I-751 February 2019 Filers

[bigjailerman 318]

23 hours ago, aroabi said:

I agree that on individual level IOs may have somewhat of a hard time with quotas since their productivity is traceable  and they cannot easily slack off. But are their officers working more than 8 hours? I doubt. What are their upper management doing? Why after 18.5-26 months they still have 7% of the cases not completed? This is where the problem is. They are hiding behind the 50% and 93% completion rate and posting an eye-pleasing time line based on that. They have to post a timeline in which their upper range shows 100% completion. They do not have to approve the cases but they have to make a decision on those cases. Then we will see the real ugly picture of their true backlogs and the unreasonable delays they are imposing on the applicants. With today's technology it is not hard to know their tactics and practices. The head of this agency deserves to be fired. If this was another agency and has created this crisis a lot of people would have been fired. As to the increase in application numbers, well the population worldwide is increasing and number of the applications are increasing as well. They have to have a reasonable "IO/# of cases" ratio to be able to keep up with number of the applications. We hear about increased number of applications, but we do not hear about the extra money they got from those applicants and what they have done with it.

 

You mentioned earlier that they have the right to prioritize the type of applications. Fair enough, but they have to make sure that the congress/house agrees with them.

 

As a Manhattan resident I have to wait 13-26.5 months for N-400 processing, yet a Queens resident that lives 10-15 min subway ride from me has to wait 10-15.5 months, not to mention offices where upper range is 10 months. If this not absurd and gross mismanagement, then I do not know what it is.

 

 

 

 

Respectfully I have some issue with your statements in  a couple of areas so Id like to share mine as well.

 

First off, estimated timelines are just that, estimates. Not all cases go flawlessly. Those are the ones that kick up processing times. I would venture that many cases contain errors by the applicant. On the other hand, cases can be weak and require more investigation and follow ups. So it inst a guaranteed time line.

 

When you state ......"their productivity is traceable  and they cannot easily slack off. But are their officers working more than 8 hours? I doubt. What are their upper management doing? "

I would say the first few words of your comment tells the tale  "their productivity is traceable". Absolutely true. Then you go on to "but are officers working more than 8 hours? I doubt. What are t heir upper management doing?" Why would you doubt they work more than 8 hours. Well who says they have to? Maybe there is no approved overtime. Probably though their 8 hours dont encompass solely direct case assessments. They can easily be accountable for other office tasks or administrative duties (meetings, internal assessments, filing, personal breaks. lunch breaks, internal training, internal reporting etc etc, the list goes on just like everyone else's jobs. As far as upper management, I dont think supervising an USCIS staff is a simple job. You have much more responsibility on that level, t hey also have to attempt to solve day to day and month to issues. Im sure they can get hell if their timeline is poor.

 

You then question ... Why after 18.5-26 months they still have 7% of the cases not completed? This is where the problem is. Well if that is a true statistic, 93% is an extremely high number. Like I said before there are many other factors that could delay processing times. Some can be thought to be fraudulent,  applications with errors or require RFEs or require more documentation could possibly not followed up by the applicant, some also may have real security issues, some may come from questionable countries,  some have names that are similar to names that pop up on criminal/terrorist lists. Things like this are extremely time consuming and guess what, if an officer approves someone that shouldn't , t hey will take the heat and anyone else who signs off on it on the way up.  So 7% isn't meeting the processing time, I dont feel it is an incredible number.

 

So Il go onto this comment ..."this is where the problem is. They are hiding behind the 50% and 93% completion rate and posting an eye-pleasing time line based on that. They have to post a timeline in which their upper range shows 100% completion"  They arent hiding behind 93% completion, they are boasting about it, thats a great number looking at the sheer number of cases every year. So the 93% is a posted timeline that does show 100% completion, no? I am missing something on this one?

 

Then we will see the real ugly picture of their true backlogs and the unreasonable delays they are imposing on the applicants. With today's technology it is not hard to know their tactics and practices. Will we actually see on any level what the true backlogs are? Who knows. Im sure some delays can be unreasonable, especially to the applicants view. I dont know that you mean that today's technology its not hard to know their tactics and practices. Well their basic tactics and practices to to ensure every application has to be truthful and as an investigator at any level, you have to view cases to uncover the truth from fact and you gain an eye for things that stick out. To some extent this is why, some cases get approved relatively quickly because they fall into a similar range of "easily" approval-able cases. On the other hand Others will peak an interest to investigate even more deeply.

 

The next section says 

The head of this agency deserves to be fired. If this was another agency and has created this crisis a lot of people would have been fired.  This ageny has been around a long long time and they have gone through quite a few directors to be sure. Should he/she be fired, maybe but he has a huge job along with the others

 

• Kenneth T. (Ken) Cuccinelli, Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services; Director (vacant)
• Joseph Edlow, Deputy Director for Policy, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
• Mark Koumans, Deputy Director for Operations, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
• Kathy Nuebel Kovarik, Chief of Staff, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
• Molly Groom, Acting Chief, Office of the Chief Counsel

 Who is blamed and for what reason?

 

If you ask me that do a fantastic job.. look at this below:

On an average day they:

Adjudicate 30,000 requests for various immigration benefits. Process 3,000 applications to sponsor relatives and future spouses. Analyze 650 tips, leads, cases and detections for potential fraud, public safety and national security concerns.Jan 29, 2020. This is across over 200 sites across the world.

 

 USCIS employs 19,000 people but only a small portion of that directly process cases. I honestly dont know how many do but by seat of the pants guess is 5000 +/-?!

 

Overall, USCIS issued nearly 577,000 green cards in FY 2019, and reduced the number of pending applications by 14%.as of Jan 27, 2020

 

 

So you also state

 We hear about increased number of applications, but we do not hear about the extra money they got from those applicants and what they have done with it.

So here it is from their website ...

Funding

USCIS funding comes primarily from fees we charge applicants or petitioners requesting immigration or naturalization benefits. These fee collections fund the cost of fairly and efficiently adjudicating immigration benefit requests. Fees we collect from individuals and entities filing immigration benefit requests are deposited into the Immigration Examinations Fee Account (IEFA). The IEFA was created by Congress in 1988, establishing the authority to recover the full cost of immigration benefit processing. This account comprises approximately 97 percent of USCIS' total FY 2021 spending authority.

 

 

Now finally addressing this...

As a Manhattan resident I have to wait 13-26.5 months for N-400 processing, yet a Queens resident that lives 10-15 min subway ride from me has to wait 10-15.5 months, not to mention offices where upper range is 10 months. If this not absurd and gross mismanagement, then I do not know what

 

Sure it can be a long wait but what we all should do, prior to filing applications, we shout first do some research and see which available closer offices provide you with a shorter processing time. That is especially if the location can be quite close in some cases. I lived in NYC for many years and I know for a fact that most things in government offices can be overrun with applications especially i n the city. Its not necessarily mismanagement. Now on top of that, with 45 in office, people are keen to his protocol so many people have flooded and rushed in their applications including N400 with upcoming fee increase. It is definitely conceivable.

 

Truly I am not trying to give you a hard time or pick the post apart but I have my own thoughts on this matter and truly I offer no disrespect. I guess I was just in the mood to respond to this a bit.

 

[aroabi 21]

48 minutes ago, bigjailerman said:

Truly I am not trying to give you a hard time or pick the post apart but I have my own thoughts on this matter and truly I offer no disrespect. I guess I was just in the mood to respond to this a bit.

 

Thanks for you insights. You are not giving me a hard time. However, respectfully I disagree with most of your statements. Without going into details, I do not think they do a fantastic jobs at all. I am glad  that someone thinks that they do a fantastic job. They have been criticized heavily by law makers, applicants, congress and house. I do not see how you can praise their inefficient work, but to each their own.

 

93% completion rate by 18.5-26 month, and likely longer in the future, is nothing to boast about. Most of those 7% cases are still stuck in fingerprints were received status and no RFE's were issued. If they need more information then they have to send and RFE and/or schedule an interview and not let the cases collect duct in some shelf for 26 months. I bet if you were in that 7% and by 26 month your case was pending and after passing your n-400 interview your local office was not able to approve your n-400, because simply the service center failed to transfer your i-751 to the local office you would have had a totally different perspective.  I hope you realize that if they post 100% completion rate, their processing time will jump from 18-26 months to years.

 

Funding... have they disclosed how they spent the additional funds they received from the increased number of applications? If no, then you and I have no idea what they have done with it. All we can tell is that they have not effectively channeled those funds for processing the cases on timely matter. If they did, there would not be huge backlogs.

 

"Sure it can be a long wait but what we all should do, prior to filing applications, we shout first do some research and see which available closer offices provide you with a shorter processing time. That is especially if the location can be quite close in some cases. I lived in NYC for many years and I know for a fact that most things in government offices can be overrun with applications especially i n the city. Its not necessarily mismanagement. Now on top of that, with 45 in office, people are keen to his protocol so many people have flooded and rushed in their applications including N400 with upcoming fee increase. It is definitely conceivable."

 

And as far as choosing a location for your application, I did not know you could do it. If you have information that it indeed is possible and you can share it with all of us that would be helpful. To my knowledge when you submit your application you have no control where it goes for most cases and for n-400 it will go to your local office. Unless you mean that we have to move to a location with shorter processing time before we submit our applications. If that is the case, then maybe a few percent of people can do it, but majority of people have their lives in certain area, they are not going to move. And honestly I do not know how you can give such an impractical advice.

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by aroabi

[TheKingmaker 153]

On 2/27/2020 at 8:59 AM, valefercrs said:

Update today: Case received at my local office 

Did you file for N400? What's your filing date?

[Lip Gallagher 55]

EAC here! My case was approved yesterday. Thanks god no interview.

[nj59516 16]

What was your filing date?

[globalcitizen79 62]

On 2/29/2020 at 11:23 AM, Lip Gallagher said:

EAC here! My case was approved yesterday. Thanks god no interview.

Congratulations @Lip Gallagher. I'm glad you did not have any interview a well 🙂 Will you be applying for citizenship soon?

[Lip Gallagher 55]

1 hour ago, globalcitizen79 said:

Congratulations @Lip Gallagher. I'm glad you did not have any interview a well 🙂 Will you be applying for citizenship soon?

I wont be able to apply for citizenship until 2022 because I filed for divorce. It's like 5 years not 3 years  

How's your case going? Anything from USCIS?

[nj59516 16]

When did you file your case in February?

[bigjailerman 318]

On 2/27/2020 at 11:50 AM, aroabi said:

Thanks for you insights. You are not giving me a hard time. However, respectfully I disagree with most of your statements. Without going into details, I do not think they do a fantastic jobs at all. I am glad  that someone thinks that they do a fantastic job. They have been criticized heavily by law makers, applicants, congress and house. I do not see how you can praise their inefficient work, but to each their own.

 

93% completion rate by 18.5-26 month, and likely longer in the future, is nothing to boast about. Most of those 7% cases are still stuck in fingerprints were received status and no RFE's were issued. If they need more information then they have to send and RFE and/or schedule an interview and not let the cases collect duct in some shelf for 26 months. I bet if you were in that 7% and by 26 month your case was pending and after passing your n-400 interview your local office was not able to approve your n-400, because simply the service center failed to transfer your i-751 to the local office you would have had a totally different perspective.  I hope you realize that if they post 100% completion rate, their processing time will jump from 18-26 months to years.

 

Funding... have they disclosed how they spent the additional funds they received from the increased number of applications? If no, then you and I have no idea what they have done with it. All we can tell is that they have not effectively channeled those funds for processing the cases on timely matter. If they did, there would not be huge backlogs.

 

"Sure it can be a long wait but what we all should do, prior to filing applications, we shout first do some research and see which available closer offices provide you with a shorter processing time. That is especially if the location can be quite close in some cases. I lived in NYC for many years and I know for a fact that most things in government offices can be overrun with applications especially i n the city. Its not necessarily mismanagement. Now on top of that, with 45 in office, people are keen to his protocol so many people have flooded and rushed in their applications including N400 with upcoming fee increase. It is definitely conceivable."

 

And as far as choosing a location for your application, I did not know you could do it. If you have information that it indeed is possible and you can share it with all of us that would be helpful. To my knowledge when you submit your application you have no control where it goes for most cases and for n-400 it will go to your local office. Unless you mean that we have to move to a location with shorter processing time before we submit our applications. If that is the case, then maybe a few percent of people can do it, but majority of people have their lives in certain area, they are not going to move. And honestly I do not know how you can give such an impractical advice.

 

We'll I'm not going to continue a back and forth so we can agree to disagree. One day we can spot together and continue over a drink.

[TheKingmaker 153]

14 minutes ago, bigjailerman said:

We'll I'm not going to continue a back and forth so we can agree to disagree. One day we can spot together and continue over a drink.

Ill join in as well. 

[JourneyFromA2 85]

1 hour ago, bigjailerman said:

We'll I'm not going to continue a back and forth so we can agree to disagree. One day we can spot together and continue over a drink.

Spot on!

[DSOTM1973 52]

14 hours ago, Lip Gallagher said:

I wont be able to apply for citizenship until 2022 because I filed for divorce. It's like 5 years not 3 years  

How's your case going? Anything from USCIS?

Hi Lip - Could you please share what did you submit initially and your marriage divorce timeline?

 

Thank you && Congratulations!

[prenouveau 46]

We got a letter last week that our case was transferred to NBC "to speed up processing." Anyone else get this? Wonder what speed up means...

[VeVe 76]

35 minutes ago, prenouveau said:

We got a letter last week that our case was transferred to NBC "to speed up processing." Anyone else get this? Wonder what speed up means...

We are at MSC. Google states it is also known as NBC. We were assigned there since Feb. 2019.  I hope it does speed up.

[TheKingmaker 153]

12 hours ago, prenouveau said:

We got a letter last week that our case was transferred to NBC "to speed up processing." Anyone else get this? Wonder what speed up means...

Yup...got the same letter. VSC Feb 2019 filer. No N400, nothing out of the ordinary and AOS from K1 Visa.