I-129F Delay at the CSC: A Comprehensive Analysis of the Data

[Lynkali 163]

I wonder if there is a media story in this? Could it be worth getting this information and analysis to a journalist interested in DACA?

I would strongly recommend getting the media involved, yes! On a local level I've had success with media intervention for dealing with bureaucratic and systemic issues (unrelated to visa things!), and it really does help. If anyone has media contacts, PLEASE show them this thread and ask them to consider an investigative report!

[B&L 19]

Nice work I don't even want to know how long it took you to get all this done.

Not as long as it takes to get an NOA2 from the CSC, apparently...

[Laila.Jawad 12]

If anything I would criticize people for being too patient.

I have spent so much time looking at the numbers for the past 4 months, I can't just give up on everyone else who is still waiting. I won't be happy until CSC is doing their job like they supposed to.

hiiiiiii

im still waiting for my NOA2

[Mike&Cherry 45]

My wife has an I-485 application to adjust status from a K-1 Visa which we sent in over 9 months ago. They sent us a NOA telling us they transfered her case to CSC to "Speed up the Processing". Well it has been the complete opposite of that. They list on the USCIS Website that they estimate the processing time to be within 5 months. Also on the NOA it states for us to call them if it is outside of the processing time so they can look into. Well calling the call center was an absolute waste of time. They refused to open a service request or even let me speak with a Teir 2 Rep. In addtion some things she told me were scripted as she was most likely reading off a compter screen. The kicker was at the end of the call. She said if we had any questions or concerns to please do not hesitate to call them back. Well that obviously accomplish nothing. It doesn't bother me that they are working on other types of petitions or applications, what bothers me is that we paid over $1,000 for this and they don't have the appropriate amount of staff to handle the workload. They charge too much money and are providing an extremely slow turn around rate. 9 month for and I-485 is ridiculous. We are waiting in limbo as we need to travel back to my wife's home country very soon. We could take a chance traveling since she has Advanced Parol, but if we get an RFE or a request for an interview then we have to travel back for that. So since calling USCIS was useless, we now have our Congressman's office working on the issue. Luckily they were very interested in helping us with this issue. What other options do we have? The USCIS Customer Service Rep stated that even knowing it says 5 months processing online that there really is no specific time they are required to complete the process. So bascially it can be indefinate according to them. We went through the long K-1 Visa process prior to this so we are blessed that we are now together in the US. I do feel for those who fiances and spouses who are waiting apart in different countries for USCIS to get their act together. I wish everyone the best and hopefully you will be together soon.

Mike

[I & B 273]

My wife has an I-485 application to adjust status from a K-1 Visa which we sent in over 9 months ago. They sent us a NOA telling us they transfered her case to CSC to "Speed up the Processing". Well it has been the complete opposite of that. They list on the USCIS Website that they estimate the processing time to be within 5 months. Also on the NOA it states for us to call them if it is outside of the processing time so they can look into. Well calling the call center was an absolute waste of time. They refused to open a service request or even let me speak with a Teir 2 Rep. In addtion some things she told me were scripted as she was most likely reading off a compter screen. The kicker was at the end of the call. She said if we had any questions or concerns to please do not hesitate to call them back. Well that obviously accomplish nothing. It doesn't bother me that they are working on other types of petitions or applications, what bothers me is that we paid over $1,000 for this and they don't have the appropriate amount of staff to handle the workload. They charge too much money and are providing an extremely slow turn around rate. 9 month for and I-485 is ridiculous. We are waiting in limbo as we need to travel back to my wife's home country very soon. We could take a chance traveling since she has Advanced Parol, but if we get an RFE or a request for an interview then we have to travel back for that. So since calling USCIS was useless, we now have our Congressman's office working on the issue. Luckily they were very interested in helping us with this issue. What other options do we have? The USCIS Customer Service Rep stated that even knowing it says 5 months processing online that there really is no specific time they are required to complete the process. So bascially it can be indefinate according to them. We went through the long K-1 Visa process prior to this so we are blessed that we are now together in the US. I do feel for those who fiances and spouses who are waiting apart in different countries for USCIS to get their act together. I wish everyone the best and hopefully you will be together soon.

Mike

Hi Mike,

Sorry to hear about your aggravating situation. Here is the data I compiled on I-485s. You can find the same in the spreadsheet in my OP if you want to play with it yourself. (There is quite a bit more than I could fit in my snapshot in there as well.)

As you can see, you were not the only one transferred to CSC over the summer. Many were and they fell far behind. The good news, however, is that there is strong evidence that they really are clearing through the I-485s now at a very brisk pace, and that seems unaffected by the DACA apps.

I wish I had more for you to use to fight your case. But feel free to use my spreadsheet to dive into the data. They definitely did not handle the case transfers well and let a huge number build up, at least, from what I can see. Look at the major slack in the completions to receipts (CPR) ratio around that time.

Edited March 26, 2013 by I & B

[Zipline 23]

I & B, what do you think of all of us pushing for an independent audit of not just the CSC, but all the major USCIS service centers?

[I & B 273]

I & B, what do you think of all of us pushing for an independent audit of not just the CSC, but all the major USCIS service centers?

I think we definitely need to be pushing for accountability at the USCIS. I've been working on drafting a post detailing some "best practices" for contracting elected representatives. Beyond that, I'm not sure what we can do. Hopefully we can raise some eyebrows by relentlessly and meticulously pointing out the USCIS's flaws. It's a topic that has been entirely absent from the debate over immigration reform. And it'd be a shame if they just built a new building on the same broken foundation.

[shinzo 2]

It may be the case. However, what is the problem of giving priority to DACA? If you think about it, economically, it makes sense. You need more tax-paying legal immigrants. Legalization of current illegal immigrants will significantly increase tax collection. In addition, individuals that are already here illegally due to the fact that they brough in by their parents, did not have real choice but now suffesring because of their illegal status. I do feel for all the VJers that are waiting for their visas but I understand why they are pushing these applications..

Well, my fiance had a job in U. S. legally and paid tax before with her H1 visa. So both DACA and K-1 can increase tax because she will eventually get a job in her field.....since these illegals are cutting inline front of us and sake of getting more tax, their tax rate should be set at 40% or highter.

[gh517 0]

Excellent post.

Have to say thanks very much for compiling all of this and sharing it. My fiance and I have been waiting 5 and a half months now for the csc with no end in sight. She is taking this data to her congressman, called their office today.

Ridiculous there should be such a wait.

Grant

[san diego 407]

Well, my fiance had a job in U. S. legally and paid tax before with her H1 visa. So both DACA and K-1 can increase tax because she will eventually get a job in her field.....since these illegals are cutting inline front of us and sake of getting more tax, their tax rate should be set at 40% or highter.

You may remeber that they were brought to US unknowingly, as kids.. In addition, no one said that they are "cutting inline".. They are waiting just like everyone else. On the other hand, they are probably in greater needs than all of us and our fiancees. They need LEGAL jobs. This is not their fault that they were brought here as kids. In addition, for our current budget situation, it makes more economical sense to legalize illegal immigrants than bringing foreign fiances/es. I am just stating macroeconomical facts. Myself I am republican and do not endorse illegal immigration. However, this is a different situation.

[dreed 4]

One theory I have about the mysteriously fast applications processings that are not tied to military service (and I've seen a few on Igor's list) is that they allow the USCIS to game its statistics. Since the USCIS target time is based on a mean completion time and not a median completion time, they can skew it to meet their goal by processing a minority of apps on an extremely expedited schedule while, in reality, processing the bulk of the apps far slower than their stated goal.

But that problem is a whole different can of worms from what I've opened up here, so I'll save my thoughts on it for another thread...

Jesse Ventura... is that you???

[I & B 273]

Jesse Ventura... is that you???

Huh? How would that be anything close to a conspiracy theory? Have you ever studied public choice or game theory? USCIS gaming statistics in that way would be pretty much an expected agency behavior given their incentives to report lower mean processing times to congress.

Imagine you are a USCIS administrator juggling the demands of several different classes of petitions. Periodically, one type of petition will fall behind (you can see this in the data) and then you batch process it to catch up, allowing other types to fall behind. The whole time you are getting complaints from congressmen and your bosses are under pressure for you to meet a certain goal time. Do you want to report to your boss that it's impossible to meet the goal time? Or do you tell the reviewers to grab a bunch of apps that were filed 2 months ago and push them through so you can depress the mean completion time figure and tell your boss that you have met the goal? This isn't rocket science.

Edited March 27, 2013 by I & B

[Zipline 23]

You may remeber that they were brought to US unknowingly, as kids.. In addition, no one said that they are "cutting inline".. They are waiting just like everyone else. On the other hand, they are probably in greater needs than all of us and our fiancees. They need LEGAL jobs. This is not their fault that they were brought here as kids. In addition, for our current budget situation, it makes more economical sense to legalize illegal immigrants than bringing foreign fiances/es. I am just stating macroeconomical facts. Myself I am republican and do not endorse illegal immigration. However, this is a different situation.

Agree and disagree ... yes they are not cutting in line, because there is no real line. There are sets of work to be done and the CSC is putting the illegals' work far ahead of ours.

Economic sense ... what does it matter? My fiancee will get a job soon after she is allowed to come here. Both her or an illegal can work and contribute to the US economy. And if you want to talk economic impact, consider that so many of us on VJ are sending money abroad via Western Union to help support our fiancees that doesn't see the light of day in the US. One of these days I would love to not be a hermit in my apartment and go out with my loved one and enjoy a nice dinner and a movie, go bowling, go shopping with her (did I really just say that?) ... things that can help our economy.

[rascalcat 28]

Agree and disagree ... yes they are not cutting in line, because there is no real line. There are sets of work to be done and the CSC is putting the illegals' work far ahead of ours.

Economic sense ... what does it matter? My fiancee will get a job soon after she is allowed to come here. Both her or an illegal can work and contribute to the US economy. And if you want to talk economic impact, consider that so many of us on VJ are sending money abroad via Western Union to help support our fiancees that doesn't see the light of day in the US. One of these days I would love to not be a hermit in my apartment and go out with my loved one and enjoy a nice dinner and a movie, go bowling, go shopping with her (did I really just say that?) ... things that can help our economy.

Also we still have to apply for work permits which again takes ages!! So we have no better starting situation that illegals. I think the work load was just handled poorly, and the government just did not prepare for the the inevitable. I myself would like to set my own business up eventually online, and would be bringing money in to the U.S. from all over the world.. who knows, maybe i will employ an accountant eventually = and give someone else paid work! I dont see how we can contribute any less compared to anyone else already in the U.S.. illegal or not. Especially if we prove we are NOT a public charge!

Its just silly that they should need to backlog applications causing further chaos for their departments. They would have been better off staffing this adequately, instead of making people panic who are illegal and legal! Both would get sorted out in a reasonable time frame more efficiently! And all applications have fees, so its not like they can not afford to staff this efficiently.

[san diego 407]

Agree and disagree ... yes they are not cutting in line, because there is no real line. There are sets of work to be done and the CSC is putting the illegals' work far ahead of ours.

Economic sense ... what does it matter? My fiancee will get a job soon after she is allowed to come here. Both her or an illegal can work and contribute to the US economy. And if you want to talk economic impact, consider that so many of us on VJ are sending money abroad via Western Union to help support our fiancees that doesn't see the light of day in the US. One of these days I would love to not be a hermit in my apartment and go out with my loved one and enjoy a nice dinner and a movie, go bowling, go shopping with her (did I really just say that?) ... things that can help our economy.

NUmber of K1 applicants are not even close to number of DACA. This is why DACA has greater macroeconomic impact.