Where are the waited-til-the-fee-dropped filers?

[stringged 1]

I'm the first! I had the packet ready and triple checked before that Tuesday Nov 23 when the fee dropped and I mailed the packet =) oh the memories.

Who's with me?

[Honey&Bee 1]

Hi! Same here.. We sent on the 24th, ouch.. It took as to the backseat for another month, huh?

You think they'll consider us for November filer instead of Dec/Jan?

[stringged 1]

I have you beat for a day (haha).

God I hope they consider us for Nov! I'm with you.

[wendie and sam 4]

haha I did the same thing, except I couldn't get my act together until Nov. 30th. I felt like I got a USCIS coupon!! it was awesome.

[payxibka 10,045]

moving thread to case update and progress reports forum

[FawkThisSite 13]

Cheap. I would never put off even a single day to be with the love of my life. A few days faster is better than a few dollars saved.

[KiwiBird 132]

Not so 'cheap' when the people may not have that much money. Kind of rude to call someone's personal financial situation 'cheap' just because yours is different, don't you think?

[MochiKamo 93]

I sent it off in October 12 even knowing about the fee decrease because at that point I had already procrastinated sending the packet in for almost 6 months (at that time I thought the entire process would take less than 6 months from sending the petition to getting the visa)

Also I figured they were be a big rush in November so I wanted to send my packet in before the rush came in.

[FawkThisSite 13]

Not so 'cheap' when the people may not have that much money. Kind of rude to call someone's personal financial situation 'cheap' just because yours is different, don't you think?

Remember the fact that you need to make 100% of poverty guidelines? *Facepalm* "Cheap"

[KiwiBird 132]

Or have a co-sponsor. "Rude"

[Krikit 1,164]

Please stop the rude and judgemental comments. Thank you.

[wendie and sam 4]

wow, it's not really about being cheap, I think sending my petition a week earlier and not checking it thoroughly or waiting a week, getting a cheaper rate AND having time to make sure everything was in order and filled out was worth the week I waited. Although I'm a well paid Federal worker and WAY over the poverty threshold, I would rather spend that extra money on cute lingerie for my wedding night than waste it by sending it BACK to the Government.

Everyone's situation is different... some people prefer to spend their money on actual tangible goods and not processing forms.

[stringged 1]

Haha nice job everyone. I hadn't checked this post in AWHILE. Seems like y'all had fun.

I'm all up for spending the $$ I saved on wedding night stuff ;-)

[thaiv 15]

Why don't we just pay more? Then maybe they could have more workers to process petitions in a timely manner.

[wendie and sam 4]

In theory that would work..except with the way that the Federal government pays for workers and services it's not completely funded through the fees we file, the number of Federal jobs is actually dictated by the approved federal budget that goes from the president to congress and each agency has a set number of Full Time Equivalents (FTEs or jobs) that they have to stay within. Even if we pay more in fees it doesn't equate automatically to more FTEs.

Filling FTEs in the government is regulated by laws, statuates, congress, etc. and is quite complex. Paying $100 more per application isn't necessarily going to change the number of people avaiable to process applications. If you click the link below it will show you that USCIS is only 5% of the total DHS budget and on page 129 the entire budget request and FTE structure is listed for USCIS.

the bottom line, paying $100 more isn't going to increase the # of FTEs. At the same time the I-129 fee went down, other fees increased based on their cost estimate of how much additional resources beyond congressional appropriations are needed to process those specific applications.

Sorry for the nerdy Federal government lesson...but this is literally what I do all day.

DHS 2010-2011 budget request: http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/budget_bib_fy2011.pdf