Canada US Marriage Visa Approvals by Month (K1 Visas Down, IR1 Visas Way Up)

[Captain Ewok 1,891]

 

We've had tons of questions on whether the Montreal US Consulate in Canada has been approving marriage based US Visas (and if so at what rate).  To answer that, we dug into the official US State Department data and plotted visa approvals for K1, CR1 and IR1 visas over the last 2 years. Here is what we found:

 

• K1 Visa processing is down.  In fact it's down by more than 2x from pre-Covid levels (~100 a month pre-Covid to ~40 month now).  There is likely to be a significant backlog after the Consulate stopped processing K1s for 6 months.
• IR1 Visa processing is WAY up.  In fact it's up by 4x pre-Covid levels. It appears the Consulate is trying to clear the IR1 backlog, at the expense of not processing K1s.
• CR1 Visa processing (couples married less than 2 years) is roughly 2x higher than pre-Covid (~50 a month pre-Covid to more than ~100 a month now).  Could folks be preferring the CR-1 route over a K1 visa?  Could this simply be similar to the IR1 surge to clear the backlog (again, at the expense of K1 Visas).

 

What do you think of the data (below)?  Do you think the US consulate in Montreal is artificially slowing don K1 Visa processing to prioritize other work or for other reasons?

 

[thekanes 0]

K1 person here.

All around they need to figure out how to process more K1’s too. We are all missing out on time with being with our loved ones and moving forward with our lives together.

I don’t know what can be done to speed up K1 visas… it hurts knowing that it will take longer due to resources being allocated to certain visas, instead of all. But again, what can be done?

[aurmorr 270]

2 hours ago, Captain Ewok said:

 

We've had tons of questions on whether the Montreal US Consulate in Canada has been approving marriage based US Visas (and if so at what rate).  To answer that, we dug into the official US State Department data and plotted visa approvals for K1, CR1 and IR1 visas over the last 2 years. Here is what we found:

 

• K1 Visa processing is down.  In fact it's down by more than 2x from pre-Covid levels (~100 a month pre-Covid to ~40 month now).  There is likely to be a significant backlog after the Consulate stopped processing K1s for 6 months.
• IR1 Visa processing is WAY up.  In fact it's up by 4x pre-Covid levels. It appears the Consulate is trying to clear the IR1 backlog, at the expense of not processing K1s.
• CR1 Visa processing (couples married less than 2 years) is roughly 2x higher than pre-Covid (~50 a month pre-Covid to more than ~100 a month now).  Could folks be preferring the CR-1 route over a K1 visa?  Could this simply be similar to the IR1 surge to clear the backlog (again, at the expense of K1 Visas).

 

What do you think of the data (below)?  Do you think the US consulate in Montreal is artificially slowing don K1 Visa processing to prioritize other work or for other reasons?

 

This is so hard to parse because, after the Consulate opened, they severely limited processing of all other visa types so they have only been dedicating use of the consulate to these cases, primarily.

 

Also I haven’t been able to get much clarity on this but do you know if K-1 is a different workflow from IR-1 and CR-1? That’s been my impression for a while but I can’t confirm it… Why are these three visa types compared when K visa is non-immigrant, is it just because they’re all spousal?

 

also I’m very interested to see how SHARPLY these statistics drop as numbers roll in over the next 2-3 months because not one VJ member got a letter despite being next in line. It’s wild and no one can get any answers.

 

@thekanes reviews from people who have done interviews at the consulate have commented that the flow inside is really great for the health and safety measures they are accommodating. My biggest frustration personally is K-1 gets 2 days per month and those days are like 8-11 or something like that. I think Spouse is once a week but during the last few months they’ve been doing 1-3 days per week, but again only from 8-11. It’s SUCH a short window of time and they’re not hiring new staff.

Edited May 30, 2021 by aurmorr

[Dave gc 0]

Can any one update  situation of E2/E3 Immigrant visa status in Montreal?

[aurmorr 270]

11 hours ago, Dave gc said:

Can any one update  situation of E2/E3 Immigrant visa status in Montreal?

Hey! These stats are not including Employment based visas. As of April 30, 2021, thé department of state issues this announcement of priority for visa processing:

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/News/visas-news/immigrant-visa-prioritization.html?fbclid=IwAR1tGOks5Pt6_Kl7ZVnQhxVMuVvyE15EjBwAfPLlmimWD46FQ7_oAyISXyI
 

Employment based visas are Tier 4 priority and, while the DoS states in this that the consulte should be scheduling every category, Family visas and special cases have priority and I wouldn’t expect that to change any time soon. There is roughly an entire years worth of IV Backlog.

[RolandandAndie 4]

I feel that in the last two months the spousal interviews have drastically gone down. They only used 2 weeks worth of DQ dates since April. No interviews at the end of May and none in all of June where they scheduled interviews for K1’s. If they are really trying to relieve the backlog then they should be scheduling more spousal interviews.

[Ellenjl 1]

Thank you for including this helpful info. I wonder why they would not  reopen the vancouver consulate to k1 processing.

[Twiz&Toz 240]

There’s one thing that may also be possible. The Canadian government may be requesting the cut back to slow out of province travel. Montreal’s numbers are down and they won’t want ppl from high lvl case areas traveling.

[Riversong 420]

On 5/31/2021 at 12:03 PM, RolandandAndie said:

I feel that in the last two months the spousal interviews have drastically gone down. They only used 2 weeks worth of DQ dates since April. No interviews at the end of May and none in all of June where they scheduled interviews for K1’s. If they are really trying to relieve the backlog then they should be scheduling more spousal interviews.

The backlog will only continue to grow if they don't start scheduling IR1/CR1 cases next month. Being put behind almost 2 months already will only add to the pile they already have to go through. It seems crazy that the Consulate would have just stopped scheduling the spousal  visas. I have seen comments about how many they have scheduled, but I am not sure the ones complaining about how high the numbers have been have taken in to consideration that the spousal category has a higher volume of applicants.

Here's hoping we see IR1/CR1 IL's going out this week or next. We know K1s have been scheduled for July already

[Riversong 420]

On 5/31/2021 at 1:10 PM, Twiz&Toz said:

There’s one thing that may also be possible. The Canadian government may be requesting the cut back to slow out of province travel. Montreal’s numbers are down and they won’t want ppl from high lvl case areas traveling.

I thought of that too, but to ignore a whole category of "Mission Critical" visas?

[Goose-o 7]

Do you have an updated plot for June? Thanks!

[Andreams 5]

On 6/28/2021 at 3:53 PM, LittleGoose2021 said:

Do you have an updated plot for June? Thanks!

I was just about to write the same question. I'm very curious if these numbers change a bit. I had really hoped to be able to move to the US by late summer, but it's looking more and more like the entire process will take over a year. It's a bit frustrating to see that K1 visas have almost no backlog in some other parts of the world, but are lagging behind in Canada. It would be wonderful to have frequent updates on this if possible.

[Aelius 7]

Anyone have any new information about this? It would help me and my girlfriend in our decision about whether to go the K1 route or CR-1 route. (I know the pros and cons of both, but in particular I'm wondering about how processing times have changed since this thread was posted.)

[Andreams 5]

5 hours ago, Aelius said:

Anyone have any new information about this? It would help me and my girlfriend in our decision about whether to go the K1 route or CR-1 route. (I know the pros and cons of both, but in particular I'm wondering about how processing times have changed since this thread was posted.)

I would love to see updated numbers as well. If you two have not begun the process at all, then the consulate processing times may not matter too much for you, because it changes all the time. It would be more interesting to find out how long the current visa approval time takes instead. It took about 7 months for my K1 to be approved, but now I'm waiting for the Montreal consulate to receive my application. You can compare the times here: https://egov.uscis.gov/processing-times/ I took a quick look for the California Service Center, and both types of visas take the same time currently, 6 - 8 months.

Edited August 13, 2021 by Andreams

[Twiz&Toz 240]

22 hours ago, Aelius said:

Anyone have any new information about this? It would help me and my girlfriend in our decision about whether to go the K1 route or CR-1 route. (I know the pros and cons of both, but in particular I'm wondering about how processing times have changed since this thread was posted.)

At the moment k1 are past cr1 visas for interview date. Cr1 are currently stopped at oct 20th 2020