/processingTimesDisplay.do
"If the office is processing a particular type of application in less time than our processing goal, you will see the processing times expressed in months (for example, if the office is processing naturalization applications in less than our 5 month goal, the processing time will state “Five Months”). However, if that office is taking longer than our processing goal to handle the form type in question, you will see the filing date (e.g., “April 10, 2003”) of the last case we processed on the date the website chart was last updated. The charts are updated on or about the 15th day of each month."
Field Office Processing Dates for Vermont Service Center as of: November 30, 2010
I-129F Petition for Alien Fiance(e) K-1/K-2 - Not yet married - fiance and/or dependent child 5 Months
Based on their wording they are processing I-129Fs under the 5 month goal as of November 30th, 2010. BS.

In other words, we are getting surcharged for the privilege of getting pushed to the back of the line so a specific ethnic group can get priority service.
This would be the same as if blacks in the South in the 1950s were surcharged to ride in the back of the bus so white people could get reduced fare.
I do not fault the Haitian poster here for getting his expedite. He has a responsibility to his fiance to get her here in the minimum possible amount of time, and if he is given an edge, he does not have the luxury of deciding that the edge is not morally correct. The edge was there, and whether it was fair or not, he used it.
I won't draw any conclusions about what is happening lately because a bunch of people will jump down my throat just like they did in another thread yesterday because I did not write what they wanted to read. So draw your own conclusions from the e-mail I pasted into my earlier post, what the director said, and the fact that both VSC and CSC have appeared to grid to a halt on I129f petitions after hoping that two weeks of a little action would shut us up for a while.

Terms of Service, Read it. Also, use the ignore feature if you don't like his posts.
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On topic, while he may voice his opinion a lot, that is his right and choice. He is also a citizen of the United States and is allowed to not be satisfied with the way a federal agency, which by design is there to serve the citizens of said country, handles it's business.
Some of us handle this unknown in different ways. Some of us are happy to sit back and not be given definitive dates as to when our petition will be filed, some of us are not. To each his own. But again, it is our right as U.S. citizens to question the government when it fails us, and frankly, they are failing in their duties as of now based on the letter from USCUS director to Congress for the budget (posted on other forum).
Remember, "Charity starts at the home". The U.S. government should learn this.
It may take longer than the posted time, but if you just make yourself (mentally) aim for 5-6.5 months for a NOA2, you won't be angered as much when 5 months come and go.

THAT is the problem. I can wait for something when I know the date it will happen on. That is how I live, and that is the principle around which I built my life.
When we are in the interview stage, I get a date. It will be about two months into the future, but I will have an exact date.
When the interview is over, Elena gets her visa in two weeks. Again, we have a date.
The next step, the plane trip to New York, involves an exact date that Elena and I select.
But this, maybe in 5 months, maybe in 6, maybe in 7, maybe in who knows, is absolutely maddening. Never in my life have I felt so totally out of control. Even when I was in college, spending thousands of dollars each year on tuition and making maybe $5,000.00 a year over the summer vacations, I had a date by which I would have my degree. It was four years into the future, but it was a date.
But now there is no date and therefore no control, and it is driving me to the brink of insanity. I cannot function that way. I need control.

We first met in person after 5 months, spent one week together then it was ANOTHER 5 months before we saw each other again. We then spent almost 3 months together and I arrived back in the UK 3 days ago. Although I am seeing him again Valentines week, this has been the most difficult goodbye because we got to see what it was like to be a real couple every day, to wake up together, meet each others friends and family and spend just about every waking moment together. To go from that to being apart again is breaking our hearts. Sometimes it hurts so much you wonder how you are ever going to get through it.
Just keep the communication going, no one who hasn't gone through this realises how hard it really is, but it takes a very special couple to do it. You know if you an get through this the chances of you having a very happy marriage are high. Take it one day at a time and set aside quality time together. Watch movies in sync over the webcam, text and talk on the phone. You will get through this.
Six months is not a lot in the great scheme of things, but it feels like a life time I know. Just remember it will all be worth it in the end. Keep your chin up. Jade

You are so so so wrong with what I bolded. USCIS is an agency within the government. Specifically it is under the Department of Homeland Security. All these agencies are funded by the US government, specifically, the Senators and Congressman which they "could care less about" are what give them their budget and money to operate. If they annoy Senators and Congressman enough, especially those on the committee's that specifically handle budgeting and funding, they could have their budget cut, which no federal agency wants at all. Trust me, it happens all the time and it will happen here if enough people complain and the Congress notices a trend.
Holding the government accountable for it's lack of action is what the United States is all about. It is why we have freedom of speech among other rights. Everyone here who has been passed over by the stated process time should indeed call USCIS, Call their Senators and Congressman as it brings attention to them, especially when contacting Congressman and Senators. You can't fix a problem if those who have the ability to fix it arent aware of it.

We don't have many weapons against USCIS, but one of the better ones is Congressional contact. You can't use it until 5 months to the day, but you should use it on that day. While your Congress Member cannot force USCIS to do anything, Congressional contact is an administrative hassle for USCIS, so it does have an attack value to it.
We are the only group with this weapon. Haitian refugees, foreign workers, and other non-citizens do not have this weapon. And if enough of us use it to create a big enough hassle for USCIS, they will get the message that it is in their interests to process our petitions on time (i.e. no later than the 5 month mark).
Please do not get jostled by the people here who already completed their journey and forgot what it was like to endure this horrible wait. Advice like "just withdraw your petition" is about as useful as a cigarette machine in a lung cancer ward. Surely you came here for something better.

^This
Also to add to that, I went through the K1 visa timelines (note: a lot are not updated etc + VJ represents a small number of filers, but all things considered...). Sorted by NOA2 date.
Between Oct.3-Dec.26 VSC approved 49 Petitions for VJers. Most of those were July with a few May and June in there. Based on USCIS numbers VSC recieved 5,489 new petitions between August-October. If the numbers were the same, the VSC then recieved around 7,000-8,000 new I-129F petitions from August-December.
They literally took almost every staff member off of I-129Fs to do the TPS, Work Visas, all the while loads of K-1s are piling up.
The only 'good' news if you want to call it that is between Dec.26-Jan.6, VSC has approved of 14 VJer NOA2s. That is just in 2 weeks, compared to 49 in 11 weeks (Oct 3. to Dec. 25). So VSC seems to have shifted resources over to I-129F petitions again, though frankly they should have every staff member there focusing on them and getting July, August, and September completed asap.
NOTE: All stats from VJ are based on updated/filled in timelines so there is room for error. Also VJ represents a small, yet good size, portion of all I-129Fs filed.

Seeing a lot of petitions...well more than november and half of december combine being approved lately. So far 4 or 5 were approved before the new year in the final week of December and 1 that we know of was approved yesterday.
It 'looks' like VSC might be picking up...maybe...hopefully

Nonsense.. no one has a problem going through immigration.. its the fact the whole system is broken and needs fixed.. As ive said before if I pay $455 I don't think its unreasonable to expect a response in a timely manner.. When we've called USCIS we have been downright lied to on many occasions.. please don't be patronising about your suggestion to "be my guest and go live there". Im sure you are aware your country is built on "immigrants". This whole thread is getting ridiculous.. For me VJ as a place for support not to start some political debate.. I hope everyone of us gets everything resolved soon..

Here is VSC + some:
We strive to provide quality service to our customers. If we have not lived up to this commitment, we would like to know. If we have met or exceeded your expectations, please let us know that as well. To comment on the services provided at this office, please write to the Center Director, at:
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
P.O. Box 1000
Saint Albans, Vermont 05479.
Note in the heading of the letter and on the envelope: "FOR THE PERSONAL ATTENTION OF THE DIRECTOR."
If you feel you were mistreated by a USCIS employee, or wish to make a complaint of misconduct by a USCIS employee, you may write to the Center Director, or write directly to the:
Director, Office of Internal Audit
425 Eye Street, NW
Room 3260
Washington, DC 20536
Please be specific and reference specific case numbers and dates to provide the best way for us to understand and assess your complaint.

Nobody got bashed. I disagree with you. If you can't deal with being disagreed with, nobody is forcing you to post.
It is my opinion that you are at a place in your immigration learning curve where you would be better served by reading, than posting opinions.

I agree with TheLastPetitioner. In the end, all this arguing and bickering isn't going to make this process any faster. Unfortunately it is what it is. For now, TPS applicants should be getting quicker responses while I-129F/I-130 bases petitions will have to wait. JoyDee, I see that you filed your petition in November. The TPS thing is only going to make you wait another 4-5 months so if you are comfortable with that, more power to you
As far as the Constitution issue that was brought up. This one really baffles me. JoyDee, when I read your interpretation about the Constitution I had to step away and just go outside my house for a few minutes and just shake my head in disappointment. I just have to say this: Come on man!!!! Are you kidding me???
Okay. Let me quote a few lines from the Constitution:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
I bolded the word "People" in order to draw attention to the next quote from Article I, Section 2 from the Constitution:
"The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature."
Who elects members into the House of Representatives? The "People" do. Last time I checked, only US Citizens are allowed to vote in Congressional/Presidential elections. In other words "People" = US Citizens.....
Listen guys, I don't want to get off topic here.
As far as the TPS thing goes, you can either chose to wait (preferred but the toughest method) or you can complain (not preferred but can produce results as happened in my case). I know this is hard. My fiance's interview is tomorrow and I am nervous
Be strong and show the USCIS you have nerves of steel. Good luck everybody

They're working on those damn Temp. Protective Status visas at the moment since they had a major backlog on them. So...hopefully once they finish or are almost finished doing those, they get back onto the K-1 Petitions.
From here: http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=21&office=6&charttype=1
Looks like they had 112,000 I-821 (TPS) petitions in September, 114,000 in August. Says on their site they have done 84,000 so far in September and 70,000 in August...hopefully they will be caught up enough within a week or so to get back to pumping out I-129Fs because they are behind on those now.
Btw, seems I-821s have a 'Finish/approval goal' of 3 months, which might be why they moved onto them.

I agree 100% with you. This is exactly why I decided to complain to my Congressman and the USCIS over and over until I got what I wanted. I will admit that I was pre-mature and very excessive with my inquiries. If I had not done what I did, the USCIS Adjudicator I spoke with said that I could have waited until Halloween this year to get my NOA2! I started to hear the rumors about the USCIS being flooded with those TPS applications and I refused to be thrown to the back of the pack for that.
WE are the US Citizens. WE are the taxpayers. WE have the rights. TPS applicants pay $50 for a 3 month wait. I-129F applicants pay $455 for a 5 month wait. The USCIS expects us to pay 4x as much.....and wait longer for service?? Who are they kidding?
My advise for Other people: Wait until the exact day that you hit your 5 month mark. Once you hit it, go full force and hold them accountable to that so called 5 month mark that they publish on their website.

Is it my problem that a hurricane hit them after an earthquake? Is it my problem that their government was given over a billion dollars which 'disappeared'?
No it is not. As others have said Charity starts at home. Take care of your own first. Like EVERY OTHER COUNTRY does.
Why do we need to give them TPS? Why not Mexico? Why not Cuba? Why not the countless countries of South America?
Would you be willing to give up your job for one of them? Let them stay in your home? Give them your food and money? If not, don't go judging others as less compassionate.
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Also these people have not been waiting over a year, the processing time for a TPS is 3 months. They have been getting loads of these TPS's ever since the earthquake and hurricane. Checking the VSC trend chart on USCIS you can see a HUGE spike in those filed in August and September. Which is what they are focusing on right now.
It's all the same with everyone whos finished the journey. They somehow 'forget' the long waits and problems they themselves had and feel like the process went by so quickly. Most of them probably didn't even have their process put on hold nor did their service center not come to a complete stop on K-1s

That's your 'friends' problem (love how everyone has a 'friend' when they argue a point) if he/she even exists.
Funny thing though, you're here whining about people whining, priceless.
If you don't have anything to contribute that would be of some help to the original purpose of the thread, don't bother posting rude #######.