Disturbed about info I received on K1 Visa

[JBR 0]

Hello, I am new to this site. I stumbled on it trying to find any information other than the scripted responsed I get from the USCIS help line. I met my perfect mate in Peru, and we filed an I-129F back in February. It was received in the Vermont Service Center on February 9th. So, since then, including now...the average processing time is 5 months. I have seen it and heard it a hundred times. So, I was a good soldier, I waited with all the same feelings that many of you have had...and after 5 months, nothing. So, I began to call. I quickly discovered how "un userfriendly" USCIS is...rude, don't care, won't tell you much. I will tell you that I also work for government, so know the routine, backlogs, etc.

So, to the problem that I am worried about...the first time I called, they were able to look at a database for the workload of the Vermont Service Center. They could not tell me anything about my specific case, but they could tell me what that office was working on...since it is worked in the order received, they told me that they were working on applications from January 16. Good...I wanted to ensure things were straight (from my government experience), so I called back the next week...the date that they were working on...January 16. I called back again today...3 weeks now have passed...still working on January 16.

Now, this greatly concerns me. They have apparently stopped working on K1 visas in this office...unless they received like 10,000 of them on January 16. So, my question is do any of you know anything about this...possible reasons, or if they will pick it back up? I did look to see if it coincided with the Obama change in his policy on illegals...and that was mid-June...so it does, as I was supposed to receive word by July 9...if they stopped then, it does coincide.

If anyone can help me with any info, I would greatly appreciate it. I am getting quite depressed about this...I feel like my life has been on hold for a year.

Thank you.

[Pitaya 2,577]

Hello, I am new to this site. I stumbled on it trying to find any information other than the scripted responsed I get from the USCIS help line. I met my perfect mate in Peru, and we filed an I-129F back in February. It was received in the Vermont Service Center on February 9th. So, since then, including now...the average processing time is 5 months. I have seen it and heard it a hundred times. So, I was a good soldier, I waited with all the same feelings that many of you have had...and after 5 months, nothing. So, I began to call. I quickly discovered how "un userfriendly" USCIS is...rude, don't care, won't tell you much. I will tell you that I also work for government, so know the routine, backlogs, etc.

So, to the problem that I am worried about...the first time I called, they were able to look at a database for the workload of the Vermont Service Center. They could not tell me anything about my specific case, but they could tell me what that office was working on...since it is worked in the order received, they told me that they were working on applications from January 16. Good...I wanted to ensure things were straight (from my government experience), so I called back the next week...the date that they were working on...January 16. I called back again today...3 weeks now have passed...still working on January 16.

Now, this greatly concerns me. They have apparently stopped working on K1 visas in this office...unless they received like 10,000 of them on January 16. So, my question is do any of you know anything about this...possible reasons, or if they will pick it back up? I did look to see if it coincided with the Obama change in his policy on illegals...and that was mid-June...so it does, as I was supposed to receive word by July 9...if they stopped then, it does coincide.

If anyone can help me with any info, I would greatly appreciate it. I am getting quite depressed about this...I feel like my life has been on hold for a year.

Thank you.

Welcome to the forum.

There are many of us that can certainly understand your current plight, either we have been through it, or are going through it. Rest assured there are other government workers going through the same process as you. The entire visa process is a waiting game, a game played by their rules and procedures, on their turf. There is waiting at each step of these processes. For example, take a look at the folks, further on in their immigration journey, in the Adjustment of Status (AOS) phase, it looks like there is an approximately 4-6 month wait until those petitions are processed. If you don't have any patience, this visa journey will "help" you acquire patience. Watching the clock , can drive you crazy, if you let it. None of this is a "walk in the park." You can blame it on politics, or politicians, or whatever you want, the bottom line is you will have to wait until your petition is adjudicated. There is no need to get depressed, though it can get a person down if they are so inclined. You have to keep remembering that it is a marathon, not a sprint....keep your eye on the final outcome, the end result makes all of this worthwhile. In the meantime, I would suggest that you It will give you some estimates on processing time and it helps everyone that uses this site. For great information on the process.

In our own case, we filed last 31 October 2011, finally on 26 July 2012, my (now) wife and stepson arrived in the United States. We had no RFEs, but had the usual delays of the process and then some "special" delays because of the cat-and-mouse games that the US and Chinese governments play with each other's diplomatic packages. We have been at this only nine (9) months, and are only now starting to get our documents together for the AOS process. Are we depressed? NO! Sure, we are a little tired of this protracted process, but again, the end results makes it all worthwhile. Get acquainted with some of your fellow visa journey travelers.

Hang in there.

Good luck on your visa journey.

[StarGirl 13]

Hello and welcome to VJ!

here is the link for to the February 2012 forum http://www.visajourn...ry-2012-filers/ so you can get in touch with people who filed around the same time you did. I am a Feb filer as well, and I was supposed to get approval from VSC by the end of June. In reality we got it only in the end of July.

A word of advice - this website along with its' statistic relies on people accurately filling in their timelines, so it would benefit the community if you did yours, and also you will be able to see when you can expect - we call it NOA2 here - from Vermont based on data from VJ members. Which is not 100% accurate of course, because we are just a small fraction of the actual number of petitions.. but still..

Good luck, don't despair. It's coming, maybe even next week!

Edited August 11, 2012 by StarGirl

[JBR 0]

Thanks guys...I appreciate the kind words. I will try to get my timeline up tomorrow. I do understand the government thing, that is why I said I was a bit conerned. I could handle the normal delays, or if they would tell us anything...this agency is just the most difficult to deal with...and the fact that the process seemed to have just stopped on January 16. It is pretty obvious they have discontinued working on them for now. But I will certainly take your advice, and I am happy to have found this site.

[Moomin 292]

Hei there - welcome to VJ!

Unfortunately, USCIS is not transparent. They're anything but transparent. Anyways, when you're told that they are working on January 16 petitions, it just means that the oldest petition they are currently working on (that they can see in their fancy system)is from January 16. Each adjudicator has a box of petitions to go through, and yours might be at a different desk with someone else, or it might be in a box waiting to be dragged out to a box where the petitions in that box are adjudicated. If one person "gets stuck" with the bulky, 5000 pages petitions and yours is among them.. well, it's going to take a wee while compared to petitions where there aren't any hold ups, RFEs issued - in general, less paperwork and questionmarks, less time it takes to run through the petitions.

This is just generally speaking of course and it's not an excuse for USCUS to fall behind. It's not causing less frustration either however I know for me personally, it helped to understand a bit more about the process. Just like you can't rely 100% on the statistics on VJ, you can't always trust a tier 1 person at USCIS. They can see about as little as you can, or they are reading from a script.

I'd suggest finding the 2012 February K1/i-129f filers group here on VJ, stick around Visa Journey for a bit and spend your time looking into how you can get through the process after you have the NOA2(or embassy case number) in hand.

Congrats on engagement and good luck

Edited August 11, 2012 by moomin

[JBR 0]

Thank you very much, moomin. I already feel better after reading on this site and getting your responses. I suppose there is always some comfort in being part of group with the same experiences...but you are dead on my personality. I am one of those structured people and I am only tring to better understand the process. If they would just tell me what is going on and why they do what they do, I would be a very much more understanding and patient person. It just alarmed me when I keep getting that same date, like they had stopped...and I will tell you what I was afraid of...another poster above referenced that I had mentioned a political thing, and I did, but not for politics sake. I was just trying to figure out what could possibly make that big of a difference...and it just so happens that the change in policy that Obama put out there was mid June...that times out perfectly with them getting hit with that new workload, as applications received in the middle of January would come due around mid June, thus I was afraid that may have something to do with it. I wasn't tyring to be political on here...just trying to use logic where that is probably not applicable.

Anyway, thanks again for the information, I really do appreciate it...and I did look at those timelines after stargirl above pointed me to them and that is also a tremendous resource of this site.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[Moomin 292]

Being structured is a very useful feature when you're doing the paper work yourself. USCIS just makes it hard on you when they're not really letting you in on why it takes the time it does, what they do and how they do it. We wanna know.. dang it. Most importantly, you know exactly what you submit and you're on top of the process, esp. after getting NOA2, then it doesn't feel like it's all out of your hands.

Obama is just trying to gain a few more votes before the election, the easy way(for his administration). I know it's frustrating because it seems like illegal immigrants are given priority over others waiting in line for months the legal way overseas while being seperated. But IMO you can't compare yourself to that. Every year it seems like USCIS gets backlogged for this or that reason - TPS(and of course some misusing it, or at least trying to in order to skip the waiting, same goes for expedites). It..sucks. However I knew even before starting this journey that politics are deeply involved and they don't go well with emotions, so I simply just accepted the wait and am happy to flash my driver's license/LPR status whenever I can now.

But yeah, sometimes they transfer cases from one center to another if they're too backlogged. Most likely you won't be affected too much by it, if your NOA2 comes in the door and you boogie right through NVC onto the embassy. Then it's only a matter of AOS months later and hopefully by that time, the wait isn't as bad.

And to be honest, I didn't feel the difference from only having EAD(work permit) to having greencard. Work permit took 3 months, greencard took 7. The hardest part is NOT being together. What an extremely bad sleeping pattern I picked upon being 7 hours apart, huh! I hope you're able to visit each other, or at least support each other through these months.

Thank you very much, moomin. I already feel better after reading on this site and getting your responses. I suppose there is always some comfort in being part of group with the same experiences...but you are dead on my personality. I am one of those structured people and I am only tring to better understand the process. If they would just tell me what is going on and why they do what they do, I would be a very much more understanding and patient person. It just alarmed me when I keep getting that same date, like they had stopped...and I will tell you what I was afraid of...another poster above referenced that I had mentioned a political thing, and I did, but not for politics sake. I was just trying to figure out what could possibly make that big of a difference...and it just so happens that the change in policy that Obama put out there was mid June...that times out perfectly with them getting hit with that new workload, as applications received in the middle of January would come due around mid June, thus I was afraid that may have something to do with it. I wasn't tyring to be political on here...just trying to use logic where that is probably not applicable.

Anyway, thanks again for the information, I really do appreciate it...and I did look at those timelines after stargirl above pointed me to them and that is also a tremendous resource of this site.

I'll keep my fingers crossed.

[cerebus407 16]

Contact your Congress person! As a government employee, you know that when Congress people bark, the agencies involved take notice. That does not mean that your Congress person can get an unapprovable case approved, they cannot. What a congressional inquiry will do is force the agency to find the file and deal with it. Since your well beyond normal processing times, this would be a prudent step in my opinion. Congressionals are not magic but they will force someone to find the petition and adjudicate it if it got stuck in a pile somewhere.

[djricky4 67]

the reported that that they tell you "january 16" is like a defense mechanism, if your NOA 1 date isnt earlier than Jan 15, they are going to tell you straight up that the computer system wont put in a service request for you. All you gotta do is wait or contact your congress man or senator and you might be able to get some help. I had to wait 6 months and almost 2 full weeks so i know the feeling

[afoyoswa 178]

They have apparently stopped working on K1 visas in this office...unless they received like 10,000 of them on January 16.

Other people have given you good information regarding the rest of your comments (especially the advice to fill in your timeline & join the February filers thread in the K-1 progress reports forum), but I wanted to comment on this in particular.

If you go to Immigration Timelines (link on the blue bar at the top of the screen), and then click on "Igor's List" on the right, and then choose "Vermont Service Center" from the dropdown list, you'll see the last 15 VisaJourney member petitions that were approved at Vermont (VSC). (Here's a link: Igor's List) The earliest petition currently on the list is Jan. 20, so they most certainly have not stopped working on K-1 visas (more properly, I-129F petitions, since USCIS does not handle visas, only petitions).

In the February filers thread, many people have sent me their receipt #s, and I have searched USCIS records to find a great many others which I have assembled into a spreadsheet and am checking regularly. I am currently monitoring 728 February VSC I-129F petitions, and of those, upwards of 30% have already been reviewed. 42 were approved or issued RFEs (request for additional evidence) yesterday and Thursday alone.

So, in summary, progress is definitely being made now, unlike during most of June. I wouldn't rely overly much on the stock response at USCIS.

Edited August 11, 2012 by afoyoswa

[sweetlymystic 19]

When I called they were very polite but did tell me that Vermont is running 30-45 days behind estimated schedule.Hmmmmm..I also heard the "working on January 16th petitions before too." hehehehe..Just keep busy and prepare for next step after NOA2

[JBR 0]

Wow, thanks guys...joining this site has been the best thing that I have done in this entire process. I really do appreciate all of your answers and support. I will get that timeline done this weekend.

And, I already had contacted my senator on this...they forwarded me the "packaged" reply they received, and it was, well, not much, and not even entirely accurate. I was a little surprised...but if enough people have done that, then maybe those cases that are behind will at least be processed faster.

Thanks again.

[Gosia & Tito 199]

Hello, I am new to this site. I stumbled on it trying to find any information other than the scripted responsed I get from the USCIS help line. I met my perfect mate in Peru, and we filed an I-129F back in February. It was received in the Vermont Service Center on February 9th. So, since then, including now...the average processing time is 5 months. I have seen it and heard it a hundred times. So, I was a good soldier, I waited with all the same feelings that many of you have had...and after 5 months, nothing. So, I began to call. I quickly discovered how "un userfriendly" USCIS is...rude, don't care, won't tell you much. I will tell you that I also work for government, so know the routine, backlogs, etc.

So, to the problem that I am worried about...the first time I called, they were able to look at a database for the workload of the Vermont Service Center. They could not tell me anything about my specific case, but they could tell me what that office was working on...since it is worked in the order received, they told me that they were working on applications from January 16. Good...I wanted to ensure things were straight (from my government experience), so I called back the next week...the date that they were working on...January 16. I called back again today...3 weeks now have passed...still working on January 16.

Now, this greatly concerns me. They have apparently stopped working on K1 visas in this office...unless they received like 10,000 of them on January 16. So, my question is do any of you know anything about this...possible reasons, or if they will pick it back up? I did look to see if it coincided with the Obama change in his policy on illegals...and that was mid-June...so it does, as I was supposed to receive word by July 9...if they stopped then, it does coincide.

If anyone can help me with any info, I would greatly appreciate it. I am getting quite depressed about this...I feel like my life has been on hold for a year.

Thank you.

I wouldn't worry that much. What the 'friendly' reps from USCIS are telling you is what they have in their screens; and will not change until someone upstream changes it, which can take weeks (or better said, whenever they can get to it)

As others said, it is a waiting game. You can contact your congressman/woman, many here believe it has no effect, and many others think they help. Our particular case was that we were up in the 5 month, I contacted mine. Upon his reply, 3 days later we get approval. SOme would call it a coincidence and some would not, as far as I'm concerned I'll move every stone.

[bigdog 376]

Keep the faith,and remember, no RFE is a good thing. Welcome.