meladee

One of the March approvals was a VJ member 🎉🎉🎉

@Elays Yayyyy, I love it! 💜

Can you clarify where you don't see Feb & March on the site? I haven't had that issue.

It's usually updated weekly on Mondays, weird that it hasn't been updated this week.

If you scroll down on a USCIS page, a box saying "Need help? Ask Emma" should pop up like this:

Can you share your dataset for comparison? Or at least a little more detail on how you're doing your own calculation that results in a longer date. I have done something similar on my own that I've poked at a lot, so maybe I can poke at yours a little to see the differences.

They meant in the email address -- if you sent it to jorden-support@ustraveldocs.com as you wrote in your post, they won't receive it. The correct address appears to be Support-Jordan@ustraveldocs.com based on this site. Can you clarify which address you emailed?

I've written some versions of letters people can send here in case it's helpful. Happy to help people write others too, I know not everyone has the time or energy to write, but it's helpful if more people are contacting Senators and Representatives.

I wonder what the standard deadline is for an RFE, I feel like I remember it being 30 days? This week they removed the flexibility to respond to the RFE up to 60 days past the due date, (which was added during COVID) so I think we'll see them start closing more cases that haven't recieved timely responses in the next couple months. https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-announces-end-of-covid-related-flexibilities

Here are all the details on the proposed fee increases: https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/news-releases/uscis-issues-proposed-rule-to-adjust-certain-immigration-and-naturalization-fees

I think this is due to the first part, where it only applies IF they are proposing fee increases. They weren't increasing fees last year, but they are now, so now it applies.

Here's the 2023 report. It just says "Application Processing.--The Committee continues direction provided under this heading in House Report 117-87 related to the timely processing of applications, changes to fee levels, and reporting on processing performance." House Report 117-87 is the 2022 report, which says : You can see more of my rambling about this earlier in this thread here and here.

If you are just looking for an alternative source, Lawfully says 314 untouched in November as of yesterday.

Here is my theory, and it's a mixed bag: Yes, they are processing quicker, and eventually that will be good. But in the Appropriations Act, which is law, they are required to reduce the median processing rate by 25% this year, which is a slight deviation from the wording in the previous years -- because they used the word median. They are not beholden to the processing times on this page that consider 80% of cases processed; these are the median processing times they care about. Which is great, that means the median this year should get to ~9 months. But what about the other 50% that come after the median? That is why, in this fiscal year, we have seen them consitent move on to processing the next month at 50%, and the remaining 50% get stretched out. They aren't required by law to adjudicate them as speedily as the median, so they are deprioritised as they try to get the next batch to 50% as quickly as possible. Long term, it will be better for everyone, but short term you're really going to feel it if you're in the first 50% vs second 50%.

Oh yeah I'm a daily visitor to that spreadsheet, it's fantastic for overall processing trends! But it doesn't have the detailed monthly data that most of the filer threads have, like RFEs, or daily processing numbers for that month specifically, or even broken down into filing groups of 500. For example, we can see that yesterday 291 cases were processed, but not that 21 were February approvals (😵). Here's the February sheet for comparison. I do this daily tracker too, but it's just "Case Complete" numbers and not any more granular than that.

I see that this spreadsheet has been deleted now. Is anyone interested in having a June '22 spreadsheet?

The cover sheet they link to on the page says "Uploaded & submitted to CEAC account" is "Not Applicable for K-1")

Can you share where you found out that you need the invoice number? Everything I read up to now has indicated that the invoice number is needed to log into CEAC, but CEAC is only for immigrant visa cases like CR1/IR1. For K1 we should just need a case number to check CEAC status via https://ceac.state.gov/CEACStatTracker/Status.aspx.

It's like a celebrity sighting when you're in there and see it getting updated in real time 😂

I've been tracking the daily case completed numbers from the Lawfully dashboard. I think it's useful to see some of the processing trends. What is standing out to me right now is this trend of denials happening for the August 2022 filers (65 denials since last week). On Tuesday there were also 10 June filers with "Termination Notice Sent", which isn't a status I'm familiar with. I really like the layout & visuals of the Lawfully dashboard and the level of information it shows, but it doesn't exactly match Obllak's numbers. Where there are differences, I would defer to their Obllak's spreadsheet instead of the Lawfully dashboard because we have more information on the underlying data. The Lawfully numbers also change daily and disappear after 3 days.

I agree, and that's in line with the 25% improvement in the appropriations bill.

Yeah the above post by @FromMexico W/Love is what sent me looking for this info! What I vaguely understand from the process is that this is USCIS' Congressional Justification for the budget they were requesting, but not what the committee actuall accepted for the appropriations bill. Appropriation, fiscal year 2022....................... $389,504,000 Budget request, fiscal year 2023...................... 903,622,000 Recommended in the bill............................... 653,293,000 Bill compared with: Appropriation, fiscal year 2022................... +263,789,000 Budget request, fiscal year 2023.................. -250,329,000 So the subcommittee put forward -$250MM vs what USCIS asked for, but it's still +$263MM vs the previous year. And that decrease is mostly in hiring, with the reasoning "... because the budget request assumes an unrealistic hiring strategy for asylum-related operations, the recommendation reduces the Application Processing PPA by $229,336,000 below the request..." Still +$215MM over last year, but the emphasis seems to be on asylum application processing.

I've gone deeper into the rabbit hole and it's not quite as rosy -- in the 2022 report (House Report 117-87) they changed the first point to: So while we should see reductions, it does feel like 6 months is off the table. Also, because it's based on the median that might be why we're seeing so many get left behind, they only care about that 50% mark. I don't expect much change in this in the short term, the 2023 report basically says to keep doing what they said in 2022.

The 6 month goal originated in House Report 116-458: That would have come from the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Below are the current members of that subcommittee (the members who were there when that passage was written are in bold). If any of these are your representative, I would recommend contacting them -- they should have a particular interest in USCIS falling short of the requirements their subcomittee set forth. David Joyce, Ohio, Chair Henry Cuellar, Texas, Ranking Member John Rutherford, Florida Andy Harris, Maryland Dan Newhouse, Washington Ashley Hinson, Iowa Michael Cloud, Texas Michael Guest, Mississippi Rosa DeLauro, Connecticut Lauren Underwood, Illinois Ed Case, Hawaii David Trone, Maryland

Haha, I also enjoy reading into the data like that! But based on what you said above, if you consider that "Withdrawls" includes people who take another route, then "benefit received by other means" would fit nicely in that category I think.