Anybody know how they process K1s?

[cmoore25 4]

I'm just wondering if anybody knows how petitions are processed. I've noticed that some people who received their NOA1's after I did are being approved (huge congrats to you guys btw!!) and one of my friends is still waiting to hear something and she is a Feb filer!! My case is pretty easy as far as I can tell from what people have posted on here regarding red flags....so why the petitions being processed out of order??

I know that I have not reached the 5 month mark yet - and I am prepared to wait until then to get really super frustrated - however - if I knew why (or possible reasons) petitions are processed out of order - it might make the wait a bit easier!

THANKS

[san diego 407]

It really does not matter how simple or complex your case is. They probably have not even touched it yet. They do process it in the order it is received. However, since from the beginning they are divided between different officers, there is +/- month difference as they go for vacations, become sick, etc. If you are lucky you get between vacations.

It also depends what service center you are in.

[JimVaPhuong 4,863]

I'm just wondering if anybody knows how petitions are processed. I've noticed that some people who received their NOA1's after I did are being approved (huge congrats to you guys btw!!) and one of my friends is still waiting to hear something and she is a Feb filer!! My case is pretty easy as far as I can tell from what people have posted on here regarding red flags....so why the petitions being processed out of order??

I know that I have not reached the 5 month mark yet - and I am prepared to wait until then to get really super frustrated - however - if I knew why (or possible reasons) petitions are processed out of order - it might make the wait a bit easier!

THANKS

There's a whole lot of reasons this could happen. If the petitions are being handled at different service centers then there's no correlation at all. The different service centers have different workloads. If they're at the same service center then they'll usually be fairly consistent, but they don't process them in exactly the order they come in. Each petition goes into a box. When the box is full it goes into a storage area in chronological order. When an adjudicator has finished the petitions they're currently working on then they take the next box on the shelf. Some adjudicators work faster than others. For example, one adjudicator might finish the files in a box in the same time it takes another adjudicator to finish half a box of files. Some cases need RFE's and wait longer. Some cases need additional investigations and wait longer. A variety of factors could cause one petition to be held up while other petitions move ahead.

[cmoore25 4]

I suppose that vacations, sick time etc make sense. Just seems like a lot of people who received their NOA1's around me (both before and after) are being approved...so I'm just anxious. Thanks

JimVaPhuong - thank you!!!! That makes sense!! Yes, I am only looking at petition approvals from VSC, where my case is at! I learned a long time ago to not even think of CSC - as they process so much faster and it would just drive me batty!!

[Casprd 167]

Yeah this is an oft asked question. They aren't really processed out of order even though it seems that way. They go to different service centers so the center your petition arrives at may or may not be working on K-1 visas at that time. They seem to do a bunch of one type to get caught up then switch to a different type so if your petition arrives at a center that is doing that type of visa it will fly through. The other thing is that the adjudicators will take a stake of petitions in the order they are received so if yours is in a stack where previous petitions are more difficult or slower to process then yours will be delayed as a result while another stack that arrived after goes through quickly because there are less petitions with issues to address. Many of the adjudicators work from home so just grabbing the next petition in the order recieved isn't an option most of the time. It may be a stack of what they think they can accomplish in the week or so and if yours is at the bottom of that stack then the top petition from another stack (or even two stacks later) will get processed before yours. That's why the dates jump around so much. Add to all this that sometimes petitions get moved from a backed up location to another service center and when this happens it is the more recently received petitions and all of the sudden petitions in VSC since January are still in process but stuff from June gets sent to TSC and gets processed in a few weeks. That actually happened while our CR-1 was in process last summer. In a nutshell there are a lot of factors that go in to when a petition gets processed and it is the luck of the draw whether you get in and processed quickly or get stuck in the queue.

[Casprd 167]

I suppose that vacations, sick time etc make sense. Just seems like a lot of people who received their NOA1's around me (both before and after) are being approved...so I'm just anxious. Thanks

JimVaPhuong - thank you!!!! That makes sense!! Yes, I am only looking at petition approvals from VSC, where my case is at! I learned a long time ago to not even think of CSC - as they process so much faster and it would just drive me batty!!

both service centers go in cycles. We thought we were lucky to get CSC but we arrived just as they were starting to slow down while at the same time VSC shuffled their june cases to Texas and they were getting processed in a few weeks.