March 2021 K1 I-129F filers

[GoingEastish 23]

35 minutes ago, slavaskii said:

2:30 PM California time update: 12 approvals in total today, which sounds awful, but they’re almost all in the 60xxx group - the one where 300 people filed on the same day, lol. The good news is that early March has filled in nicely, and even though this is clearly a vacation week, someone in the office sat down and is committed to forging ahead. I’ll update here again at the end of day, but at least we’re seeing progress into the 60000s. Average cases per day these past two weeks is low, about 30-40. 

Thanks for checking! I was wondering how things were going but didn’t have time to look. 
 

We hit 300 days today and it feels like those 300 days were all in December! I’m feeling optimistic though. I’m sure we’re so close! It has to be this week!

[slavaskii 886]

21 minutes ago, GoingEastish said:

Thanks for checking! I was wondering how things were going but didn’t have time to look. 
 

We hit 300 days today and it feels like those 300 days were all in December! I’m feeling optimistic though. I’m sure we’re so close! It has to be this week!

I like the optimism!  I don’t see really anything more today, but again, this week (and last) were guaranteed to be rough due to the holidays. We’ll get there soon enough!

[Bitolski 0]

2 hours ago, slavaskii said:

I like the optimism!  I don’t see really anything more today, but again, this week (and last) were guaranteed to be rough due to the holidays. We’ll get there soon enough!

Hi Slavaskii, where do you check this information and is it available for anyone to check? Im a March 23rd filler, really hard journey so far, but reading your posts gave me a little hope now that i know they are processing other March fillers. What would be a rough estimate for approval? Maybe January? 

[slavaskii 886]

15 hours ago, Bitolski said:

Hi Slavaskii, where do you check this information and is it available for anyone to check? Im a March 23rd filler, really hard journey so far, but reading your posts gave me a little hope now that i know they are processing other March fillers. What would be a rough estimate for approval? Maybe January? 

Hello! Sorry for the delay (to everyone) in not getting back. The app is CaseTracker - it's available for iOS and can be downloaded to any Mac computer. Just enter in any WAC range (typically 500 cases) and search, and it'll show you all the status updates on cases in that group. That's why here I've been saying there's approvals in the 60xxx group, etc.; USCIS doesn't go by these themselves, but it's just a convenient way of organization and shows *roughly* what dates they're processing. Speaking of which...

 

...not much progress yesterday overall, less than 20 March approvals total I think. I've been mainly checking 60xxxx up because, again, that's where the bulk of March is, but there is still regular movement from the 575xx group (March 1st). 10 approvals in the massive 60xxxx group, 1 more this morning, so they are working and are insistent on tackling that group. No movement past that point, despite the fact the 605's got a really large amount of approvals early/mid December. Interestingly, they're 1/3 of the way done. The next 'big' category is the 620xxx group with 217 untouched petitions. 

 

In terms of when to expect an approval, I honestly believe March has enough applicants for two full months. The amount of people here is almost unprecedented. I reckon that if you're before March 20, your category will absolutely be touched by the end of January. Realistically speaking, if you're around or after that, expect February unless there's a huge change in processing to 100+ per day. They can do it, but we just haven't seen it. As I've said: I-129F is now a 10-12 month wait, so expect USCIS to update to that shortly. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by slavaskii

[CJPinEcuador 396]

Here is a link to the March chart again for those that are more visual like myself. We run it everyday sometime after 5pm California time. Tab 2 has the daily and weekly totals.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-KrCTr9vliewjQfS0omnCI7eW8IqiLPJ2US4rRtpxAE/edit

[slavaskii 886]

51 minutes ago, CJPinEcuador said:

Here is a link to the March chart again for those that are more visual like myself. We run it everyday sometime after 5pm California time. Tab 2 has the daily and weekly totals.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-KrCTr9vliewjQfS0omnCI7eW8IqiLPJ2US4rRtpxAE/edit

Thank you for providing this one! Very slow week indeed, though we have today one approval in the 600xxx group today and one in the 585xxx group. Do you think this is just holiday slowdown, or is this, unfortunately, going to be the norm from now on? 

[CJPinEcuador 396]

2 hours ago, slavaskii said:

Thank you for providing this one! Very slow week indeed, though we have today one approval in the 600xxx group today and one in the 585xxx group. Do you think this is just holiday slowdown, or is this, unfortunately, going to be the norm from now on? 

As a late April filer, I sincerely hope the last few weeks have been the result of holiday vacation time. They get about 3000 cases per month so if they are only processing 30-60 per day (and it’s been lower than that for weeks around Christmas), those that have just recently filed are looking at years of waiting.
 

I have an open embassy for my fiancé, so once we hit ready at NVC he’ll be able to interview in under a month, but this part is killer. I wouldn’t mind a longer NVC wait if we at least knew we were approved for this part. If something goes wrong and we aren’t approved we’ll have to scramble to get married and start all over again after waiting almost a year just to hear back on this part. Idk where our adjudicators have gone, but I hope they come back soon! We’ve already waited patiently for so long! 😭

[slavaskii 886]

10 minutes ago, CJPinEcuador said:

As a late April filer, I sincerely hope the last few weeks have been the result of holiday vacation time. They get about 3000 cases per month so if they are only processing 30-60 per day (and it’s been lower than that for weeks around Christmas), those that have just recently filed are looking at years of waiting.
 

I have an open embassy for my fiancé, so once we hit ready at NVC he’ll be able to interview in under a month, but this part is killer. I wouldn’t mind a longer NVC wait if we at least knew we were approved for this part. If something goes wrong and we aren’t approved we’ll have to scramble to get married and start all over again after waiting almost a year just to hear back on this part. Idk where our adjudicators have gone, but I hope they come back soon! We’ve already waited patiently for so long! 😭

Rats that Columbia is ready and waiting for you! - same is true about Warsaw, God has blessed me with an embassy that doesn't have a backlog in a country that I personally love visiting  I mean, your chart shows that nearly 500 March filers were processed in December alone, which is remarkable considering how nearly 0 of us were done in October and very, very few November. I guess March filers will take whatever they can get at this point, but there's guaranteed to be less people working right now due to vacation days, and I-129F dropped priority pretty heavily back in August. 

 

It seems like everything is looking up for January. If not, I really have no idea what to say, but it's true that a) cases slowed down in the past two weeks and b) this coincided perfectly with Christmas. We should be alright. 

[lb119397 79]

1 hour ago, CJPinEcuador said:

As a late April filer, I sincerely hope the last few weeks have been the result of holiday vacation time. They get about 3000 cases per month so if they are only processing 30-60 per day (and it’s been lower than that for weeks around Christmas), those that have just recently filed are looking at years of waiting.
 

I have an open embassy for my fiancé, so once we hit ready at NVC he’ll be able to interview in under a month, but this part is killer. I wouldn’t mind a longer NVC wait if we at least knew we were approved for this part. If something goes wrong and we aren’t approved we’ll have to scramble to get married and start all over again after waiting almost a year just to hear back on this part. Idk where our adjudicators have gone, but I hope they come back soon! We’ve already waited patiently for so long! 😭

Trust that it’s definitely a struggle to be a March 8 filer in the 59500-60000 range and to see virtually no movement in your range, yet there are 40+ approvals for March 8 in the 60000+ range. I am trying to be as patient and optimistic as possible, but it is also so disheartening. 😞

Edited December 29, 2021 by lb119397

[Amanda&David 33]

4 minutes ago, lb119397 said:

Trust that it’s definitely a struggle to be a March 8 filer in the 59500-60000 range and to see virtually no movement in your range, yet there are 40+ approvals for March 8 in the 60000+ range. I am trying to be as patient and optimistic as possible, but it is also so disheartening. 😞

I feel you being a March 3 filer in the 57500-58000 range and having the majority of the range already looked at. Definitely feeling skipped over

[lb119397 79]

40 minutes ago, ancarroll said:

I feel you being a March 3 filer in the 57500-58000 range and having the majority of the range already looked at. Definitely feeling skipped over

Our time will come for sure! If this is not our week, then hopefully within the first week(s) of January. Best of luck to you!!  
 

Also, since I see that your embassy is Madrid, if it is any help, I know someone who had her interview in Madrid fairly quickly after her case was received by the embassy. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by lb119397

[Amanda&David 33]

9 minutes ago, lb119397 said:

Our time will come for sure! If this is not our week, then hopefully within the first week(s) of January. Best of luck to you!!  
 

Also, since I see that your embassy is Madrid, if it is any help, I know someone who had her interview in Madrid fairly quickly after her case was received by the embassy. 

Best of luck to you too!  And yes, that's what I've heard about Madrid. Thank you for your positive vibes!!

[slavaskii 886]

10 case updates today. I mean, at least we can confidently say we'll get NOA2 in 2022 now... considering that 3,000 outstanding cases / 10 is 300, and that's how many work days are left in 2022 😬 Why didn't we send that Christmas card and pizza, again?! 

[I129f49619 96]

8 hours ago, slavaskii said:

Thank you for providing this one! Very slow week indeed, though we have today one approval in the 600xxx group today and one in the 585xxx group. Do you think this is just holiday slowdown, or is this, unfortunately, going to be the norm from now on? 

Thank you for providing this! Seems like a lot of applications are being rejected! Is that just because it's easy to weed out applications with lack of evidence and mistakes first? 

[slavaskii 886]

2 hours ago, I129f49619 said:

Thank you for providing this! Seems like a lot of applications are being rejected! Is that just because it's easy to weed out applications with lack of evidence and mistakes first? 

Rejections seem to come through based on improper form(s), incorrect payment, or missing signatures. I don’t think actually that USCIS would outright deny a petition lacking any evidence before submitting an RFE. Although there were an unusually high amount of instant rejections in one of the groups, which made me think a bunch of people filed with RapidVisa or something and they forgot to include something integral on all of them lol