Fiance Petition- California Service Center Backlog

[kjem 11]

I placed a call to USCIS to inquire about my Fiance Visa Petition. The person on the phone informed that the California Service Center is currently processing the F-129 Finance Petition applications for December 2015, which means there is a backlog for those filed in April 2016 such as mine. Do any of you know of petitions that were filed during January 2016 and on, if any has been processed and approved by the CSC?

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services - USCIS Processing Time Information.pdf

[kjem 11]

CSC process time.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services - USCIS Processing Time Information.pdf

[Scandi 4,150]

I placed a call to USCIS to inquire about my Fiance Visa Petition. The person on the phone informed that the California Service Center is currently processing the F-129 Finance Petition applications for December 2015, which means there is a backlog for those filed in April 2016 such as mine. Do any of you know of petitions that were filed during January 2016 and on, if any has been processed and approved by the CSC?

I imagine that it works like this:

USCIS has several field offices and local offices that handles the petitions, some are faster than others. Thousands of petitions from January and February have already been approved, the general processing time at CSC (according to VJ-members) seems to be about 2-3 month at present. BUT some petitions end up in offices that are way slower (like ours), I bet the date of Decmber 16 is for the slowest ones.

Edited May 16, 2016 by Scandi

[Boo&Mica 157]

They already processed most of the january/february 2016 petitions. we are looking forward to start with us, march filers

[MyLifeForYou 12]

We filed our I-129F at the end of January and received our NOA2 on April 26, 2016. It was at the California Service Center. Our packet just arrived at the embassy. Hope this helps!

Edited May 16, 2016 by MyLifeForYou

[Georgia16 2,858]

Nope they are not backlogged. They give themselves a goal of 5 months processing.

Right now it's about 3 months. (Som can be faster and some can be slower) ... It won't help to call before the 5 months are up.

[kjem 11]

Thanks everyone for your rapid and positive responses. I have not seen my fiance in a year now. We filed our petition in March of this year. We have received the NOA1. We are waiting on the NOA2. I booked a flight to the Philippines April for the month of June. Of course, it is tricky to book a flight, considering we have not gotten our NOA2 yet, but I have to be honest here. We have missed one another terribly. We are hoping that our NOA2 will arrive way before June 6th, and prayerfully no RFE. If all goes well, maybe she will be interviewed while I am there. Again, I know that is a big IF, and besides, I have a visa that will allow me to stay up to three months if I have to .

I wish everyone of you well as you to go through this Long process.

Shalom.

Edited May 16, 2016 by kjem

[Jarred07 2]

I got noa1 on Feb the 26th its been 80 days haven't heard a thing so we either in the slow bunch or just not one of the lucky ones out there

[Georgia16 2,858]

Thanks everyone for your rapid and positive responses. I have not seen my fiance in a year now. We filed our petition in March of this year. We have received the NOA1. We are waiting on the NOA2. I booked a flight to the Philippines April for the month of June. Of course, it is tricky to book a flight, considering we have not gotten our NOA2 yet, but I have to be honest here. We have missed one another terribly. We are hoping that our NOA2 will arrive way before June 6th, and prayerfully no RFE. If all goes well, maybe she will be interviewed while I am there. Again, I know that is a big IF, and besides, I have a visa that will allow me to stay up to three months if I have to .

I wish everyone of you well as you to go through this Long process.

Shalom.

Just remember that right now it takes about 3 weeks from the NOA2 to get the case number, and about another week before it is at the embassy.

[Pitaya 2,577]

~Moved from K1 Process to USCIS Service Centers Forum~

~Inquiry/commentary about CSC~

[Dutchster 1,107]

Just remember that right now it takes about 3 weeks from the NOA2 to get the case number, and about another week before it is at the embassy.

As I believe it's now between 30-35 days after NOA2 when you will hear something from the NVC. This was my case though.

[Georgia16 2,858]

As I believe it's now between 30-35 days after NOA2 when you will hear something from the NVC. This was my case though.

Most are still 3 weeks some are just taking longer I have seen that as well.

[yuna628 9,665]

Backlog? No. Slowdown? Yes.

The standard processing time for the USCIS is 5-6 months. This means very little. They can be faster or slower than that. They also follow that up by listing a date on their website, that conveniently keeps people in check so that they can stall for time before they can file a complaint. It does not always reflect reality, and I think you can see by posts on VJ that CSC is not on Dec 2015.

That being said, CSC is now the sole processor of K1 visas now. And while they used to process applications in as little as a week, they are now taking a few months.

[Pennycat 880]

I placed a call to USCIS to inquire about my Fiance Visa Petition. The person on the phone informed that the California Service Center is currently processing the F-129 Finance Petition applications for December 2015, which means there is a backlog for those filed in April 2016 such as mine. Do any of you know of petitions that were filed during January 2016 and on, if any has been processed and approved by the CSC?

Be very careful with anything they tell you on the phone. Those people aren't given any more information than is on the website, and the website is purposefully misleading and most of them don't understand what they're looking at.

First, look at the "As of" date at the top of the chart. March 31, 2016. So this information was only "accurate" (more on that in a second) as of 6 weeks ago. So, they're showing that on March 31, they were working on December 16, 2015. Which is weird for a couple of reasons.

One, based on data here (early April the average was 60ish days), they're reporting 45 days longer.

Two, even if this was true (a 3.5 month average), they shouldn't report a date, they should report that they're within goal time, which has been 5 months for as long as I've been here.

What could be happening is..

Simple mixup. The person who hit "publish" on the chart was told to put "5 months" (meaning "within 5 months" as the chart instructions say) but being as confused by the chart as everyone else, though that meant an actual DATE and calculated what 5 months ago-- from the date of publication not the "as of" date and published that instead.

Or.... (how likely this is I don't know)....they changed their goal time to 3 months and are now exceeding it, therefore publishing a date. If this is the case, welcome to this ugly little side of USCIS.

This gets a little complicated but I'll try. That chart is never any more up-to-date than 6 weeks ago. They will not update it again for a month (meaning that on June 14, that chart will still be "as of March 31" and still showing December 16, 2015). Then, it will be "as of April 30". Then, they will lie about the actual date of the "last completed" to buy themselves another month or so. Then, they make it impossible to open a service request until you are beyond that date (as it is now, only people who applied on December 15 or before can open a service request and it will remain that way until June 14). This basically means that between lying about the date by 4 to 6 weeks and keeping the chart 6 to 10 weeks out of date, they've bought themselves a large enough buffer (10 to 16 weeks) that almost no one is eligible for a service request. They also do not give the phone-answers any more information besides what is on the website but don't educate them about what it actually means. And this, in my opinion (dealing with this for 6 months at TSC) is not incompetence but this is by design.

Now, still 3.5 months isn't terrible (that is what that report shows-- 3.5 months and we know from here that that is a lie. VJ data showed 2 months in late March, and there is no way that that chart shows what they claim it shows unless everyone who has a VJ timeline was lying ), but the timeline is clearly growing. I wonder if they see a backlog coming and is why they made the change. You'll be ok because you've already applied. For your own estimate, I'd look at the current average and the closer you are to it, the more likely you'll be at or near it. Farther away, I'd guesstimate adding one week for every 2 weeks away you are. Rough math, back of the envelope stuff.

Edited because that stupid chart is so confusing I got myself confused trying to explain how someone could be confused.

I imagine that it works like this:

USCIS has several field offices and local offices that handles the petitions, some are faster than others. Thousands of petitions from January and February have already been approved, the general processing time at CSC (according to VJ-members) seems to be about 2-3 month at present. BUT some petitions end up in offices that are way slower (like ours), I bet the date of Decmber 16 is for the slowest ones.

This is true generally, but only CSC processes I-129fs at the moment. This could change at any time, but that's what's going on now. See above for what they're probably playing at.

Only one service center, California, does I-129fs.

It is weird that the self-reported data here is showing 68 days, but they them

Edited May 16, 2016 by CatherineA

[Pennycat 880]

Backlog? No. Slowdown? Yes.

The standard processing time for the USCIS is 5-6 months. This means very little. They can be faster or slower than that. They also follow that up by listing a date on their website, that conveniently keeps people in check so that they can stall for time before they can file a complaint. It does not always reflect reality, and I think you can see by posts on VJ that CSC is not on Dec 2015.

That being said, CSC is now the sole processor of K1 visas now. And while they used to process applications in as little as a week, they are now taking a few months.

Look at the USCIS site though. It doesn't make any sense. That date they give is within the "standard" 5 months (the chart is "as of March 31st"...remember that game they play) but they still give a date. I think (as I said just now) that they either made a mistake (some newbie put a date that was 5 months ago instead of posting "5 months" to mean "within 5 months")......or they're manipulating things like they did at TSC.

Clearly that Dec 2015 is not what's happening NOW but that's not even what was happening on March 31st. I wonder if they're playing that date game because they see a backlog coming and are getting ahead of the call volume or if having the "5 months" up there was flipping people out (as you can see here) and they tried to address that....and failed? Because Dec 2015 was 5 months ago.

Edited May 16, 2016 by CatherineA