Digging in deep into the trenches of the USCIS

[St&Sv 33]

Hey guys, just needed a place to come vent for a little while. Seems quite a few of us K1 petitioners from Vermont are stuck in limbo after our cases were transferred out to Texas to be processed. I honestly cannot believe all the confusion that is going on right now. It agitates me to no ends the lack of information that is coming out to us. USCIS Texas says they cannot give us any information because they generally do not process I-129fs so they have nothing to go on. They could at least say, yes we are working on them and expect to see notices going out in blah blah time. I really thought we had it good in Vermont, considering they were at the 5 month average. I see now how quickly the tides change, and now CSC is at the 5 month and Vermont is backlogged. Though at the same time we are seeing a few VSC petitions being approved from late January, even one guy who has the same dates as us. Which of course is irritating to see, but congrats to them. So here we are near the 5 month mark, with no idea when the approval or RFE will come. It seems our lives will still be on pause for a little bit longer. The waiting is definitely hard, not impossible but doable, but the less the better. I'm not taking it lying down though. I've contacted my Senator and Congressman, and keeping hopes high. Just can't wait to have my girl next to me so we can start having our adventure here

/Rant off/

[randye80 24]

I am not unsympathetic to your plight, really I'm not, but I do think some perspective is in order. This is just the very first small step in a lifetime together, and every step involves waiting for something that is completely outside of your control. The best you can do is make use of the time you have. Where is she going to work? how is she going to learn to drive? go to school, buy groceries, clothes? whatever. What have you prepared to make it a little easier when she's homesick and frustrated in a strange new land?

There are any number of ways you can keep busy by preparing for you fiancee's arrival and new life in America. Show her that you're a real man and not just some dude on a computer.

If Gary were around, he would post something like this -- it refers to making arrangements for a wife and child, but the point is still relevant.

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic/413946-yours-mine-and-ours/

Yes, agreed.

The key here is that the mother needs to believe you're making a decision/suggestion in the best interest of the child. When you have handled the immigration issue carefully and trouble free, when you have done your homework about their life here and the education for the child, when you have prepared everything for her and the child and done well at it...she will trust your other decisions, at least to try them.

This is why I get so crazy when people cannot seem to do anything but check a status report 5 times a day expecting something to change. I can only imagine what would have happened if our conversations during the process had consisted of

"No news again today Sweetheart, I checked 5 times, if I do not hear something soon I am going to start calling my Senator!"

Better to say "I met with the school counselor today and discussed Pasha's education. I am going to a school open house next week and will meet with the ESL teachers. I met with the grant board at St. Micheals College and gave them the info they needed for your grant" Who would you trust? Who is the DO-er? Who is just so much "blah, blah, blah"?

If you are one of those guys that posts "After 298 days... I-129f approved! What now?" She isn't going to trust your decision about her child.

USCIS does go through ebbs and flows though, and I'm sure it will pick up again eventually. I hope everything works out for you.

[zooropa 30]

I wish they were approving K1s like they did just a few years ago...2 months would be heaven... A person can only prepare, prepare, prepare and then watch the grass grow so much...I wonder if the wait grows to 12-16 months in a few more years, will I be posting on here that patience is virtue?

[1HappyGuy 45]

This is a good place to vent, but like Randye80 said. Keep yourself busy and the time will go faster. I've been involved with this process for 10 years and I've seen the USCIS make numerous changes over that time. In fact, when I started they were the BCIS having just changed from the INS. It seems that the immigration services continues to move the various processing around in an effort to speed up the processing and reduce the backlog. Most of us on VJ have only been involved with the K-1 or K-3 visa process. The USCIS has so many different applications being processed that they probably have no real chance of ever getting caught up. Check out the statistics at the USCIS website if you want to see the volume they deal with all the time. Then remember that you are only one of the millions that they process.

Still the best advice is to keep busy. Prepare your home for her/his arrival. Paint rooms, build shelves, garden and landscape, clean up the years of mess you have been accumulating and generally prepare for your significant other's arrival. Remember that once they get here, you won't want to spend a lot of time on all of that other stuff. You want to have time to be with you love.

[vbtwo 54]

Yes, it completely sucks that VSC is now just skipping over to process later petitions that didn't get transferred (good for them, they all are now 2 months closer to a NOA2) while TSC seems to be in no hurry at all to process the transfers.

[St&Sv 33]

Hey I know, and well sometimes a guy just has to vent. Generally it's with some good friends and beer, but my friends are getting ready to be married so bad timing to lay on the vent. We know this is just a small bump on the road of our life together. This is going to feel like the longest time but before we know it it will be a distance memory that we will laugh about. My biggest gripe is just with the poor communication on the USCIS's part, and not having a timeframe anymore. As for staying busy, and making plans all that has been taken care of, months ago actually. I'm a pretty positive guy, one thing my fiancee finds annoying as she says a positive American marrying a negative Russian what a mix. Though I'm always doing something or getting things done, which is what she loves about me...so it's a good balance. A school has been picked with information from the school sent to her. Books on American life also sent to her, I recommend http://amzn.com/0975927639 What's Up America as a good read even as a citizen. PA driving book, sent and a copy for me too so we can study. What we will do when she is here, how to introduce her to things, finding events to keep her busy while I work, making new friends, and building her bridges have already been put into play. The house is cleared out, the closest have room, and the painting we will do together when she is here. Much much more is also in the works too, I'm not an idle guy. She's like me too and wants to hit the ground running, so boy will she be booking it when she gets here. We face things as they come, that's all we can do.

Thanks for the replies guys (the positive ones and the realistic ones), and letting me purge the system.

[baron555 934]

5 months is no bump, it is the expected time period. Yes we all have/had to wait. You knew the time frame when you first started.

[vbtwo 54]

5 months is no bump, it is the expected time period. Yes we all have/had to wait. You knew the time frame when you first started.

Yes, 5 months is the expected time period. People who got transferred are from Dec 2012 - Jan 2013. It's now the 5 month mark for Jan people. Dec people already passed the 6 month mark.

USCIS says absolutely nothing about when the transferred petitions will be adjudicated. All they keep saying is TSC does not give out processing times for I129-F (since they usually do not process them), thus there is no way to be longer than the normal processing time thus there is no way to open service requests.

In addition after seeing VSC now starting to approve petitions with a NOA1 of two months later (that didn't get transferred and remained at VSC), it's no wonder people are frustrated. Transfers should make approvals come faster, not slow them down even more.

[BatmanUSA 105]

while I was waiting.. I checked the website 2=3 times a week... I was very discouraged because people were talking about seeing a status update of "touched"...( still don't know what that means)... anyway.. there was never any updates posted on my UCSIS file and the website only listed the received date.. then one day I received a text message saying my case was approved... it seemed to come out of nowhere..

[St&Sv 33]

Well I'm just getting back from a weekend wedding, and now reading over what some of you had to say. It seems though that we all interpet and perceive things in a different light. Perhaps it could have been the way it was written, which lacks any true emotion or context from verbal, face to face, communication. For anyone who read this as my complaint about having to wait almost 5 months , you were completely in left field when you should have been on the right. We all knew that when we were getting into this governmental trenches that we'd have to hunker down and stand our ground. The good thing about the process is you have somewhat of a guideline, provided by the USCIS, with how long you might be holed up for. Sometimes it's less, and sometimes it's a lot more. This mentally prepares you for the coming days, even if it is a little foggy. Try to think about if there were no guidelines for processing when you applied, and how that might have affected your case. Once you reach that initial guideline you can begin to contact the USCIS and ask them what is happening, and if there is something wrong with your case that is delaying it. When that doesn't work, you can contact Congressmen and Senators to aid in your rescue from the trenches. Again, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Though you have these options at your disposal, it's up to you weither you will use them or not. Will you just sit in the trenches saying, "well one day I know we'll get out" or are you the one who goes up to your Commander asking for answers. Though I'm sure some will perceive this as, "Well a solider has no right to question his Commander", I ask that you just let this analogy slide. My complaint was about the communication which muddled up the guidelines for a select few of us, about 8,000 which is still a small amount of total petitions out there and not all are for fiancee/spouses. While trying to find our ground again, I and many others, have been left up in the clouds. There is no longer any guideline for us. There is no baseline and there are no answers. This means you technically can no longer contract the USCIS, as they do not know what to say. Unless any of you went through a similar situation with your petition you could see this as us whining and crying about an already long process. Many of you already have your loved one(s) here with you, and maybe you had no or little complications and i'm happy for you. Some of you had bumps all along the road, and either waited or tried to fight your way to be together. I feel these people now, though this transfer is just a small bump in life (this is the bump that I was talking about; an obstacle/hindrance in a process or task). Either way I know that my fiancee and I will be together, time apart is egregious, but we will hunker down and keep working our way out of the trenches. So again if any of you interpreted my rant with being about the time we've waiting, then maybe I have shined more light on the subject or maybe not. Either way, a rant is a rant. Some people are sympathetic toward them, some find common ground with them, and others find the faults in them and pick it apart.

This rant is now behind me, and I move forward to the day we will be out of the trenches like the some of you here. Good luck to all us still on the visa journey, and to those who are already past it and are living the life they fought for. Also a thank you to all of those who band together to try to help others get out of those trenches with them.

Edited June 9, 2013 by St&Sv

[vbtwo 54]

Yes, exactly. When it was at VSC, I at least had a sort of estimate as to when it might be adjudicated (was at around 6 months for pretty much the entire period from when I filed in January to until they transferred us). Now that it's at TSC, nobody has any idea as to when we can expect them to do something. People just want to know that something's happening, even if we have to wait a month or 2 or 3 longer.

[Katiedog 6]

I think that if you are a Hispanic entering the USA illegally, you will be catered to in all aspects; however if you are from a European country you have to pay for everything and still get treated to a heavy dose of red tape bureaucracy that is entirely unnecessary and no doubt unconstitutional when you consider racial aspects and formal immigration legalities. The fees alone and the hassles are discriminatory on the US Government's part.