When is the Family Based Immigration Season?

[Sherri and Matt 1]

Seems like every time I turn around, I read another post about things moving slowly because of something else going on at USCIS/NVC/Embassy that takes priority.

The beginning of the year it was, "There have been a lot of Holidays and people take time off so they are behind".

In March/April it was "it's time to process the H-1 Visas so the family based take a back seat".

Now it's "well it's summer and lot's of workers take time off."

Why is every other type of Visa a priority over family? Why is it family based that gets put off because they are too busy with other things? I really want to know what time of year is family based season, where immigration officials put off processing everything else to get caught up on ours, instead of the other way around.

[maliciant 7]

It's mostly speculation that the family based visa's are being pushed aside for some other *thing*, it's always going to take longer than people want, it'll always seem to be slower than necessary, etc... but the reality is that processing times have shrunk in the last year (I don't pay enough attention to know if this is still true). I remember when the theory was they were processing citizenship applications to get as many people as possible through before the presidential elections... I don't know that it was ever stated officially, just something people came up with based on the numbers (and people did seem to be getting citizenship approvals in record time). There are a few things that happen at specific points in the year like the visa lottery... but otherwise I think generally speaking family based visa's are given more credibility/priority over other types of visas, the processing time on them is much lower than most other visa's and the requirements are also pretty low (no education/financial requirements for the beneficiary which are major hurdles for many people in poorer countries).

[baron555 934]

Yiou got your NOA2 in 136 days and we got ours in 105 days, when the official time period they are shooting for is 5 months (150 days).

Sounds like they are working better than can be expected.

Do not listen to the whiners; they are just whining and have no patience.

Yes it can be tough to be away from your SO but we do just fine and have been doing a lot of planning and we talk every day.

I understand and understood the special consequnces of an international relationship and accept those.

Many of these whiners maybe should not.

[Usui Takumi 1,562]

The reason that family visas don't have a "season" is because there is no quota and no specific time to apply and they therefore stream in steadily year round.

We should all be happy that there aren't quotas on us. If you want your own season then this would probably happen. The US would allow say 60,000 k1 visas in 2009 and you have to apply by July 1st.

Oops sorry your number 60,001...better luck next year!