May 2013 I-130 Filers

[scienceworks 64]

Good job alaskafan. Can we send this directly to White House, rather than working through the chain of command. USCIS knows there is backlog so is there any point is telling them again?

I don't clearly understand the premise of your question. You do not need to copy and send the letter that you see. All you need to do is find the emails of influential people or organizations to whom you will send a link to the web address where this letter to Ms. Blackburn is.

Then, give me the names of those influential people or organizations that you will be emailing.

I see that you are from Washington state. So, you could plan to email Sen. Patty Murray and Sen. Maria Cantwell. The letter could go something like this:

Dear Senator Murray,

I wish to call your attention to egregious, recent failings of USCIS in adjudicating green card petitions (I-130s) for U.S. citizens, like myself, on behalf of our foreign spouses. The effect of their negligence has resulted in a vast increase in the waiting period for us. Based on what they are telling us now, people like me are expected to remain separated from our spouses for two years.

You might not be aware of what they have done, because these changes are new. So, with others in my same situation, we joined together and have written an open letter to the director of the facility that is responsible for adjudicating our green card petitions. That letter is here:

http://uscgreencardpetitionerscommittee.blogspot.com/

I respectfully urge you to please put pressure on USCIS to alter their practices so that we can again expect reasonable processing times from them.

Sincerely,

XXXXX

You can email this letter to your Senators, and to any other person or organization whom you think might be influential. You can revise this letter and send it to your local news organizations, for example, to a news editor at the Seattle Times.

Alter the cover letter, like this:

Dear Mr. XXXX,

I am a Seattle area resident. I am writing to call your attention to a newsworthy matter that I believe deserves coverage - egregious, recent failings of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) in adjudicating green card petitions (I-130s) for U.S. citizens, like myself, on behalf of our foreign spouses. The effect of their negligence has resulted in a vast increase in the waiting period for us. Based on what they are telling us now, people like me are expected to remain separated from our spouses for two years.

You might not be aware of what they have done, because these changes are new. So, with others in my same situation, we joined together and have written an open letter to the director of the facility that is responsible for adjudicating our green card petitions. That letter is here:

http://uscgreencardpetitionerscommittee.blogspot.com/

I hope that you might cover this story. The USCIS will then know that they cannot mistreat us and get away with it, and that will put pressure on them to alter their practices so that we can again expect reasonable processing times from them.

Sincerely,

XXXXX

Just find and save the email addresses of everyone whom you will be emailing the cover letters with the web link. Give the names of the people/titles/organizations to me so that I can add them to the list of people to whom the online letter is cc'd. Then in about a week or two, we will email out the cover letters.

Let me know if you have more questions.

--Alaskafan

[NoelAnne 62]

This is perfect, thanks so much.

[marimusing 0]

Look at the Bottom of the NOA1

[Simeon 25]

Good job alaskafan. Can we send this directly to White House, rather than working through the chain of command. USCIS knows there is backlog so is there any point is telling them again?

Agree, Alaskafan has done some good work here. Can I weigh in on the strategy? I think we can take Ms. Blackburn's silence to our e-mails to be either (1) a bad sign that the USCIS is not on target and she is covering up the slip or (2) employee policy to forward all e-mails to customer service instead of answering directly. Either way, we will not get an answer from her. However, I don't think it's such a bad idea to send it to her anyways and copy to the AILA, the White House, etc. as Alaskafan is already suggesting. In the event that she really does give a hoot about these issues and has the resources to help, it can at least make the issue more visible/clear to her to make better decisions regarding our I-130s.

[deleteme 34]

Thanks Alaskafan again for taking time out to write up the letter. I read the letter and it is really explains our situation to the T. What will you do with our comments? Attached them or something. Maybe I missed that part.

I will read your comments and then change the letter so that it is better. Comments are not necessary. But if you have an idea for making the letter better, I would like to know.

[deleteme 34]

Good job alaskafan. Can we send this directly to White House, rather than working through the chain of command. USCIS knows there is backlog so is there any point is telling them again?

I already plan to email a cover letter with a link to the letter, to whitehouse.gov.

The purpose of this letter is not to inform them of what we know they know.

USCIS made decisions that hurt us, and, I believe, that they knew they were going to hurt us. I believe that our difficulties were avoidable. They did not have to choose to hurt us, but they were negligent. That is why they were not forthright with us. They had good reason to mislead us and conceal the facts from u - they knew what was coming.

But they have the power more than anybody else, including the White House, to immediately improve our situation. Yes, the White House has more authority, but the WH has to order USCIS to improve our situation. USCIS can do it themselves, if they so choose.

So, the goal here is to put pressure on them. If they do nothing - and double-down, we'll write another letter and we will spread awareness farther. We will name their names in public, etc. We will do everything that we can to embarrass them. They should not get away with what they have done, and this is a way for us to expose them.

I believe our stories will interest the news, as will USCIS's callous attitude. We just have to organize our efforts the right way. Hopefully, this will work.

[Hollyday 122]

Everyone,

This may be our best chance to exert pressure on Blackburn.

Please spread the word about this campaign. We have her email address, so let's not shoot this silver bullet until we have everything in place. Here you go:

http://uscgreencardp...e.blogspot.com/

Let's get this done!!

--alaskafan

Okay, here are my $0.02 regarding the letter:

0. Thanks for all the effort and the extent you're going to help with this!

1. Do you maybe want to mention how we got to the estimate of this 88% like make some intro that there is a community gathering statistics of the members, etc.? Because the phrase 'a vast majority (around 88%) of our I-130 petitions filed in March remain un-adjudicated' will undoubtedly lead to a question where we get this info because there's no official statistics by month as far as i'm aware.

2. Speaking of this 88% of March filers: if we take the stats without DCF my calculation shows more than 12% processed, so i'd use a more generic phrasing like 'over 80%'.

3. Just for my understanding: which federal law are you referring to when you say adjudicating those petitions should be their first priority?

Thanks and keep up the good work.

[deleteme 34]

Agree, Alaskafan has done some good work here. Can I weigh in on the strategy? I think we can take Ms. Blackburn's silence to our e-mails to be either (1) a bad sign that the USCIS is not on target and she is covering up the slip or (2) employee policy to forward all e-mails to customer service instead of answering directly. Either way, we will not get an answer from her. However, I don't think it's such a bad idea to send it to her anyways and copy to the AILA, the White House, etc. as Alaskafan is already suggesting. In the event that she really does give a hoot about these issues and has the resources to help, it can at least make the issue more visible/clear to her to make better decisions regarding our I-130s.

I'm aware of only one private email sent to Blackburn. What I have on the internet is not a private email but a publicly viewable letter to her. The letter states our case, identifies her as someone most responsible for providing us with relief, and we email the link to everyone who can put pressure on her.

[observatorka 197]

Okay, here are my $0.02 regarding the letter:

0. Thanks for all the effort and the extent you're going to help with this!

1. Do you maybe want to mention how we got to the estimate of this 88% like make some intro that there is a community gathering statistics of the members, etc.? Because the phrase 'a vast majority (around 88%) of our I-130 petitions filed in March remain un-adjudicated' will undoubtedly lead to a question where we get this info because there's no official statistics by month as far as i'm aware.

2. Speaking of this 88% of March filers: if we take the stats without DCF my calculation shows more than 12% processed, so i'd use a more generic phrasing like 'over 80%'.

3. Just for my understanding: which federal law are you referring to when you say adjudicating those petitions should be their first priority?

Thanks and keep up the good work.

to alaskafan:

had the same thoughts after reading the letter

how can you consider amount of pending petitions, when you have no source and VJ members are (maybe) 10% of all the petitioners...

Edited October 13, 2013 by observatorka

[Hollyday 122]

had the same thoughts after reading the letter

how can you consider amount of pending petitions, when you have no source and VJ members are (maybe) 10% of all the petitioners...

I think VJ is more like less than 1% of all petitioners actually but anyway i have no problem with using this statistics as long as it's explained where we're coming from. Also, maybe that'd make a case for them to provide more reliable statistics in future if they decide to act on it.

[observatorka 197]

I think VJ is more like less than 1% of all petitioners actually but anyway i have no problem with using this statistics as long as it's explained where we're coming from. Also, maybe that'd make a case for them to provide more reliable statistics in future if they decide to act on it.

absolutely agree!

besides the emotional side of this whole situation, there is no good argumentation in the letter

sorry for being honest

[Hollyday 122]

absolutely agree!

besides the emotional side of this whole situation, there is no good argumentation in the letter

sorry for being honest

This is though not the statement i was trying to make. We're presenting the facts we have. Extrapolation is a valid statistics tool. There is no way to know if the pool of people providing timeline data is representative compared to the pool of all petitions, but there are already enough people to make a statement that the current situation seems to be off and on many accounts (lack of credible information, misleading answers from Tier 1/Tier 2, long processing times that we are aware of from this VJ pool of people). If they can offer better statistics and a more credible explanation that would also be welcome. I mean even their estimate of 16.6 months for I-130 adjudication seems to have gaping holes in it logic-wise.

I support the idea of reaching out to them, i'd just rather it was very clear what information we're basing it on. Our source is as good as any - especially when an official one is lacking.

[scienceworks 64]

How about this

http://dashboard.uscis.gov/index.cfm?formtype=4&office=91&charttype=1

The dashboard shows clearly that issues started in Aug 2012, got improved in beginning of 2013 and then got worse.

[scienceworks 64]

Keep in mind 1% is not a bad number. It does represent a random sampling since there is no reservation on who joins here and the receipt date are typically spread all over the calendar with all applications being send to NBC. We could use VJ stats as a measure of the completion rate. The Igor's list is already customizable according to many criteria.

[Hollyday 122]

Keep in mind 1% is not a bad number. It does represent a random sampling since there is no reservation on who joins here and the receipt date are typically spread all over the calendar with all applications being send to NBC. We could use VJ stats as a measure of the completion rate. The Igor's list is already customizable according to many criteria.

You know, in all honesty: i think it's much less than 1% but anyway, as i said, i think it's enough to make an extrapolation and ask for a response.