Frustrated isn't the right word.

[meauxna 15]

Yodrak,

Are you even reading this thread. or just skimming? You don't seem to grasp what is being said.

Uh oh.

[Erichu 0]

Yodrak, Are you even reading this thread. or just skimming? You don't seem to grasp what is being said.

Uh oh.

Well jeez! It's a bit annoying to be told something so obvious that everyone here already knows it, and then to have it repeated verbatim further down in the same thread. Yodrak can speak up if he's got something to add here. But if he thinks the pathetic lottery of luck that is CSC Visa processing can be defended, he's got some explaining to do beyond stating an obvious and irrelevent point over and over.

[Ruthanne 0]

I agree with the original post as we seem to have deviated away from his point- being that it IS USELESS to call the service center. Another point I would like to make is that the service center people answering the phone each will tell you some different story on why you should continue to wait. As someone who has WAITED 7 months I can tell you it not only frustrating but annoying trying to get some response from those people. Also the service center people arent wasting time answering phones. THAT IS THEIR JOB. They dont process files. So calling them doesnt affect anything whatsoever.

[Yodrak 7]

Erichu,

I understand perfectly what is being said in this thread. Some people's petitions reach the point where they can be approved more quickly than other's and they don't understand why.

And then they write, incorrectly, as you did, that approval should be given in queue order. But it isn't, never has been, and cannot be, if there is to be a workable system.

Yodrak

Yodrak, Are you even reading this thread. or just skimming? You don't seem to grasp what is being said.

Uh oh.

Well jeez! It's a bit annoying to be told something so obvious that everyone here already knows it, and then to have it repeated verbatim further down in the same thread. Yodrak can speak up if he's got something to add here. But if he thinks the pathetic lottery of luck that is CSC Visa processing can be defended, he's got some explaining to do beyond stating an obvious and irrelevent point over and over.

[Erichu 0]

Erichu,

I understand perfectly what is being said in this thread. Some people's petitions reach the point where they can be approved more quickly than other's and they don't understand why.

And then they write, incorrectly, as you did, that approval should be given in queue order. But it isn't, never has been, and cannot be, if there is to be a workable system.

Yodrak

Yodrak,

I know you provide plenty of useful info here to many people so I'm not looking to antagonize you. Let's look at what I originally wrote.

It's not hard to see what is wrong. The computer systems that are essential to managing this massive volume of work are full of problems. We received our NOA2 letter weeks ago and the online systems still shows our petition as not approved. I never received the email notification that I signed up for. The "customer service" people also see our application status as not approved but said I shouldn't worry about as long as I have the NOA2 letter.

If the systems are inaccurate, the work cannot be properly managed. So work that ought to be processed based on date order may be ignored for months. The tracking systems essential to reminding somone to pick up the right petition at the right time up don't work. What happens instead is what we see - random processing that goes against CSC's own policies. And to make it worse, we aren't permitted to inquire about our petition to CSC, and so we have no way to let anyone know that our file is being ignored.

If you had read this carefully, you would have understood that I was talking about processing and not approval. Processing leads to approval and so processing out of order leads to approvals out of order and also leads to unconscionably long wait times for those whose petitions are simply forgotten due to faulty tracking systems. If the long waits were due to some petitions being far more complex, we would see more activity (touches) during the long waits. We don't. We see months pass with zero activity. No processing.

The VSC has a workable system that somehow has much fewer people falling through the cracks. You are wrong in this case that CSC could not fix this problem. They could and they should.

Best wishes to you Yodrak.

[Yodrak 7]

Erichu,

Note that I have made no comment on the post that you now reference. I commented on a notion that was posted in this thread by several people, including yourself, and needs to be clarified because it incorrect.

With regard to this post, I see that in one paragraph you write about both computer systems to manage the work and online status and e-mail notification systems. The latter are not as reliable as they might be, perhaps because it takes a person to initiate a status update or e-mail, but these notification systems are not what is used to manage the workload.

Recognize also that certain things, such as an IBIS hit that needs to be cleared, cause a case to be put aside because there is nothing more the case officer can do until the issue is resolved. And resolving a particular issue can take a short time or a long time depending on what the issue is and what must be done to resolve that specific issue.

Yodrak

Yodrak,

I know you provide plenty of useful info here to many people so I'm not looking to antagonize you. Let's look at what I originally wrote.

It's not hard to see what is wrong. The computer systems that are essential to managing this massive volume of work are full of problems. We received our NOA2 letter weeks ago and the online systems still shows our petition as not approved. I never received the email notification that I signed up for. The "customer service" people also see our application status as not approved but said I shouldn't worry about as long as I have the NOA2 letter.

If the systems are inaccurate, the work cannot be properly managed. So work that ought to be processed based on date order may be ignored for months. The tracking systems essential to reminding somone to pick up the right petition at the right time up don't work. What happens instead is what we see - random processing that goes against CSC's own policies. And to make it worse, we aren't permitted to inquire about our petition to CSC, and so we have no way to let anyone know that our file is being ignored.

If you had read this carefully, you would have understood that I was talking about processing and not approval. Processing leads to approval and so processing out of order leads to approvals out of order and also leads to unconscionably long wait times for those whose petitions are simply forgotten due to faulty tracking systems. If the long waits were due to some petitions being far more complex, we would see more activity (touches) during the long waits. We don't. We see months pass with zero activity. No processing.

The VSC has a workable system that somehow has much fewer people falling through the cracks. You are wrong in this case that CSC could not fix this problem. They could and they should.

Best wishes to you Yodrak.

Edited October 30, 2006 by Yodrak

[Erichu 0]

Yodrak,

I don't pretend to be an expert in Immigration but I can see that you simply don't understand how the kinds of computer systems that USCIS uses work or need to work. That is something I know well and so you ought to try to expand your own understanding here.

The systems used by CSC, by the USCIS customer service staff, and the web pages we use are not things that must be separately updated by people. That would be insane. These systems provide views to the same data or, at worst, data updates flow across these systems. It's Data Management 101.

When the systems are buggy, as the USCIS systems are, then data does not flow reliably and system failures multiply. The online website we view presents simple touches and status changes. They are a window showing us the poor quality of the information managed by USCIS. If the data we see is fouled up and a simple email notification system is unreliable, then you can be sure the far more complex workflow management systems in CSC are worse. And all the resulting screw-ups of random processing and approvals will then naturally occur.

All the symptoms of an inefficient and mismanaged organization are blinking red for CSC. Long waits to open mail, long periods of zero PROCESSING activity on older petitions, randomly long waits to simply mail approved petitions to NVC. There is no excusable reason an approved petition may sit for over a month before a simple administrative task of shipping to the NVC occurs and, during that same period of time, other petitions ship out in days.

If the job was really so hard, why is the Vermont office almost never slow in opening, processing, or delivering petitions to NVC? Larger numbers of petitions in CSC are not the answer. The USCIS philosophy towards us, their customers, is CMA and LMA (Cover My ### and Leave Me Alone). Their public status report to us is an outright lie. The information in VJ lays bare all their lies and failures and I am grateful that we are able to speak frankly, share information, and see where we really stand.

Edited October 30, 2006 by Erichu

[Yodrak 7]

Erichu,

People who have toured the USCIS facilities and talked with the people who run them and the various operations within them report that the 'customer information' systems that we and the NCSC staff see are indeed separate from the other data and process systems, and require human input to update.

Insane maybe, archaic is probably a better word, but that's they way it is. It does have the benefit of increased scurity by insuring that people like the NSCS telephone answering staff are kept out of the critical systems.

Yodrak

Yodrak,

I don't pretend to be an expert in Immigration but I can see that you simply don't understand how the kinds of computer systems that USCIS uses work or need to work. That is something I know well and so you ought to try to expand your own understanding here.

The systems used by CSC, by the USCIS customer service staff, and the web pages we use are not things that must be separately updated by people. That would be insane. These systems provide views to the same data or, at worst, data updates flow across these systems. It's Data Management 101.

When the systems are buggy, as the USCIS systems are, then data does not flow reliably and system failures multiply. The online website we view presents simple touches and status changes. They are a window showing us the poor quality of the information managed by USCIS. If the data we see is fouled up and a simple email notification system is unreliable, then you can be sure the far more complex workflow management systems in CSC are worse. And all the resulting screw-ups of random processing and approvals will then naturally occur.....

[Erichu 0]

People who have toured the USCIS facilities and talked with the people who run them and the various operations within them report that the 'customer information' systems that we and the NCSC staff see are indeed separate from the other data and process systems, and require human input to update.

Insane maybe, archaic is probably a better word, but that's they way it is. It does have the benefit of increased scurity by insuring that people like the NSCS telephone answering staff are kept out of the critical systems.

Yodrak, how long ago did this tour happen? Things do change you know. But taking your word only reinforces my viewpoint about the severe inadequacies of USCIS in accomplishing their own stated policies. Is the practice of people updating multiple systems with the same data insane? Yes, it's a recipe for the screw-ups we see. Is it archaic? No, the practice of feeding data to external systems for purposes of reporting and status review is decades old. And a one way feed of data into external systems is a lower security risk than individuals making separate updates. It it simply another lame excuse made by USCIS.

I stand 100% by every word of my original post here. The CSC is failing us and not delivering their own policies of fair treatment based on order received. If you read that post, it is obvious that I never stated, as you claimed, that petitions should be approved in the order received. I said that older petitions are often sitting idle and unprocessed while newer ones are being processed due to faulty computer systems. And that does lead to the random and unfair lottery of quick and very slow approvals. In the future, please read carefully before you put false words in my mouth. I will be happy to do the same for you.

I wish you well in your assistance to other folks here. I'm done on this subject.

[Yodrak 7]

..... Is it archaic? No, the practice of feeding data to external systems for purposes of reporting and status review is decades old. .....

Interesting. What is your definition of 'archaic' if not something that is old and out of date, not up to current standards?

.... If you read that post, it is obvious that I never stated, as you claimed, that petitions should be approved in the order received. ..... In the future, please read carefully before you put false words in my mouth. ....

You did not write

..... The processing and approving of petitions is not first-come-first-served. .....

? I can assure you that I'm not the one who wrote these words in your name.

Yodrak

[Yodrak 7]

Erichu,

You might be interested in this report by the DHS Office of Inspector General issued just over 1 year ago. It confirms that USCIS IT systems are indeed "insane", to use your word for it. To quote one sentence from the Executive Summary, "Adjudicators use multiple and non-integrated IT systems to perform their jobs, ...."

Further on, starting at the bottom of page 12, "USCIS' IT environment is inadequate to effectively support immigration benefits processing. Specifically, USCIS uses multiple, disparate information systems that are difficult to use and do not adequately share information, resulting in data integrity problems. The systems operate on different hardware platforms that are outdated, unstable, and not routinely replaced." The report goes on to discuss how the systems do not provide views to the same data, and how "... many of the systems collect the same information, but in different formats and with different levels of detail."

USCIS does indeed have serious data management problems.

http://www.dhs.gov/xoig/assets/mgmtrpts/OIG_05-41_Sep05.pdf

Yodrak

Yodrak,

I don't pretend to be an expert in Immigration but I can see that you simply don't understand how the kinds of computer systems that USCIS uses work or need to work. That is something I know well and so you ought to try to expand your own understanding here.

The systems used by CSC, by the USCIS customer service staff, and the web pages we use are not things that must be separately updated by people. That would be insane. These systems provide views to the same data or, at worst, data updates flow across these systems. It's Data Management 101.

When the systems are buggy, as the USCIS systems are, then data does not flow reliably and system failures multiply. The online website we view presents simple touches and status changes. They are a window showing us the poor quality of the information managed by USCIS. If the data we see is fouled up and a simple email notification system is unreliable, then you can be sure the far more complex workflow management systems in CSC are worse. And all the resulting screw-ups of random processing and approvals will then naturally occur.

......

Edited November 21, 2006 by Yodrak

[Erichu 0]

Well, it's no suprise Yodrak because the CSC shows all the signs of very screwed up systems and information management. Their systems are not just archaic, as in older technology. They are a disconnected and dysfunctional disaster and it's a recipe for failure. So when new procedures were needed due to IMBRA and CSC suddenly had to handle their own load along with several other Service Centers, they created a perfect storm of chaos.

That was my take on things all along - when the systems are messed up, it is impossible for the employees in such a large operation to follow their own policies. Priorities go out the window and we get the random processing and mishandling of cases that is so infuriating to those of us who were unlucky in having our cases left to rot for no valid reason. What makes it worse is that USCIS publishes a false status report designed to prevent us from inquiring about our own cases. Simple errors are amplified into major phuk-ups and people's lives are unnecessarily put on hold for months and months as a result.

[CarolineM 0]

Hang in there

[heathius 0]

Jasal,

Just a word of warning... Don't count on the US consulate in China helping you by phone either. The help center in China is only trained to read what is on their computer screens. Aside from telling you the official status of your case, they won't help you in any way.

And to make it more rediculous, the help center has been "outsourced". They are located in some other part of China (Chengdu I think), and they have no direct connection to Guangzhou. To top it off, it is a toll phone number which must be prepaid before you can call them. The toll is expensive (equiv to US$34 /hour).