Number of cases processed hit new high!

[AndiB 677]

18 minutes ago, Nicki s said:

Does anyone know if they have started to clean up the older cases left behind?

im a March 11 filler - 61000 range and it’s not been touched properly for 2 weeks now, and over 100 cases left! It’s so weird! When only around 700 left for March ! So scared of getting left for months on end !

They're still doing old cases, someone here from feb just got approved recently!

[Obllak[BANNED] 186]

25 minutes ago, Nicki s said:

Does anyone know if they have started to clean up the older cases left behind?

im a March 11 filler - 61000 range and it’s not been touched properly for 2 weeks now, and over 100 cases left! It’s so weird! When only around 700 left for March ! So scared of getting left for months on end !

They are processing older cases all the time, just at slower speed (putting less attention to older months)  . For example, yesterday they approved 1 case from February 2021, 3 cases from July 2021, 2 from August 2021 etc. 

Edited May 19, 2023 by Obllak

[easyeddie 9]

4 hours ago, FromMexico W/Love said:

 

 

More than likely!!! With the way USCIS has been processing cases so quickly, I also made an probability chart for when I might get my NOA2. If they keep processing 1,200-1,300/week then I am going to be a happy camper!  

Do you mind sharing this with us?

[FromMexico W/Love 244]

1 hour ago, easyeddie said:

Do you mind sharing this with us?

Here is a snippet of my spreadsheet, just some rough math. And I have the starting amount of backlog smaller for this because I didn't factor in some ghost cases lol 

 

 

[Oregonian97 48]

3 hours ago, FromMexico W/Love said:

Here is a snippet of my spreadsheet, just some rough math. And I have the starting amount of backlog smaller for this because I didn't factor in some ghost cases lol 

 

 

How are you taking account rejected/denials in your daily "processed" numbers? I generally don't take credit for those because most of them are from cases filed just now and don't count towards your backlog reduction. If you look at Oblak's spreadsheet, your filing month of October already has very similar rejection numbers overall compared with months currently being processed. It won't make your dates much worse, but something to consider. 

[Vulpis 26]

Are a lot of these ghost cases just those that were submitted at the end of their respective months? Like is there a pattern that if your NOA1 is among the last days of the month, it's likely to just be left untouched versus those who submitted at the beginning of the month? 

 

Also, dang looks like we're trading one bottleneck for another, albeit smaller bottleneck. NOA2->NVC times per those posting VJ timelines is at an all time high since Jan 2022 and those other threads do NOT inspire confidence of having a wait time less than 3-5 months after NOA2.

Edited May 20, 2023 by Vulpis

[Nicki s 16]

Thank you! Good to know but only 1 Feb case? If they do such a slow speed for March too it will take forever to finish the remaining cases

anyone know why they leave entire ranges untouched with a lot of cases or is it really just random and luck 

[Obllak[BANNED] 186]

Looks like USCIS had a "cleaning day" yesterday - they processed more older cases (from June to December 2021) and way less "hot zone" cases compared to previous days. But in general, not the best processing day regarding SUM numbers. Nonetheless, average number of processing cases for this month are still hitting the highest records!  

[Obllak[BANNED] 186]

7 hours ago, Oregonian97 said:

How are you taking account rejected/denials in your daily "processed" numbers? I generally don't take credit for those because most of them are from cases filed just now and don't count towards your backlog reduction. If you look at Oblak's spreadsheet, your filing month of October already has very similar rejection numbers overall compared with months currently being processed. It won't make your dates much worse, but something to consider. 

Most of them are from denied. For example, yesterday they denied 42 cases and rejected 10. On May 18th, they denied 50 cases and rejected 10 etc. 

Denied = applicant is ineligible to receive a visa (older cases; in the backlog)
Rejected = USCIS reject form upon receipt if the form is incorrectly filled (newer cases; not in the backlog)

Edited May 20, 2023 by Obllak

[Obllak[BANNED] 186]

What is very interesting regarding this is the fact, that they used to reject more cases per month than deny, but they switched since February this year, when they started processing drastically higher numbers of cases (when USCIS got many new workers). Concerning? 

[Vashezzo 43]

22 minutes ago, Obllak said:

What is very interesting regarding this is the fact, that they used to reject more cases per month than deny, but they switched since February this year, when they started processing drastically higher numbers of cases (when USCIS got many new workers). Concerning? 

Doesn't sound immediately concerning to me - has the ratio of approvals to denials increased appreciably? It's not surprising to see a higher raw frequency of denials as they process cases faster, but rejections should stay about the same unless the number of new cases filed also increases.

[Vero8 7]

25 minutes ago, Obllak said:

What is very interesting regarding this is the fact, that they used to reject more cases per month than deny, but they switched since February this year, when they started processing drastically higher numbers of cases (when USCIS got many new workers). Concerning? 

Would new uscis workers already have to be trained? By the way, I noticed your profile photo and Princess Mononoke is one of my favorite movies. I had to say it.Jajajajajaja

[redmist 10]

7 minutes ago, Vero8 said:

Would new uscis workers already have to be trained? By the way, I noticed your profile photo and Princess Mononoke is one of my favorite movies. I had to say it.Jajajajajaja

I remember that article talking about how in Oct 2022 USCIS got those billions of funds to acquire and train new workers. Cases started picking up around January and keep picking up. Maybe it only takes a few months to train? 

[Obllak[BANNED] 186]

22 minutes ago, Vashezzo said:

Doesn't sound immediately concerning to me - has the ratio of approvals to denials increased appreciably? It's not surprising to see a higher raw frequency of denials as they process cases faster, but rejections should stay about the same unless the number of new cases filed also increases.

Absolutely, I agree. We are unfortunately lacking data from 2020 to know for sure. 

[meladee 160]

2 hours ago, Obllak said:

Absolutely, I agree. We are unfortunately lacking data from 2020 to know for sure. 

We can look at this with the official quarterly data from USCIS (I've aggregated it here), and the denial rate was definitely higher in FY22 than FY21. However, because so many denials are just submissions that are improperly filed, this could partially just be due to the increase in filings.