N-400 Filers who got stuck or delayed in Background / Name Check.

[lidaliu 9]

12 minutes ago, sakarpo said:

My case is still worst compared to you all. :-) It’s been almost 6 months since my FP was; and my N-400 on-line status still shows as ‘FP Appointment Scheduled. Not sure if the 90-day background check is true. Under ideal case yes 30 day rule applies but there is no upper time limit of when background check should or can complete. In some cases it can take months or even years too.

FO: Chicago.

yes, you're right. 90 days is not correct. there is no limitation for N400 name check.

and I am telling you, even I will have an interview June 1st. and still shows my case background check is not clear , so if that day, USICS get nothing from FBI, they will not make a decision. I have to wait again.

I just got another update from local respective office. They really helped a lot to get me informed. My online status will not change I guess. I will wait for my interview letter to show up. even they told me it is June 1st.

I am guessing , my name changed before and when I was born and they massed up my name at first and then my mom changed my name ,and after high school I changed again. maybe it is the reason FBI name check is taking so long. just guessing. But all my public records are my current name, I don't know how do they deal with name check part.

 

[cybermax 39]

Is there any update everyone?

[goodcombination 23]

Unfortunately no update for my husband. Still the biometrics notice online. We will try an online "notice not received" and/or an infopass in early June, when it's been 4 months. It's frustrating but weirdly reassuring that there are a few of us in the same boat, and that some have been moving forward. It makes me think that it's really just a backlog rather than something seriously wrong with our applications. Seems like every month there has been one or two people "left behind" and the numbers have gone up December onward... 

[maninflorida 13]

So, I decided to gather some metrics, using my case number as a basis. I applied in December 2016. Basically, I took my case number, went to the online tool, and changed the last digits to be before and after my case numbers until I saw different people's cases that had the same status displaying. You know it, the dreaded "fingerprint appointment was scheduled" that we've all seen for months now. If there were cases with the same status displaying, I made a note of that case number in my spreadsheet, alongside with the date displaying. 

 

I checked 182 cases, close to 80 before mine and 100 after. There were 53 cases which have the same status displaying, meaning, close to 30% of all cases I checked. 

 

What I've found from doing this is, there are quite a bit of people that this happens to, so we're not alone. That's a good thing, I guess, more than I would've guessed from the monthly threads. While I can't confirm, all of the cases before and after mine had similar N400 verbiage, so this leads me to believe USCIS assigns numbers in batches, so everything close to your number is also N400 cases. 

 

I'd be curious to see what other months are, if, someone who applied in October 2016 could do a similar analysis to see if the percentage is going down. Regardless, since now I have a control group to check back every month to see any movement.

 

This isn't scientific in any way, shape or form, though it is something I can use to track my case, because more data points are always helpful.

[HK12 273]

On 28.5.2017 at 1:27 PM, maninflorida said:

So, I decided to gather some metrics, using my case number as a basis. I applied in December 2016. Basically, I took my case number, went to the online tool, and changed the last digits to be before and after my case numbers until I saw different people's cases that had the same status displaying. You know it, the dreaded "fingerprint appointment was scheduled" that we've all seen for months now. If there were cases with the same status displaying, I made a note of that case number in my spreadsheet, alongside with the date displaying. 

 

I checked 182 cases, close to 80 before mine and 100 after. There were 53 cases which have the same status displaying, meaning, close to 30% of all cases I checked. 

 

What I've found from doing this is, there are quite a bit of people that this happens to, so we're not alone. That's a good thing, I guess, more than I would've guessed from the monthly threads. While I can't confirm, all of the cases before and after mine had similar N400 verbiage, so this leads me to believe USCIS assigns numbers in batches, so everything close to your number is also N400 cases. 

 

I'd be curious to see what other months are, if, someone who applied in October 2016 could do a similar analysis to see if the percentage is going down. Regardless, since now I have a control group to check back every month to see any movement.

 

This isn't scientific in any way, shape or form, though it is something I can use to track my case, because more data points are always helpful.

 

I am also a December filer and have been checking about 60 cases around me occasionally over the past few months. Of the 60 cases, 8 (including mine) are still in the "fingerprinting" stage. So that comes out to a total of about 13 percent. Quite different from your number, and I don't see it as scientific or representative, but it did come out to more than I had expected.

[janadark 2]

I had my FP on December 27, 2016 and since then stuck in FP status. 5 months now. 

Office: St. Paul, MN

Nationality country: Russia

 

 

[goodcombination 23]

I was inspired by others' case data tracking ideas so I did the same for my husband's case. I tracked his case, plus the 50 before and 49 numbers after his case, so for 100 total. He applied in late December and has been in Fingerprint status since January. Here's what I found. 

 

There were 85 active cases (i.e. not an invalid case number or rejected for improper / early filing.) 

Of those cases: 

• 1 (1%) read Case Received, in Jan. (Poor soul!)
• 13 (15%) read Fingerprint Scheduled. Of these, 6 cases had FP scheduled on Jan 17 and 7 cases had FP scheduled on Jan 23. 
• 38 (45%) read In Line for Interview. Of these, 30 cases went in-line in Feb. 1 case went in-line in March. 1 case went in-line in April. 6 cases went in-line in May. 
• 22 (26%) read Interview Scheduled or Interview Letter Mailed. 
• 4 (5%) read In Line for Oath
• 7 (8%) read Oath Letter was Mailed.

I'm encouraged that after the initial February in-line burst, and a major slow-down in March and April, 6 people from this period were put in-line in May. 

Also, I checked the dates each person was put in-line. In Feb, it was all over the place, with the highest number on Feb 3. But! 

In March, the only in-line action came on March 15 (1 cases)

In April, the only in-line action came on April 14 (1 cases) 

In May, the only in-line action came on May 15 (6 cases)

 

That makes me think that they may only update the name check stragglers mid month. So maybe we can all take a few breaths and lower our expectations until the middle of June? 

 

 

[maninflorida 13]

20 hours ago, HK12 said:

 

I am also a December filer and have been checking about 60 cases around me occasionally over the past few months. Of the 60 cases, 8 (including mine) are still in the "fingerprinting" stage. So that comes out to a total of about 13 percent. Quite different from your number, and I don't see it as scientific or representative, but it did come out to more than I had expected.

 

1 hour ago, goodcombination said:

I was inspired by others' case data tracking ideas so I did the same for my husband's case. I tracked his case, plus the 50 before and 49 numbers after his case, so for 100 total. He applied in late December and has been in Fingerprint status since January. Here's what I found. 

 

There were 85 active cases (i.e. not an invalid case number or rejected for improper / early filing.) 

Of those cases: 

• 1 (1%) read Case Received, in Jan. (Poor soul!)
• 13 (15%) read Fingerprint Scheduled. Of these, 6 cases had FP scheduled on Jan 17 and 7 cases had FP scheduled on Jan 23. 
• 38 (45%) read In Line for Interview. Of these, 30 cases went in-line in Feb. 1 case went in-line in March. 1 case went in-line in April. 6 cases went in-line in May. 
• 22 (26%) read Interview Scheduled or Interview Letter Mailed. 
• 4 (5%) read In Line for Oath
• 7 (8%) read Oath Letter was Mailed.

I'm encouraged that after the initial February in-line burst, and a major slow-down in March and April, 6 people from this period were put in-line in May. 

Also, I checked the dates each person was put in-line. In Feb, it was all over the place, with the highest number on Feb 3. But! 

In March, the only in-line action came on March 15 (1 cases)

In April, the only in-line action came on April 14 (1 cases) 

In May, the only in-line action came on May 15 (6 cases)

 

That makes me think that they may only update the name check stragglers mid month. So maybe we can all take a few breaths and lower our expectations until the middle of June? 

 

Thank you both for your analysis. Interesting that my numbers are doubled what yours are, especially considering you were also looking at the same month as me. I rechecked my spreadsheet, and I didn't copy any case status number to a different row of data. I rechecked the ones I did, and they're still in the "fingerprint" status. Almost all of the dates I saw were Dec 28 and Jan 3rd, and one Jan 9th. And I believe my math is right, the earliest case I have logged is something like ####900 and the last one I have is something like ####100 (following thousand).

 

Maybe they partied too much or didn't do any work during that Christmas and New Years period. Regardless, I plan on checking the spreadsheet for any movement on a semi-regular basis and provide updates. 

[goodcombination 23]

24 minutes ago, maninflorida said:

 

Thank you both for your analysis. Interesting that my numbers are doubled what yours are, especially considering you were also looking at the same month as me. I rechecked my spreadsheet, and I didn't copy any case status number to a different row of data. I rechecked the ones I did, and they're still in the "fingerprint" status. Almost all of the dates I saw were Dec 28 and Jan 3rd, and one Jan 9th. And I believe my math is right, the earliest case I have logged is something like ####900 and the last one I have is something like ####100 (following thousand).

 

Maybe they partied too much or didn't do any work during that Christmas and New Years period. Regardless, I plan on checking the spreadsheet for any movement on a semi-regular basis and provide updates. 

Thanks @maninflorida and @HK12 for your analysis as well. Though we don't have much control over it, it's fascinating to see how the logic works or doesn't work. No idea why the higher numbers for the cases you checked - it does sound like there is a backlog in that time period. My analysis is maybe a bit after yours (I think?) from around case number ####200 to ####300. There must have been a massive amount of applications in November / December. 

 

At first I was accidentally checking in the mid-300s, which was well after my husband. Though I didn't keep any data logged from those, it did seem like there were relatively fewer in fingerprints and more in interview / oath, which surprised me because they would have applied later than him. Also, I noticed that most of the Fingerprint statuses in my dataset came in clusters or 2 or 3 consecutive case  numbers - perhaps families who applied together and are stuck together?  Anyway, whatever I guess probably has little relationship to reality at USCIS. Who knows what's going on!

[Ademondigir 0]

My case have not advanced after biometrics since July 2016, I called an L2 office and he told me my case is stuck in FBI name search. Last week I was invited for a meeting with another IO, she told me it was because I visited Nigeria last year that my case got stuck, I later gave her details of my visit. I am from Indonesia and that was my first visit to Africa and Nigeria. 

Whatelse can I do at the moment, how long will the wait last. she only said I have to keep waiting until the name search is completed.

 

[svm 0]

Thanks those who did little bit of data mining. I picked up 70 cases close to mine and figured about 8 cases are still under Fingerprint Scheduled status. Out of 8 cases, 7 are dated October 4th, 2016 and 1 dated October 11th, 2016.  Now I wonder if USCIS/FBI ran into some Fingerprint check issue on/around October 4th??

[maninflorida 13]

So I submitted the "notice not arrived" request in the middle of May. They said they'd reply by June 4th. I doubt that this will actually happen seeing as today is the last work day and the 4th is a Sunday.

 

Has this happened to anyone else?

[lidaliu 9]

I got my interview yesterday, and I passed, but due to the name check still pending, I have to wait still.

No decision yet.

and the I/O said my name is quite common that's maybe the reason still pending. 

She is nice and she told me they will call me next week to see whether FBI agree to get it down ASAP.

She even said she talked to the filed office director and agree to push my case.

 

[Leizhao 1]

On 5/17/2017 at 11:21 AM, lidaliu said:

My case was mailed on 12th from NBC to local office. That's a good news at least. no update from USCIS case inquiry yet.

and I got this news from the local representative office. I called and requested to follow up my case and she helped.

Hope I will get an update this week or next.

 

congratulations on passing the interview. just being curious, how did you manage to get to the interview without having your name check done? I thought you have to pass the name check by FBI  before your case goes in front of an officer in your field office... 

 

[cybermax 39]

5 minutes ago, Leizhao said:

congratulations on passing the interview. just being curious, how did you manage to get to the interview without having your name check done? I thought you have to pass the name check by FBI  before your case goes in front of an officer in your field office... 

 

Same question. Waiting for the answer.