VSC

[irma 0]

Thank you, Thank you paris, YOU ARE THE BESST!!!

[Catt 6]

Paris Heart, thank you for taking time and effort to post. Regardless of what one may think, you are providing us some hope and for that I appreciate your effort. Understandably, anyone that is still waiting in this crazy game is in a state of mind filled frustration; but at least you have given us an avenue to temporarily relieve that frustration.

I agree, thanks Paris. I was in such a foul mood the past week because of this visastuff. Reading this at least lifted my spirits some.

Though i'm still dying to hear some more about the conversation, if that's possible

[Army_Wife 2]

Paris, I think your conversation was wonderful and I thank you.

From what I see is that you considered everyone on here by mentioning the K1's .... it's very nice to hear that they too don't like working on them, but we all know that what we're told to do in our jobs is just that ..... what we're told to do in our jobs.

I can imagine a lot of the conversation was taken up with discussing the why's and wherefore's of the K1's alone.

The fact that someone at USCIS was in a position to actually state that Vermont will start working on spousal petitions soon is brilliant news! That's quite a commitment in itself .... and one that I truly believe .... as it's very obvious that CSC and VSC work in cycles. Last year Vermont was the dream place to have your I-130 sent to (4-8 week approvals) .... and California was exactly where you 'didn't' want be .... this year it's ####### about face.

Just look at the complaints on the K1 forum for those who are at CSC at the moment .... VSC like I reported a couple of weeks ago are not pumping out so many K1's anymore .... infact they're at a third of what they were 6 weeks ago.

The end of May is not here yet, and I really think things will turn around about that time.

The touches, well, it's good to actually have someone confirm that touches 'do' mean something .... the fact that there's been so many K3 touches in the last few weeks, means they're probably preparing to start turning the K3 situation around afterall.

Vermont 'are' approving, it's just a little slower than California .... we're about 6 or so weeks behind on the I-130's, and that's all (please look at the NOA1 dates). Once the Dec/Jan 2008 NOA1's are all finished, the wheels will be more obviously moving.

Hang in there guys .... Paris did a great job! Most people just get told to look at the website processing dates .... she didn't, please don't shoot the messenger.

[Imua 0]

Merci beacoup, Paris, I feel a little bit better but don't understand the bit about the touches - if the case isn't touched does that necessarily mean nobody has been looking at it? That is depressing me, that I haven't even had a touch yet - who knows where my file is...

Edited May 22, 2008 by Pattu Rani

[000 0]

I think the reason why K1 are approved so fast is because K1s bring a lot of much needed revenue to USCIS. They can always deny those applicants at a later date if they choose to do so also, all the k1 visa is is just a visa, close to a tourist visa. Its $455 for the 129f then they have to file the I 130 and I 485 later. Nice chunk of change for all of that. They have tons of overtime to take care of the people who are filing for citizenship since election time is near. K1s have to go through the background checks and other things later when adjusting status. Granted it is the same for K3 almost but its just not the same amount of money coming in. Right now they want money, if you look at the work visas they are going really fast too, they can be expedited for a very hefty fee as well. I 130 petitions really bring no money if they are stand alone, 355 and Im not sure of how much it is to remove the conditions of a CR1 but no where near the amount of money for those that need to adjust status. Those that are adjusting status have to pay for everything, EAD, adjustment of status, I 130, and many other fees. It makes sense for their budget to take care of the K1's because they are faster and more expensive. Its a shame that they just dont allow expedites on K3 and CR1 for an extra fee, I am sure we would all be happy to pay it, even if we dont have a lot of money we would come up with it some way or another.

[pushbrk 12,994]

I think the reason why K1 are approved so fast is because K1s bring a lot of much needed revenue to USCIS. They can always deny those applicants at a later date if they choose to do so also, all the k1 visa is is just a visa, close to a tourist visa. Its $455 for the 129f then they have to file the I 130 and I 485 later. Nice chunk of change for all of that. They have tons of overtime to take care of the people who are filing for citizenship since election time is near. K1s have to go through the background checks and other things later when adjusting status. Granted it is the same for K3 almost but its just not the same amount of money coming in. Right now they want money, if you look at the work visas they are going really fast too, they can be expedited for a very hefty fee as well. I 130 petitions really bring no money if they are stand alone, 355 and Im not sure of how much it is to remove the conditions of a CR1 but no where near the amount of money for those that need to adjust status. Those that are adjusting status have to pay for everything, EAD, adjustment of status, I 130, and many other fees. It makes sense for their budget to take care of the K1's because they are faster and more expensive. Its a shame that they just dont allow expedites on K3 and CR1 for an extra fee, I am sure we would all be happy to pay it, even if we dont have a lot of money we would come up with it some way or another.

K1 visa holders never need an I-130 but they do file AOS. So do K3's.

The total fees to USCIS are $100 more for a K1 than a K3, not $455 more. Costs after US arrival are the same for both.

[000 0]

not 455 more, that is the cost of the I129f, but i did not know they did not need to file the I130 with their I485 , thats good to know, I guess that throws my thoughts out the window.

Edited May 22, 2008 by Guest

[mrc1330 0]

not 455 more, that is the cost of the I129f

This problem is far beyond trying to squeeze an extra few hundred dollars out of one visa over another. This is another classic example of government employees taking their sweet ### time to work like they always do. If they were given performance incentives do you really think it would take this long to do our petitions? They would work day and night if they knew that if they met a certain quota they would get bonus’s throughout the chain of command. If it was really about money they would have a $1000 or $2000 PREMIUM processing fee for ALL petitions. It’s simply USCIS’ fault and no one else’s. How is it that the IRS reviews over 100 million tax returns in less than 1 year yet USCIS cant’ get their #### together AFTER charging fees to review our “tax returns” ? BECAUSE their employees are a piece of ####! There’s no excuse, there’s no solution other than a REAL leader taking charge of USCIS and just going on a firing rampage firing all the heads and leaders of unproductive units and putting new one’s in charge and setting quotas that the PETITIONERS agree to, not DHS, DHS doesn’t care about us until we get to NVC then they get THEIR chunk of the change. Until then we are potential investments for them. These service center unit heads need to be forced to make a press release every month explaining how many of each petition was approved and the NOA1 dates of those petitions. Not simply a vague piece of #### ESTIMATED date of petitions that they are SHITING / WORKING on.

[Catt 6]

Its a shame that they just dont allow expedites on K3 and CR1 for an extra fee, I am sure we would all be happy to pay it, even if we dont have a lot of money we would come up with it some way or another.

I disagree.

On a personal level, I'd be extremely glad if this were possible, I don't care about paying the extra cash and we can afford it.

But I believe the principle of it is wrong.

If you allow expedites based on extra fees here also, you basically create two groups of cases (namely the ones that can afford to pay extra and then ones that can't), where the group of people with low financial means are yet again screwed.

Plus, if the extra cash to be paid weren't substantial, then I assume we all would just pay extra and then you end up in the same pool of (expedited) cases and you do not gain alot of time.

Spousal visas (and kids visas along) in general should be given priority, because of what the type of visas they are and the relationships involved, I'd say.

Edited May 22, 2008 by Catt

[Beth/ Paris Heart 2]

Merci beacoup, Paris, I feel a little bit better but don't understand the bit about the touches - if the case isn't touched does that necessarily mean nobody has been looking at it? That is depressing me, that I haven't even had a touch yet - who knows where my file is...

Pattu,

On the touches for example, the officer yesterday, "which I got his name and badge number" pullled up both my petitions, and as of this morning the date never changed from the last touches in April and May. I think the touches of "Updated date" are by the officers own hand, "at their descretion" to show or not to show. Like I said he pulled both up, and went over with me the information I submitted in both, and still to now no date changes.

We have seen many petitons approved with no touches at all. I would not worry about no touches.

And for a personal note, today is the best day Ive had in many weeks, I actually feel human, not a walking shell anymore. I dont know what will be my outcome or how soon, but for this minute I will take this feeling of hope and feeling like my old self again.

I dont know why he took the time, maybe it was cause I was calm, and interested in what he had to say, maybe cause Im use to delaing with Gov. employees on a daily basics, but I was polite, and he was more then polite and caring, he took the time. I was just lucky.Anyways back to work, Im taking a extra long weekend, and Im not going to sit by computer all weekend in my PJ's and feel sorry for myself anymore.

Happy Memorial Day everyone, be safe.

One last thing, I did not do RFE trick, I asked customer service to transfer me to a officer, and they did immediately.

Edited May 22, 2008 by Paris Heart

[000 0]

Would be nice but the visa's that they seem to stay on top of are work visas. I cant think of any other reason why k1 and work visas get more attention. With more money they could hire more people, well that was their plan in the first place i guess. If people can afford to file a K3 or K1 visa it is pretty obvious money is not an issue to them. Just my opinion. The cost of an expedited work visa is almost the same as AOS.

[kman 0]

fee to remove the conditional residence is $465 plus 80 biometrics fee. This was one of the biggest increases.

[brian87 0]

Just look at the complaints on the K1 forum for those who are at CSC at the moment .... VSC like I reported a couple of weeks ago are not pumping out so many K1's anymore .... infact they're at a third of what they were 6 weeks ago.

Amen. The VSC was approving more VJ K-1's in ONE week in Jan./Feb. than they have in the last month. It is simply not accurate to say that VSC is approving K-1's at the expense of K-3's.

Premium, bah. As someone posted, a premium would only have a tendency to divide the petitions into different social classes. Those who can afford it, and those who cannot. If the fee was to low, then basically everybody would pay it and then you would have the same number of cars in the fast lane as your would the slow lane. It's like I tell people at work, if you label every document as "URGENT", then nothing is urgent.

Brian

[Imua 0]

Merci beacoup, Paris, I feel a little bit better but don't understand the bit about the touches - if the case isn't touched does that necessarily mean nobody has been looking at it? That is depressing me, that I haven't even had a touch yet - who knows where my file is...

Pattu,

On the touches for example, the officer yesterday, "which I got his name and badge number" pullled up both my petitions, and as of this morning the date never changed from the last touches in April and May. I think the touches of "Updated date" are by the officers own hand, "at their descretion" to show or not to show. Like I said he pulled both up, and went over with me the information I submitted in both, and still to now no date changes.

We have seen many petitons approved with no touches at all. I would not worry about no touches.

And for a personal note, today is the best day Ive had in many weeks, I actually feel human, not a walking shell anymore. I dont know what will be my outcome or how soon, but for this minute I will take this feeling of hope and feeling like my old self again.

I dont know why he took the time, maybe it was cause I was calm, and interested in what he had to say, maybe cause Im use to delaing with Gov. employees on a daily basics, but I was polite, and he was more then polite and caring, he took the time. I was just lucky.Anyways back to work, Im taking a extra long weekend, and Im not going to sit by computer all weekend in my PJ's and feel sorry for myself anymore.

Happy Memorial Day everyone, be safe.

One last thing, I did not do RFE trick, I asked customer service to transfer me to a officer, and they did immediately.

Thanks for the clarification, Paris! I'm glad you are feeling better about this whole process. I am just going to take a 6 week vacation from it(besides bringing all the evidence and forms to Govi of course) and enjoy being with my husband - any time together is so precious now since it may be yet another year before we can see each other again. I am not planning on even checking my status between now and then - if I get an email then yippee!! I probably won't be on the net for a while anyway - better ways to spend my time... . If I were not going to see him and you did not clarify the issue then I would proably be a Turbo B#tch From Hell because this has been getting to me and I am still in pain from oral surgery last week - I have griped about the VSC situation to two people at work so far today - a co-worker who teaches a class on immigration and my boss, whose son is an immigration attorney.

[R de la R 2]

For those who wanted to know how to get ahold of an officer at VSC... here it goes... i encourage all of you to do the same thing Paris did. but PLEASE!!!

GET THE DAMN OFFICER ID and NAME and just in case 2-3 months from now, people can come back to this website and write a "Officer## told me this, officer # told me this, officer # told me this... etc and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED! So what is the truth" letter to their congressmen, Ombudsman, whoever... When all of us VSC filers write letters like that people start thinking a little differently, you're no longer a distressed, frustrated SO, now you have proof, dates and facts that match up with what your're claiming.

Just in case...

Please use these steps to get connected directly to an immigration officer at the VERMONT SERVICE CENTER. call after 10am and before 4:30pm

Call the 1-800 number.

Option 1,

Option 2,

Option 2,

Option 6,

Option 1,

ENTER I129F (K3) receipt number

Option 1,

Option 3, Wait for "If our system"

Option 4,

this will connect you to an officer at VSC

Then grill them for information AND POST!

I called right now at 1:33 Dominican Republic time and talked to Jessy Official G649391, she didn´t tell me anything new. She said that I have to wait the 60 days for the approval since I got a RFE. I knew that.

Edited May 22, 2008 by YMR