Recent USCIS Activity

[thonati 31]

I wanted to provide my analysis of the USCIS activity recently.  There has been a significant reduction in case activity starting around mid-June.  The average number of cases per week from 04MAR to 10JUN is 1685 per week.  The week of Easter and Memorial Day had 20% reduction as you can imagine. 

 

Since 10JUN the number of cases reviewed is 768, greater than 50% reduction.  This week (22JUL) look like the lowest number of cases reviewed.  So far through Wednesday, the number is 136 reviewed.  If I had to guess, I would say summer vacations at USCIS California are to blame.  It is nice weather anytime in SOCAL but really nice this time of year.  Good for them as everyone needs a vacation.  Bad for us that have petitions that need approval.

 

That part of the state (between LA and SD) is beautiful and the surf must be up.  Everyone is at the beach while we are hitting re-fresh every 2.3 seconds to see if our case is approved.  Good luck to everyone, especially if you applied in Mar/Apr 2024.

 

EDIT:  Let me also add that the average time NOA1 to NOA2 for VJ members is 64 days for March filers, 54 days for April filers, 39 days for May filers.  I filed 13JUN and I am at 41 days today and USCIS has not begun to review cases filed in June.  So I suspect June filers to be back up to the 50~70 days again.  That is if everyone comes back from vacation sober.

 

There are a significant number of VJ members so the sample size is significant to approximate the overall population provided the VJ members entered the data correctly and not make any typos. 

Edited July 24 by thonati

[thonati 31]

Edit 2:  We had another May filer report and they were NOA2 approved in 57 days taking the average up to 44 days for the May filers.  This number is only going to increase now that USCIS is "on vacation".

[Green Lady 6]

I found 'track my visa now' to be a good estimation whilst we were waiting for our NOA2, Good Luck!

Edited July 25 by Green Lady

[TBoneTX 45,014]

A noncontributory post has been removed.

 

Thread is moved from the K-1 Process forum to the USCIS Service Centers forum -- topic is processing-rates.

[Edward and Jaycel 110]

We had 265 days between NOA1 and NOA2 (NOA 1 filed 9/18/2023 - NOA2 Approval 6/11/2024). I we had an RFE in there but that was sent to us 5/20/2024 and I responded quickly and they received my response on June 1, 2024 and approval showed on the website on June 4th. I don't know if that was the reason for the long delay or not but that was a loooong wait.

[apnzz 209]

We've been waiting since 4 March. They've skipped cases between Feb 23 and March 6th. They've stalled / slowed down on approving cases around end of May for some reason, many of us thought it was to go back and approved the skipped period (over 2.3k cases) but in the last few weeks there has still been barely any movement (around 5 case approvals across the 2 week skipped period in total, 3 of them expedites).

 

It's been a 143 days for us. Our friend filed Feb 27 and still waiting.. tmvn and none of the other visa sites were helpful or accurate with any of us during that 2 week period. They just skipped us.

Edited July 25 by apnzz

[thonati 31]

14 minutes ago, apnzz said:

We've been waiting since 4 March. They've skipped cases between Feb 23 and March 6th. They've stalled / slowed down on approving cases around end of May for some reason, many of us thought it was to go back and approved the skipped period (over 2.3k cases) but in the last few weeks there has still been barely any movement (around 5 case approvals across the 2 week skipped period in total, 3 of them expedites).

 

It's been a 143 days for us. Our friend filed Feb 27 and still waiting.. tmvn and none of the other visa sites were helpful or accurate with any of us during that 2 week period. They just skipped us.

Yea, tmvn put out a YT video on this.  They are just as confused as the rest of us.  They claim this is the first time the USCIS has "skipped over" a full week of cases.  Actually it happened twice, a week's worth of FEB cases and a week's worth of MAR cases.  I see they are now working on those "skipped" cases so you will hear back soon.  As I mentioned, tmvn says they will start working on June filers next week, so they are knocking out FEB-MAY cases at a rapid clip.  I suggest you watch that video.

 

The real question is how did this happen?  Did someone pitch the files and went fishing, or to the bar?  Now that things are electronic, I doubt they tossed the I-129f forms in the trash, never to be seen again.  I believe (not certain) that the NOA1 is generated after the forms are scanned into the system.  So it seems logical to me that once an NOA1 has been sent, it will get adjudicated at some point.  It is not like they have a system Hack.   Well on second thought, we are talking about he Biden Administration here.  They cannot do anything right.

[Sam Burns 153]

4 minutes ago, thonati said:

Well on second thought, we are talking about he Biden Administration here.  They cannot do anything right.

Like the previous admin was a paragon of efficiency…

[apnzz 209]

Ive watched the tmv now video, no one really knows why it happened or what has happened other than the fact that time frame of cases was skipped.

 

 

& I was about to say, the previous administration, processing times were atrocious.  At least they have significantly sped up things in the last few months. It sucks I was skipped and over 2.3k are waiting over 140 days but the fact cases are seeing under 90 day approval speeds is amazing and a wonderful thing.

 

Also I hardly would call the recent activty knocking out Feb- May cases rapidly. The majority of them  are still April and May cases. Feb and March still get left and ignored, that hasn't changed. There is no knocking out or rapid with the week I filed or the week before.

 

 

Also trackmyvisanow also posted that they've stalled May approvals and stopped at the end so June processing is likely delayed. They're also a third party service and not associated with USCIS, their estimations are based off of when June cases start to get processed, that's when they know you are "at the front if the line" . It all is just guesses and estimations. It isn't guaranteed to be accurate. USCIS could start approving June cases tomorrow, or it could be a month from now. Who knows.

 

At the rate of them approving the "skipped" period, it'll be ages. The skipped period has seen a total of 13 approvals in the last 28 days. Compare that to the 2.3k that are waiting. Numbers are ridiculous. There isn't anything fast about that. 

Edited July 25 by apnzz
Spelling error fixed

[thonati 31]

42 minutes ago, apnzz said:

 

It all is just guesses and estimations. It isn't guaranteed to be accurate. USCIS could start approving June cases tomorrow, or it could be a month from now. Who knows.

 

You have that right.   I with they were more transparent.  Nothing is guaranteed.  However, I will say statistics is based on past behavior to predict future behavior.  When the USCIS does something that is abnormal behavior (skipping entire weeks of cases); prediction becomes less reliable.  There has to be a good and easy explaination.  For example, were these weeks in question assigned to a particular group or department and the workers got COVID and were off for 2 weeks?  Then when they returned, they did not start where they left off?  Then they did not realize the mistake for several weeks?

 

We are dealing with the government here.  No one should be surprised by the poor performance.

[thonati 31]

52 minutes ago, Sam Burns said:

Like the previous admin was a paragon of efficiency…

Fair point.  Government as a whole is inefficient by definition.  This is why they hire 3rd party contractors to get the job done. 

[esme2604 14]

I waited 411 days for my i130 to be approved.. filed in june 2023, and I felt it slowed down wayy much in June.  I was finally approved yesterday.  

[thonati 31]

3 hours ago, esme2604 said:

I waited 411 days for my i130 to be approved.. filed in june 2023, and I felt it slowed down wayy much in June.  I was finally approved yesterday.  

Congrats.  411 days is a very long time.

[stellybelly 1]

There’s still more than 6,500 cases pending in February through May. They’re working deciding ~750 cases per week. I doubt June will be started any time soon. 

[stellybelly 1]

9 hours ago, thonati said:

Fair point.  Government as a whole is inefficient by definition.  This is why they hire 3rd party contractors to get the job done. 

They just fired 450 of them at CSC