CSC Slow to Process I-129F

[Cody&Razely 134]

05/22/20: Does anyone have any information that can shed light onto why, currently, the USCIS CSC is literally crawling along at a snails pace in processing i-129f petitions, i.e. they have been stuck on Jan. 16th for going on 4 days now. While on the other hand both the USCIS TSC and the VSC are basically blitzing through the i-129f petitions like greased lightning??? I mean in the last 4 days the TSC has moved from Jan. 21st to Feb. 1st and the VSC has smashed out from Jan. 21st to Feb. 27th!!! already, while in the same time frame the CSC has sat on the same date, not budging at all?...........

[SalishSea 17,857]

4 minutes ago, codyfitzsimmons said:

05/22/20: Does anyone have any information that can shed light onto why, currently, the USCIS CSC is literally crawling along at a snails pace in processing i-129f petitions, i.e. they have been stuck on Jan. 16th for going on 4 days now. While on the other hand both the USCIS TSC and the VSC are basically blitzing through the i-129f petitions like greased lightning??? I mean in the last 4 days the TSC has moved from Jan. 21st to Feb. 1st and the VSC has smashed out from Jan. 21st to Feb. 27th!!! already, while in the same time frame the CSC has sat on the same date, not budging at all?...........

Processing times have always fluctuated.  In 2018, our I-129F took 185 days to be approved (no RFEs), which was average at that time.  

 

Should be noted to that if you are waiting on a I-129F for a K-1, those are only processed at CSC.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Jorgedig

[Cody&Razely 134]

2 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

Processing times have always fluctuated.  In 2018, our I-129F took 185 days to be approved (no RFEs), which was average at that time.  

Good lord! that's a long time. I hope it doesn't take that long now.

I have been consistently seeing people's timelines showing NOA2 receipts already and moving onto NVC, of whom submitted their i-129f's and received their NOA1's long after I submitted mine. Even from the same CSC and as well (though it doesn't play a role) also with beneficiaries from the same country. 

oh well.......

[SalishSea 17,857]

1 minute ago, codyfitzsimmons said:

Good lord! that's a long time. I hope it doesn't take that long now.

I have been consistently seeing people's timelines showing NOA2 receipts already and moving onto NVC, of whom submitted their i-129f's and received their NOA1's long after I submitted mine. Even from the same CSC and as well (though it doesn't play a role) also with beneficiaries from the same country. 

oh well.......

The petition is about the petitioner, not so much the beneficiary.  Some just take longer due to background checks, etc.

Edited May 23, 2020 by Jorgedig

[Cody&Razely 134]

3 minutes ago, Jorgedig said:

The petition is about the petitioner, not so much the beneficiary.  Some just take longer due to background checks, etc.

Yeah, true. Thanks

[geowrian 22,337]

I-129Fs at any place other than CSC* are for a spouse (K-3 path...which will be denied eventually), not a K-1. CSC handles all I-129 for a fiance/fiancee.

*A handful of fiance/fiancee petitions are transferred to VSC. This is usually due to certain complexities involved, notably along the lines of potential criminal histories of the petitioners.

 

1 hour ago, Jorgedig said:

Processing times have always fluctuated.  In 2018, our I-129F took 185 days to be approved (no RFEs), which was average at that time. 

In October 2017 (1 month before I filed), the average time was about 30 days. Mine ended up being around 4 months. Those the month after me were 6-7 months, and it only grew from there.

Not long after DACA came about, it was taking ~18 months.

[Cody&Razely 134]

18 minutes ago, geowrian said:

I-129Fs at any place other than CSC* are for a spouse (K-3 path...which will be denied eventually), not a K-1. CSC handles all I-129 for a fiance/fiancee.

*A handful of fiance/fiancee petitions are transferred to VSC. This is usually due to certain complexities involved, notably along the lines of potential criminal histories of the petitioners.

Oh I see, I did not know that about the service centers. Thanks for the info. I see the average time lines have been around 4 months for a while now though and some recently between 2-3.5 for K-1

Edited May 23, 2020 by codyfitzsimmons

[SalishSea 17,857]

51 minutes ago, geowrian said:

In October 2017 (1 month before I filed), the average time was about 30 days. Mine ended up being around 4 months. Those the month after me were 6-7 months, and it only grew from there.

Not long after DACA came about, it was taking ~18 months.

That November 2017 group was legendary!  I followed it all closely...   

[Coin3 66]

If you look at the data, it becomes clear that something definitely did change at the CSC.

 

I made the below graph by copying Igor's List into Excel and filtering to only include approved petitions with no RFE.

 

On 3/23/2020, there was a sudden influx of ahead-of-schedule approvals, as far as two months ahead of the average wait at the time. There was not an increase in total approvals, however. Rather, the cases approved were spread out over a wider range of NOA1 dates. Since then, the NOA1 dates for approved cases has continued to be spread out, but the total approval rate has definitely gone down. Although users with more recent approvals might not have updated their timelines yet, the data shows that in April 2020, only 77 petitions were approved, compared to 136 petitions in March 2020.

 

There's not much point in speculating about exactly what happened at the CSC, but if you were to ask me, I'd guess that they transitioned to a work-from-home system due to the ongoing pandemic. Perhaps their system wasn't set up to easily keep track of individual cases while working from home, so they could have assigned chunks of petitions to each worker, resulting in the spread of NOA1 dates. As for the overall slowdown, who knows. There have been a lot of challenges and uncertainties for everyone lately. All we can do is hope that they can speed it up sooner than later!

 

[Cody&Razely 134]

20 minutes ago, Coin3 said:

If you look at the data, it becomes clear that something definitely did change at the CSC.

 

I made the below graph by copying Igor's List into Excel and filtering to only include approved petitions with no RFE.

 

On 3/23/2020, there was a sudden influx of ahead-of-schedule approvals, as far as two months ahead of the average wait at the time. There was not an increase in total approvals, however. Rather, the cases approved were spread out over a wider range of NOA1 dates. Since then, the NOA1 dates for approved cases has continued to be spread out, but the total approval rate has definitely gone down. Although users with more recent approvals might not have updated their timelines yet, the data shows that in April 2020, only 77 petitions were approved, compared to 136 petitions in March 2020.

 

There's not much point in speculating about exactly what happened at the CSC, but if you were to ask me, I'd guess that they transitioned to a work-from-home system due to the ongoing pandemic. Perhaps their system wasn't set up to easily keep track of individual cases while working from home, so they could have assigned chunks of petitions to each worker, resulting in the spread of NOA1 dates. As for the overall slowdown, who knows. There have been a lot of challenges and uncertainties for everyone lately. All we can do is hope that they can speed it up sooner than later!

 

 

That's awesome info and thank you, the graph is helpful! 

[Carpe Vinum 2,327]

First K1 44 days 2010. Second K1 213 days 2018-2019. Blah.

[BadAmmoWitch 213]

15 hours ago, codyfitzsimmons said:

05/22/20: Does anyone have any information that can shed light onto why, currently, the USCIS CSC is literally crawling along at a snails pace in processing i-129f petitions, i.e. they have been stuck on Jan. 16th for going on 4 days now. While on the other hand both the USCIS TSC and the VSC are basically blitzing through the i-129f petitions like greased lightning??? I mean in the last 4 days the TSC has moved from Jan. 21st to Feb. 1st and the VSC has smashed out from Jan. 21st to Feb. 27th!!! already, while in the same time frame the CSC has sat on the same date, not budging at all?...........

Better hold those horses. Many of us with NOA1 in December are still waiting, and even some in November.

[Cody&Razely 134]

1 hour ago, BadAmmoWitch said:

Better hold those horses. Many of us with NOA1 in December are still waiting, and even some in November.

Yeah, exactly. That was more to my point. Although I was only using my own time frame in reference to some others who had already been approved. But yes you are right, I have looked at the search and seen there are many still waiting from last year as well. 

[Cody&Razely 134]

3 hours ago, boris64 said:

First K1 44 days 2010. Second K1 213 days 2018-2019. Blah.

Yeah, I have been through this process before as well. Though many things in immigration "reform" have changed since the last time I dealt with this. My last time was around the same time as you. 2010, although I don't remember what the time line was exactly as I didn't use vj, I just went it alone. But to my recollection it was something line 4 months from NOA1 to NOA2 and the over all time from submission to Visa was about 7.5 months although that incorporates my previous fiance's time to sched. appointments and to process documents, etc....

[Cody&Razely 134]

11 minutes ago, codyfitzsimmons said:

Yeah, exactly. That was more to my point. Although I was only using my own time frame in reference to some others who had already been approved. But yes you are right, I have looked at the search and seen there are many still waiting from last year as well. 

Although my main point is simply that they are suddenly lagging and at the same time seem to be all over the map with approvals seemingly, having nothing to do with first come first serve either. At least not as much as they were before, like as exampled in the graph above.