Please help me understand the processing dates!

[topcatdc 0]

Hi everyone,

I'm a USC willing to file a I-130 for my only brother who is currently 23. I reside in DC which falls under the Vermont Service Center jurisdiction. I was looking at the possible wait time for him to get a Visa and surprisingly noticed that VSC is currently processing applications filed in April 23, 2008. It was hard to believe because of the numerous claims on this website that petitions for brothers/sister of USC takes decades to process. However, California SC shows that they're processing applications received in Oct 02, 2000 which is 10 years behind. So, does your state of residence influence the processing time of your petition? Please help me understand this issue. Am I missing something here?

Thanks in advance!

[payxibka 10,047]

Hi everyone,

I'm a USC willing to file a I-130 for my only brother who is currently 23. I reside in DC which falls under the Vermont Service Center jurisdiction. I was looking at the possible wait time for him to get a Visa and surprisingly noticed that VSC is currently processing applications filed in April 23, 2008. It was hard to believe because of the numerous claims on this website that petitions for brothers/sister of USC takes decades to process. However, California SC shows that they're processing applications received in Oct 02, 2000 which is 10 years behind. So, does your state of residence influence the processing time of your petition? Please help me understand this issue. Am I missing something here?

Thanks in advance!

petition approval and receipt of a visa are two different things.... even if your I-130 for your brother is approved tomorrow, he will still need to wait for an available visa number which is about 10 - 11 years for a someone in his category unless they are from Mexico or the PI where the wait is even longer

Look here under Family 4th preference category

http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bull...letin_4611.html

Edited January 21, 2010 by payxibka

[HeatDeath 430]

Fourth Preference category means that virtually EVERYBODY jumps the line ahead of siblings, sad to say. That's why it takes so long.

If there actually is such a massive difference between the service centers for petition approval then chances are they transfer most of them to the center that is way ahead, the same way USCIS will transfer AOS applications to the California Service Center if CSC is significantly ahead of your local office. But payxibka is correct. There are two steps here: the petition approval, and the visa availability. Petition approval can take a while - months to a small number of years. But visa availability - that runs more then a decade for the high-demand, low-priority groups, which unfortunately includes siblings.

Edited January 21, 2010 by HeatDeath

[topcatdc 0]

petition approval and receipt of a visa are two different things.... even if your I-130 for your brother is approved tomorrow, he will still need to wait for an available visa number which is about 10 - 11 years for a someone in his category unless they are from Mexico or the PI where the wait is even longer

Look here under Family 4th preference category

http://www.travel.state.gov/visa/frvi/bull...letin_4611.html

Thank you for your reply. Do you think it'll be faster if my mother (LPR) petitions for him? Should I file both?

[HeatDeath 430]

I seem to recall reading somewhere, so take this with a grain of salt, that they somehow manage things so that the decade-long clock for visa availability starts at time of application, even if it takes another year or two (or six to eight?) for the petition to be approved: that they don't count petition approval time against visa availability time, so that you only have to wait for the longer of the two periods.

I could be dead wrong about this. Anybody know for sure?

[HeatDeath 430]

Thank you for your reply. Do you think it'll be faster if my mother (LPR) petitions for him? Should I file both?

You'd have to dig through the preference categories. US citizen petitions have priority over LPR petitions, but an unmarried child of an LPR mightbe a couple of years faster than an unmarried sibling of a US citizen, because children are generally given priority over siblings. Or it might be a wash. You'd have go go looking at travel.state.gov, to find the waiting periods for all of the priority categories. I don't know offhand.

You and your mother can't file a petition together: Both of you filing won't help. But if you each file separate petitions, whichever one is faster will get approved first. Then you just use that one. Take a look at the I-130 form and see if it asks if there are any other active petitions for this person. It might make a difference as to how you fill out the form, but I don't think it will affect approval, and it certainly won't affect visa availability, beyond getting him the faster one first.

Edited January 21, 2010 by HeatDeath

[payxibka 10,047]

Thank you for your reply. Do you think it'll be faster if my mother (LPR) petitions for him? Should I file both?

that appears to be about 8 years if he remains unmarried

[HeatDeath 430]

Faster yet would be if your Mom becomes a citizen. Unmarried children of US citizens are faster yet. But if your Mom is a few years away from eligibility for citizenship yet it might not be a big enough difference to bother doing.