March 2021 K1 I-129F filers

[Optimist19 775]

4 minutes ago, Fil&Em said:

No idea. On TT I have seen a lot of people associating the mess it is nowadays with the appointment of the new Head of USCIS, Ur Jaddou, who took the position August 21.

So frustrating 😔 Good luck I hope you will hear back very soon. I appreciate all the updates! 

[MarJhi 958]

2 hours ago, Optimist19 said:

A sudden drop in over 10,000 cases is really strange. Is there any explanation for it? 

Well my theory is that when the pandemic started, travel stopped. If travel stops then people aren't able to meet in person until travel restrictions were lifted. If a person met someone from the Philippines on an online dating site in early 2020, they would not have been able to meet in person until a couple of months ago when most of the restrictions were lifted. So maybe less people filed in the last 2 years because they were waiting until they can meet in person to satisfy that requirement. 

[rocky95 53]

12 hours ago, Fil&Em said:

Well. It should be consensual that family visas are prioritary. At least that is traditionally the consensus everywhere.

 

But in any case, this is the grand total past 8 months:

 

Jul 21 - 40005
Aug 21 - 45491
Sep 21 - 47454
Oct 21 - 36245
Nov 21 - 35647
Dec 21 - 38397
Jan 22 - 33039
Feb 22 - 35942

Well on that same note,  there are other visa that fall under the family visa category. And  unfortunately the K1 visa priority is lower on that list. 

 

I found this list of the the possible order they are focusing on: 

1. IR-3/IR-4 (international adoption cases)
2. IR-2 (specifically the immigrant child of a U.S. citizen who will turn 21 in the near future)
3. Special Immigrant Visas for Iraqi and Afghan nationals working for the U.S. government
4. CR-1/IR-1 (or marriage-based green cards)
5. IR-2 (specifically the immigrant child of a U.S. citizen who will not turn 21 in the near future)
6. IR-5 (parent of a U.S. citizen)
7. K-1 (fiancé of a U.S. citizen)
8. All other family-based visas and SE1 (foreign employees of the U.S. government abroad)
9. All other immigrant visa types including employment-based and diversity visas
10. H-1B/L/TN/H-2 (nonimmigrant employment-based visas)
11. F/M/J (nonimmigrant students)
12. E-1/E-2 (treaty trader/investor)
13. B-1/B-2 (those eligible for an interview waiver)
14. B-1/B-2 (currently not processing first-time applicants at all even in countries without serious restrictions due to the backlog taking precedence)

 

To be honest, it makes sense. Children should be priority, it's important that they get processed in order to have a stable environment to grow up in. As adults we can handle separation a lot better.  And even the marriage based green cards. As K-1 visa applicants we are hoping to get approved so we can get married and start out life together with our spouse. Now imagine actually being married to your spouse and not even having that. 

 

I'm a K-1 visa applicant so I obviously don't benefit from the lower prioritization, but I also in general agree with the ranking (sans one or two I would move around) 

Edited April 2, 2022 by rocky95

[Fil&Em 285]

7 minutes ago, MarJhi said:

Well my theory is that when the pandemic started, travel stopped. If travel stops then people aren't able to meet in person until travel restrictions were lifted. If a person met someone from the Philippines on an online dating site in early 2020, they would not have been able to meet in person until a couple of months ago when most of the restrictions were lifted. So maybe less people filed in the last 2 years because they were waiting until they can meet in person to satisfy that requirement. 

Maybe, but honestly, I don't think that is significant enough to affect the data. Exemption of travel also means less people meet in real life, i.e. an american traveling abroad meets a potential partner, a foreigner traveling to the US meets a potential partner. This reduction of potential new partners should in theory be enough to offset the number of petitions or even decrease it.

 

But the data from 2021 shows that the trend is upward in number of petitions, not downward, as seen on their report on the link below:

 

https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Statistics/Immigrant-Statistics/WaitingList/WaitingListItem_2021vF.pdf

 

Particularly for K1, there was a really interesting graph shared somewhere by someone here on VJ, but produced elsewhere that contained 3 variables:

• Approvals (Productivity);
• Denials;
• Backlog.

My fiance did then some further analysis on it, for our own understanding, but even before it it was clear that the number of petitions was stable, but the much smaller productivity (went in past quarters to like a third of what it used to be in first 2/3 quarters of 2021, and years before) was the root (data) cause for the increasing backlog. In summary, it is not a reduction in new cases that is causing the backlog, it is productivity. I will try to locate the graph and share.

[Fil&Em 285]

4 minutes ago, rocky95 said:

Well on that same note,  there are other visa that fall under the family visa category. And  unfortunately the K1 visa priority is lower on that list. 

 

I found this list of the the possible order they are focusing on: 

1. IR-3/IR-4 (international adoption cases)
2. IR-2 (specifically the immigrant child of a U.S. citizen who will turn 21 in the near future)
3. Special Immigrant Visas for Iraqi and Afghan nationals working for the U.S. government
4. CR-1/IR-1 (or marriage-based green cards)
5. IR-2 (specifically the immigrant child of a U.S. citizen who will not turn 21 in the near future)
6. IR-5 (parent of a U.S. citizen)
7. K-1 (fiancé of a U.S. citizen)
8. All other family-based visas and SE1 (foreign employees of the U.S. government abroad)
9. All other immigrant visa types including employment-based and diversity visas
10. H-1B/L/TN/H-2 (nonimmigrant employment-based visas)
11. F/M/J (nonimmigrant students)
12. E-1/E-2 (treaty trader/investor)
13. B-1/B-2 (those eligible for an interview waiver)
14. B-1/B-2 (currently not processing first-time applicants at all even in countries without serious restrictions due to the backlog taking precedence)

 

To be honest, it makes sense. Children should be priority, it's important that they get processed in order to have a stable environment to grow up in. As adults we can handle separation a lot better.  And even the marriage based green cards. As K-1 visa applicants we are hoping to get approved so we can get married and start out life together with our spouse. Now imagine actually being married to your spouse and not even having that. 

 

I'm a K-1 visa applicant so I obviously don't benefit from the lower prioritization, but I also in general agree with the ranking (sans one or two I would move around) 

 

I have no issues with the order. I have an issue with the system where the backlog is faced as an inevitability. It shows that they are either underresourced, or inefficient, both, or the processes are not right.

[leviiathan 206]

Yeah its not as if were upset because of the processing time its had the past decade, its because it's slowest out of absolutely nowhere.

 

The fact that it was faster (for noa2) during the lockdowns when everything was stopped is just embarrassing.

 

The fact that people who applied just 2-3 months prior, have already been in the US for over a month now. (Obviously this doesnt go for everyone due to some embassys having maaassive backlogs) Its crazy out of nowhere slowdowns that from the looks of it have only gotten worse. That list is fine, reasonable even.

 

Not to mention the longer noa2 takes, the longer people from those countries with massive backlog has to wait. 3+ years seems plausible for those people and that just isnt okay. 

 

I definitely havent felt like a priority when things can just slow down without any warning, multiple times

 

 

 

 

 

[MeG@Am 110]

I have a plan if in case we are not approved this month... I will book a ticket for my fiancé to go to Mexico and have him just pass through the border in May, since they plan on opening the border.

* Of course, I'm being sarcastic.  This is just getting ridiculous.

[Optimist19 775]

2 hours ago, MarJhi said:

Well my theory is that when the pandemic started, travel stopped. If travel stops then people aren't able to meet in person until travel restrictions were lifted. If a person met someone from the Philippines on an online dating site in early 2020, they would not have been able to meet in person until a couple of months ago when most of the restrictions were lifted. So maybe less people filed in the last 2 years because they were waiting until they can meet in person to satisfy that requirement. 

I think so too. The different Covid surges in the US didn’t help either, since workers at USCIS were probably limited also.  It must be the combination of all of these problems. 

[CJPinEcuador 396]

1 hour ago, rocky95 said:

Well on that same note,  there are other visa that fall under the family visa category. And  unfortunately the K1 visa priority is lower on that list. 

 

I found this list of the the possible order they are focusing on: 

1. IR-3/IR-4 (international adoption cases)
2. IR-2 (specifically the immigrant child of a U.S. citizen who will turn 21 in the near future)
3. Special Immigrant Visas for Iraqi and Afghan nationals working for the U.S. government
4. CR-1/IR-1 (or marriage-based green cards)
5. IR-2 (specifically the immigrant child of a U.S. citizen who will not turn 21 in the near future)
6. IR-5 (parent of a U.S. citizen)
7. K-1 (fiancé of a U.S. citizen)
8. All other family-based visas and SE1 (foreign employees of the U.S. government abroad)
9. All other immigrant visa types including employment-based and diversity visas
10. H-1B/L/TN/H-2 (nonimmigrant employment-based visas)
11. F/M/J (nonimmigrant students)
12. E-1/E-2 (treaty trader/investor)
13. B-1/B-2 (those eligible for an interview waiver)
14. B-1/B-2 (currently not processing first-time applicants at all even in countries without serious restrictions due to the backlog taking precedence)

 

To be honest, it makes sense. Children should be priority, it's important that they get processed in order to have a stable environment to grow up in. As adults we can handle separation a lot better.  And even the marriage based green cards. As K-1 visa applicants we are hoping to get approved so we can get married and start out life together with our spouse. Now imagine actually being married to your spouse and not even having that. 

 

I'm a K-1 visa applicant so I obviously don't benefit from the lower prioritization, but I also in general agree with the ranking (sans one or two I would move around) 

While I can absolutely see the validity of that argument, I would argue that for many of us children are involved. As an adult, sure, I can handle the separation, but it’s a whole lot harder to explain to my son why our family is split up after 2 years of all living together in Ecuador. Many of us aren’t waiting to “start out life together”, we already had lives together and are just trying to relocate and finally get around to signing those papers that “finalize” what has already existed for years. 
 

The only reason we really didn’t do spousal was so that my grandmother could attend our wedding (she was unable to fly to another country with her health issues) and so we’d start married life never having to be separated. My grandmother ended up passing away in February, so she’ll never see me get married now and my fiancé couldn’t be there for her funeral. And while we continue waiting, I’m busy being a forced “single” mom in the US. I would argue that my son, a US citizen, is also deserving of a stable environment in his family unit. 
 

If I had had any idea that processing times would explode exponentially after I left in September, my son and I wouldn’t have left. We anticipated a few months apart at worst after waiting the first 5 months together, and now we’ve missed countless events and birthdays and lost time we’ll never get back. With times taking so long we’ve also decided not to have anymore children. We had wanted more, but by the time he is here and we are all settled and done with this paperwork nonsense and stable, that ship will have passed. 
 

These processing time delays have altered all of our “big” future plans, our current plans and hopes, and left us maintaining 2 households (instead of our previous 1) thousands of miles apart. It’s cost time and money and has been detrimental to the family unit we’ve worked so hard to build for so many years before even applying. 
 

Probably not the situation of many K1 applicants, but there are those of us who have situations like this mixed in. And we don’t deserve to be deprioritized and watch friends easily and quickly get work visas (I know at least 4 personally who applied after us for work visas and are already here in the US) while we sit back waiting and trying to keep our family together.  
 

Just my perspective 🤷🏻‍♀️

[Fil&Em 285]

17 minutes ago, CJPinEcuador said:

While I can absolutely see the validity of that argument, I would argue that for many of us children are involved. As an adult, sure, I can handle the separation, but it’s a whole lot harder to explain to my son why our family is split up after 2 years of all living together in Ecuador. Many of us aren’t waiting to “start out life together”, we already had lives together and are just trying to relocate and finally get around to signing those papers that “finalize” what has already existed for years. 
 

The only reason we really didn’t do spousal was so that my grandmother could attend our wedding (she was unable to fly to another country with her health issues) and so we’d start married life never having to be separated. My grandmother ended up passing away in February, so she’ll never see me get married now and my fiancé couldn’t be there for her funeral. And while we continue waiting, I’m busy being a forced “single” mom in the US. I would argue that my son, a US citizen, is also deserving of a stable environment in his family unit. 
 

If I had had any idea that processing times would explode exponentially after I left in September, my son and I wouldn’t have left. We anticipated a few months apart at worst after waiting the first 5 months together, and now we’ve missed countless events and birthdays and lost time we’ll never get back. With times taking so long we’ve also decided not to have anymore children. We had wanted more, but by the time he is here and we are all settled and done with this paperwork nonsense and stable, that ship will have passed. 
 

These processing time delays have altered all of our “big” future plans, our current plans and hopes, and left us maintaining 2 households (instead of our previous 1) thousands of miles apart. It’s cost time and money and has been detrimental to the family unit we’ve worked so hard to build for so many years before even applying. 
 

Probably not the situation of many K1 applicants, but there are those of us who have situations like this mixed in. And we don’t deserve to be deprioritized and watch friends easily and quickly get work visas (I know at least 4 personally who applied after us for work visas and are already here in the US) while we sit back waiting and trying to keep our family together.  
 

Just my perspective 🤷🏻‍♀️

 

I feel incredibly sorry for your situation. Tremendously. And I do subscribe to everything you say in number, genre and degree.

 

I also come from a situation where we were living together for some time, and the life apart became a novelty with this process - although no children, maintaining two households, losing time and dates that we did not use to lose before, that is all things we can both relate to.

 

The problem with those rankings is that in abstract that may seem resonable and fair, in concrete they may cause a lot of injustices, like your case. Like, I seriously have questions if a couple that decided to go with the marriage visa, having never lived together (I know such cases), should have priority over a fiance visa of a couple that has been together for long and the marriage would be just a technicality.

 

We have all made plans based on information that was provided by USCIS. Plans that we had to cancel, change, and future plans that now face uncertainty. A lot of things would have been done differently if we knew what we know today. We had a timeline that was conservative, adding a few more months for any delay. Now we are 372 days into it, and we have no idea when they are even going to touch our petition, because since 17/03 they haven't touched a single new case of my group (with still 90 cases left untouched).

[Re Mo 36]

1 hour ago, Fil&Em said:

 

I feel incredibly sorry for your situation. Tremendously. And I do subscribe to everything you say in number, genre and degree.

 

I also come from a situation where we were living together for some time, and the life apart became a novelty with this process - although no children, maintaining two households, losing time and dates that we did not use to lose before, that is all things we can both relate to.

 

The problem with those rankings is that in abstract that may seem resonable and fair, in concrete they may cause a lot of injustices, like your case. Like, I seriously have questions if a couple that decided to go with the marriage visa, having never lived together (I know such cases), should have priority over a fiance visa of a couple that has been together for long and the marriage would be just a technicality.

 

We have all made plans based on information that was provided by USCIS. Plans that we had to cancel, change, and future plans that now face uncertainty. A lot of things would have been done differently if we knew what we know today. We had a timeline that was conservative, adding a few more months for any delay. Now we are 372 days into it, and we have no idea when they are even going to touch our petition, because since 17/03 they haven't touched a single new case of my group (with still 90 cases left untouched).

Yep I'm in 635XX and at 1 year 25 days

[Re Mo 36]

Good morning Remaining March filer peeps let's see what this week brings. As I start off today at 1 year 26 days 😐

[Fil&Em 285]

Hi All,

 

Not a lot of activity early in the morning. The despair of remaining March  filers continue. Will hope for some activity later in the day.

 

57000 - 0
57500 - 0
58000 - 0
58500 - 0
59000 - 0
59500 - 0
60000 - 0
60500 - 0
61000 - 1 Denial
61500 - 0
62000 - 0
62500 - 0
63000 - 0
63500 - 0
64000 - 0
64500 - 0
65000 - 0
65500 - 0
66000 - 0
66500 - 0
67000 - 0
67500 - 0
68000 - 0
68500 - 0
69000 - 0
69500 - 0

[wad12 12]

Hello I know this is out of topic I am a March filer and March 29 to be exact. Just quick question I’m an independent contractor and I don’t got no health insurance but I tried to shop for one and the agent told me that it’s the tax subsidy or part of affordable act and my kids will be under chip. Are we allowed to apply for those? Or do I need to get the private health insurance. Thank you

[wenweichang 22]

3 hours ago, Re Mo said:

Good morning Remaining March filer peeps let's see what this week brings. As I start off today at 1 year 26 days 😐

Have you sent out a case inquiry? If yes, have you received a real response? We sent case inquiry back in December 2021 before USCIS pushed back the timeline. But only received general reply. I really want to know whether this new timeline reflects on what USCIS is actually working on.