Jun&Scheillo

Thank you everyone for all your best wishes !! I still can't believe it happened today. When it happens, it feels like a rush going over your entire body. Several hours later, it's still there! I only hope things begin to move faster now. My fiancee and I have a lot of preparation ahead of us. She is very excited. But I would rather work and make progress toward our goal than sit around forever like we were doing. Thank you God !! I wish everyone else and their God the same victory as God allowed us to share in His wealth today.

please update your timeline

thks

Yeah I'm so glad to see that I'm not the only one who noticed that the VSC seemed to be on greased lighting. I sure hope it stays this way for a few more weeks maybe I can get mine in the 5 months

Friend, we have passed the TPS desert. There is no reason why Vermont should not catch up and finally do away with the five months curse.

; hahaha!!

Are they working on October cases yet?

I think you are pushing it just a little too much, but you know what? If Vermont keeps up that way, in two weeks I may have a yes for your question.

If we can confirm 15 approvals from VJ today, howmany have they really approved outside of VJ altogether?

I have to admit that yesterday Jan. 26 was a day to remmember for all vermont filers. It was like the Center had suddenly woke up from the dead... I hope it's for good this time. The approved NOA2s were way overdue, it was about time, and I don't see why we're giving them credit for August when they're still not done with July.

USCIS is using the act to give all Haitians, even illegal aliens, broad based priority service, very much at the expense of fee paying United States citizens and their fiancés. Haitian citizens who are already here legally are safe and secure and in no need of any sort of priority

Believe me, I understand what you're going through and I truely back you up for trying to shake things up and get answers.However, this statement is way off base of truth. When you use the word "all" in a statement, be more careful nex time.

Also, when you're dealing with frustration be careful what comes out of your mouth or in this case what you are writing. You should not let frustration get ahead of your ability to think.

Now, my question to you is, where did you get the information that the USCIS gave all Haitians anything?

I saw Vermont Service Center are processing Aug 7th NOA1s, although I heard around that many people who called the office were informed they are processing July 24th.

Is there anybody who's aware of any August NOA1 being approved yet?

Let see!! when I filed back in early October, Vermont was working on June filers. Today (three months later) they claim to be working on July 24th to be exact. So much progress wouldn't you say? I'm just not sure which direction they're headed. They certainly are not going foward. As far as August, they must be processing NOA1s and not NOA2s as you mentioned.

We were all under the impression that the long delays were due to TPS. We believed they were concentrating on a large number of humanitarian files at Vermont. If they are not currently working on TPS, what is the problem? Why can't they catch up? could it be that the TPS has not phased out yet? The last couple of approved NOA2s were sorry! I am happy for the filers, but i believe one them waited for 6 1/2 months!!! That was not 'good news'...that was just 'news'

I expect approvals to come thru like hot cakes!!! not some sorry overdue approvals!

I have been reading some great news concerning NOA2s since the past week. Before I get my hopes up, i'd like to check with you guys first.

Is this really the relief we've all been waiting for?

Other than the VJ website where we filers share our thoughts during this journey. I really have some things on my chest that I would like to share with geniuses that run the USCIS. Apparently, they don't care to accept our evaluations and I feel that they already know what we think of them.

Professionalism, in my book, is another way of using the word 'Honor'. without honor, we the human kind have no responsibility to strive for anything good. A man with no honor will say something today and forgets before sun goes down, simply because he does not have will to keep his word. Same for a Company or an Institution of some kind that should run by a team of professionals. Usually their goal is to maintain a certain level of professionalism in order to achieve a good reputation.

The problem with the USCSI is that it runs below the standards of professionalism, therefore we can not expect real solutions. We just pay the big bucks-and I mean some of us have overpaid and go wait for God knows how long.

There should be no reason for any of us to have to wait 1 day more than what was posted 5months/150days. The extention was already overbearing.

I really don't find this amusing anymore!!

Even when we get the visa, It won't be the same anymore, It's been a real turn off!!

Some of our folks cannot come here on B2 visas, as they cannot demonstrate that they have "strong ties" that will take them back to their countries, and I'm talking people that actually have decent jobs!!! I'm telling you, this process is brutal and the ones that have it easy have no idea of how those of us that don't suffer! All of these people thanking "God", and "Allah" for getting them through! I am convinced that not one higher power has anything to do with this grueling process. It appears that "God" has forgotten my address, or at least USCIS has...

Right! I see your point. Let's say we go to our Representatives and ask them to help us get the ' B2 ' Visa for our beneficiaries since they ( the senators/congressmen) have aknowledge that the USCSI have failed to keep they words on the 5 months that we have waited for. Plus, since we have jobs here, we can not leave as often as we would like to in order to see our fiance/es. As far as strong ties, we already have something in the making for them.

Called USCIS yesterday and got different stories. The 1st guy said he could put in a request to see why I am beyond the 5 month processing time, but then he said to call back in 2 or 3 hours due to technical difficulties that would prevent him from making the request. I called back 2 hours later and got a different lady that tried to tell me I was within the processing times. She must think we're very naive lol because she said VSC is different and it is a 7 month processing time. So, I told her about my conversation with the other agent and that the website says 5 months, so then she told me to call back in 7 days since they are currently working on July 10 petitions. I wonder if I would get a different story if I talked to another agent, but at least that is consistent with Patty and Paul's post that said they were on July 9. Email is next!

Something is very wrong with the USCIS. We should not be getting false information from their officers or reps. that only happens because they are way over their heads and have very little control on the matter. I find them unprofessional and lack of respect for us filers.

Dont lose faith just yet. I was feeling like this early last week since our 5 month mark was on Dec 8th. On Dec 1st I prepared a letter to my congressman and signed the privacy form they required. They put in a request for status update and USCIS said it would take 2 weeks to complete. I truely believed it would come in those two weeks and sure enough we got approved on Dec 14th.

Let me say that when you get that email with the word "approved" you instantly forget all the pain you've gone through. Since receiving the good news we have been re-energized to keep going now that we know whats next.

Don't lose faith and just stay focused.

Wow! a VSC NOA2 approved!! that's rare. That's the first I've heard since about a month ago. Please remember to update your timeline.

Haiti are the majority, but not the only countries citizans in the US applying for TPS at the moment. Nicaragua and Sudan are also on the list.

Having said that, i think your research of the total number of Haitians to have applied for TPS is a gross underestimate.

At first people on VJ believed TPS was all about haitians, infact filers here were expressing their frustrations by sending letters to Senators specifially using the word 'Haitians' remember? Now, you're telling them it's just a majority. Unless you can come up with a genuine number...you can not say majority. Even if the TPS were majority haitians, we should not say Haitian TPS---It's TPS.

Haiti are the majority, but not the only countries citizans in the US applying for TPS at the moment. Nicaragua and Sudan are also on the list.

Having said that, i think your research of the total number of Haitians to have applied for TPS is a gross underestimate.

Supposedly, they are giving priority to haitian TPS, not all nations. So, the number of TPS being worked on at vermont should be Haitian TPS. If you follow the threads, filers here on VJ have been concerned with Haitian TPS, no other. Could it be that the USCIS is dealing with ' TPS in general' and not 'Haitian TPS'. If true, where did we, on VJ got the idea it was Haitian TPS in the first place?

I tried to find the official # of haitians applied fot TPS from other sites and found out no more than a total of 100,000.But the USCIS claims they have done average 100,000 TPS cases every month. Unless The United States is giving TPS to the haitian population back home, this does not make any sense. How did all of these people get over here? Howcome it's not reported elsewere?

From here: http://dashboard.usc...e=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.

One thing I would like to add here. . . The squeakiest wheel does not get the grease with USCIS. USCIS ignores the squeakiest wheel unless it is the case that is in front of them at the time. USCIS handles hundreds of thousands of visa requests every year - and the Haitian situation is miniscule when looking at the overal picture.

A while ago we had an adjudicator who works for USCIS going through the process himself. He posted some very interesting insights into how cases are adjudicated. Basically, files are received at an intake center and given a quick summary. If they are incomplete, they are returned to the sender. If they appear to be complete, then the check is cashed and they are sent into a line up. The line up is huge - forget huge - it is humungous. USCIS allocates the time it has its workers spend on applications dependent on what ones are most immediate in need. Employment type visas are a higher priority than family based visas (a few years ago I saw a summary of 'priority' ratings for the different visa types - fiance visas were near the bottom). It is a good idea to remember that what is your highest priority is actually not very high with USCIS and complaining about it won't make an iota of difference to them. The employment visa year starts in October so virtually every October nearly all of the family based applications come to a near halt while USCIS processes the employment visas to get on top of them. The family based visas then become backlogged and around the end of the year they seem to start working through that backlog again. An adjudicator does not know from day to day what types of applications they will be processing - that decision is made higher up the ladder. There are not nearly enough Haitians in the whole country if each and every one of them were applying for some sort of immigration benefit to interfere with the processing schedules set by USCIS. Don't blame the Haitians - blame the priority lists of USCIS which puts money making, investment, employment type of applications at the top and family related applications at the bottom. That is the culprit.

Secondly, I do understand exactly what you are going through. 7 years ago that was me, crying in anger and frustration as our wait times changed from 160 days then when that time passed, became 220 days and then 280 days. Other people who were similarly delayed (this was the Texas Processing Center in those days) actually picketed the TSC and made the news. It didn't make a difference - not the picketing (although a few people were arrested), not the adverse media, not even public letters to the then Director of Immigration. One of the hardest lessons you will learn through this process is that USCIS - especially with the I-129f - is impenetrable and unperturbable - they move on their own schedule and they lose no sleep over how much frustration, anxiety, fear and heart-break they cause. It took more than 6 months to get my I-129f NOA2, so you can see, these delays are nothing new. Those of you who applied in June will probably be receiving your NOA2s over the next 5 to 6 weeks. Those that are approved earlier than that are usually cases that are pulled out of line to be used as a training case for new adjudicators. While it only takes 15 minutes to read and approve your application it spends the rest of its time waiting its turn in line behind all of the other thousand of applications that have also been submitted.

This is just your first stage of waiting. Once the NOA2 is approved, most of you will be in for a wait until the Consulate can schedule an interview. For some Consulates this will happen quickly - for others it will be another 5 or 6 months (Canada, for instance). Then after you are together, you apply for a green card - that is another wait. For me, it was just short of 2 years (no RFEs, no problems, just waiting its turn in line). Then you have a 2 year wait before you again have to wait for Removal of Conditions. Ours took 1 year to be removed. You finally get your last - and shortest wait - when you apply for citizenship.

So, yes, it isn't fair; it isn't right and it is extremely frustrating. Get angry, write letters, make your problems public (which has happened several times over the years I have been here as well - lots of media coverage of the horrible waiting times for fiancees and spouses) but don't go blaming one group of people or one disaster or another for the wait. It is irrelevant. USCIS is understaffed and overworked. You are on the bottom rung of their priority ladder. It is as simple as that.,

All I can promise is that the waiting does end eventually and tell you that this is, indeed, the absolutely worst part of the whole process because of the uncertainty and the distance from the one you love.

Hang in there everyone. Vent away - but please vent your frustration in the right direction - at USCIS.

Thanks a million for the info.

I have tried to tell people here that the USCIS have always been making changes. one filer could go thru this with no delays if lucky, but other than that there is always extra work to shift over.Vermont for instance, seems to be fastest and therefore most of the xtras get dumped on them. It looks like they are catching up now with the majority of TPS cases. Soon they will be ahead of the other SCs ...That's until the USCIS decides to dump on them AGAIN!

Thanks!!!

I hope it's not really taking that long. If that is true, why don't they update their website? Getting everyone's hopes up for nothing.

some operator read somethingbfrom a script about the national average wait. That's all!

Great job! ZZThis graph, is it saying they have reached up to sept. or is it just an old graph?

If this graph is outdated it could be GGGGGGGGGGreat news! you think?

This is very typical of the USCIS to dump loads of xtra work on VSC;VSC always catch up with the other SCs and

take the lead again.

Just checked on I-765s (work auth.)as someone else stated in another thread that this time of year is when they get filed.

Well folks, this is why VSC is pretty much on hold for our petitions...

CSC I-765s (Work Auth.):

http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=12&office=2&charttype=1

CSC I-821s (TPS):

http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=21&office=2&charttype=1

VSC 1-765s (Work Auth.):

http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=12&office=6&charttype=1

VSC I-821s (TPS):

http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=21&office=6&charttype=1

Slammed from all sides it looks like...VSC was overloaded on work auth. forms and TPS's.

Looks like they are steamrolling through them based on the completion data in the graphs so hopefully they will get back to family based petitions in January, or the end of the year.

Great job! ZZThis graph, is it saying they have reached up to sept. or is it just an old graph?

I agree that this has nothing to do with discrimination. Instead it has everything to do with a very reasonable expectation by Americans that our government will attend to us first before attending to any foreigners.

If American citizens were to get priority over Haitian citizens from the Haitian government, I am sure that Haitians would have a lot to complain about, and they would be right. After all, the Haitian government works for Haitian citizens and not for American citizens.

So why should it be different when the situation is reversed?

Great point! now why don't we help each other investigate some to find out how Vermont is doing with this big pile of TPS? So far, the records are showing that VSC can handle the volume that was given to them. Now if only we could find out their updated progress. Let's not underestimate a Service Center that covers New York and Florida the big dog immigrant states.These guys are the best! Let's keep hope alive!!!

Hey everyone,

I got a letter stating my case was transferred to the California Service Center, what does that mean? I live in Texas, so why is it transferred to California?

Please help

I did a long reasearch on the uscis.Believe me, I read some older posts with similar questions that we have today and yours in particular. other than "stay on their tail", there is really no one good answer. They just do things sometimes for no good reasons.

looking at last years times people seemed to get their noa2 in about 3 months or les That were submitted in the winter . is this a trend every year , or am i most like going to wait the full 5 months ? i sent my package last friday

What I've learned from the uscis is that it's very unpredictable. The Service Centers are actually not working on the same pace.Vermont seems to be the mother of them all and therefore carries the majority of the workload. I have confidence that Vermont can and will put an end to the TPS business soon, but more workloads may be shifted over them again from the other slow service centers.

I re-read the posts in question and while parts may have come across more harshly than I would have put it, I still don't think it's an anti-Haiti thing. The second poster specified that all other countries should come after the rights of any government body's citizens.

I'm sorry that you felt the need to be defensive, and I understand as someone who is either from Haiti or in love with someone from Haiti (not totally sure who is posting on the account) that those are natural feelings, but the message the posters were trying to get across wasn't one of hatred towards Haiti, but that the I-129f petitions are filed by of citizens of the United States (who are taxpayers and who do elect their government) and as such, those petitions should carry some level of important in processing.

I'm all for countries helping out other countries in need and I think what happened in Haiti is very tragic. That being said, whether or not you agree with extending the petitions (which is a can of worms I'd rather not open) in the first place, those petitions should not be shoved to the front of the heap so they can be processed in due time while citizens have already been waiting around for months. These petitions affect the lives of the citizens, too, and while I can understand waiting a few extra weeks for something like a TPS petitions, I agree that it's horribly unfair to push everyone into 5+ months' processing times regardless of which country TPS petitions are for. It isn't like if the service centers balanced the TPS petitions with the workload they already had so that EVERYTHING could have been effectively worked on, the TPS filers who hadn't been approved yet would be hunted down and deported.

Hey Andy it's cool! I understand the frustration out there ! Remember what I posted earlier about the USCIS being unpredictable? Well, I researched all the way back to 2003 on USCIC dealing with the k1 visa. Nothing that we are going through today is new at all, many others went through worse... some 180 days without RFE. According to their history VSC happens to be very aggressive in processing files. Infact, extra workloads get dumped on VSC due to their ability to get the job done fast. Like I said, things could be going smooth for months, then BOOM! changes occur! So, wether it's TPS or BS, we the filers often get screwed in the system. Based on my findings, VSC is the Finest among all the other SCs. Other than CSC which seems okay, the rest of them must be where they send all the rookies! they move like snails. Let's keep our hopes up and hopefully VSC will get these TPS cases by the end of the year. If anyone out there reached their 5 month, call your Senator and be proactive.

First of all you are not in my way. The issue isn't the country Haiti or any other country. Actually I am happy the US is making an effort to help so many affected people there in Haiti.

Also the VSC was processing visas at a pretty good pace until this TPS thing came up. Just read posts about how VSC is going over 5 months. This is not like the VSC. The issue is not being insensitive or not being human, but remember we US citizens are human too! And by the way we are the citizens here and as such should have some priority or at least some sort of balance in this rather than a complete discard of our visas. This is simply ridiculous.

Just please remember its nothing against Haiti. I am not blaming Haiti for anything, but I am blaming my own government for not setting their priorities straight. I am an American citizen, my dad is a veteran, I pay taxes faithfully and work and contribute to my society. Why should my fiancee's visa be cast aside for some foreigners' visas? Then again I am not saying they should not work on Haiti's visas. They should, but they also SHOULD NOT simply cast aside our visas. Its a hard situation....

My reply was really for the last two guys (Russia & Modolva).