Waiting4ever2

All must have their priority date current. I think they should have a separate category (like Philippines or Mexico) but this likely won't happen anytime soon and if it does it won't be retroactive.

Yeah, your prediction does make sense: Every month they are reducing both the interview pending count and the number of documentarily qualified backlog. September/23: 275,506 pending interview / 314,853 documentarily completed April/23: 370,125 pending interview / 409,021 documentarily completed January/23: 386,787 pending interview / 422,954 documentarily completed August/22: 388,780 pending interview / 421,668 documentarily completed April/22: 421,358 pending interview / 453,797 documentarily completed January/22: 439,373 pending interview / 465,978 documentarily completed Clearly, the speed in 2023 has been faster than in 2022. As you mentioned, the average number of interviews in recent months stands at around 40k monthly. There's a noteworthy point in the report: This suggests that 60k is viewed as a "healthy" backlog, which is what they aim to achieve. "Note: In Calendar Year 2019, on average, 60,866 applicants were pending the scheduling of an interview each month." Thus, if they maintain the current pace, it would take approximately 5 months to reach this "healthy" backlog level (so around Feb/Mar 2024). It's worth noting that since there's no category-specific breakdown, we can take this as a worst-case scenario prediction.

Yeah! Although its frustrating being so close and nothing changing in 3 years.

Yeah, do we have any data that can help to predict? NVC response to inquiries are always too generic:

Yes, but until when does common sense say we should wait for the F2B visa category to move forward? 5 years? 10 years, 30 years? It's already been 3 years, I believe that's more than enough time for the backlog.

Wow, really? Even with all the new visas, they're not moving forward? What's up with that?

Or.. maybe it doesn't mean much. This is what someone said regarding change of status interviews:

Talked to someone from Venezuela who's got an interview lined up for a status change. Her priority date is October 2016, so that's probably a good sign. Doubt they'd get an interview if things weren't moving forward.

Nice! Do you know from which country?

Thanks for mentioning the October possibility. It's interesting how the visa quota thing could be a factor. Last year didn't really show big changes, so who knows, this time might be different, all depends on the backlog size. Your input is cool – let's hope for better news soon!

You know what's got me intrigued? Figuring out how far along USCIS/NVC might be in clearing up the F2B visa backlog. It's like a puzzle piece that could give us a hint about whether there's a chance for some progress in the near future.

I think @Newbuddy asked which months NVC/USCIS is actually interviewing. It varies by country but I think that on overall they didn't reach September-15 yet.

Exactly and it's funny if you think about it... not having bad news is good news. But if there were no retrogression now there shouldn't be in the next Visa Bulletin b/c the visa quota will renew. The real question is... how far are they from clearing the backlog (Dominican Republic included of course)

A new Visa Bulletin is coming. Let's see how it goes. I can not be optimistic because of the previous footnotes saying that there's a chance of regression. So the better odds are in the one for next month.

I agree on @Clarke84 I wonder if we sum the visas that have being issued to DR would cover the backlog. If that's the case we should have movement soon.

Yeah, you don't tell me 😮‍💨. My PD is Sep-2015, I am as frustrated as everyone. But I feel that the only thing I can do is to put my emotions aside and try to understand what's happening so I can set my own expectations. I think that NVC will only advance on the PD once they've cleared the backlog, that's why they might be breaking this 7% rule with DR. I wonder how far are they with this process... and if things will move on finally after October.

Yeah, but are they processing that amount because Dominican Republic 1) backlog was staged for much more time than the other countries or 2) citizens submit much more F2B request than the other countries? If it's 2) them I would agree with you that they should have their own category. But even if they do it wouldn't fair for those whom submitted before this proposed change. So the only thing I hope now is that NVC is able to finish their Dominican Republic backlog and start processing these other countries again. This situation is insanely unfair and they need to intervene somehow.

I'm bummed that the F2B visa final action dates aren't moving ahead, and it's frustrating that the NVC is only interviewing people from the Dominican Republic. But I guess they might be trying to get all countries on par before September 22 before they continue with the visa process. What do you think?

Do you guys think we'll have progress in the September 23 visa bulletin? (October is when the number of visas renew). If it regresses how much do you foresee? And when will it move forward again? If anyone has a rationale behind the prediction it would help a lot!

As far as my experience goes, any prediction is of low confidence (because of lack of information and transparency). But this Reddit post is the closer to prediction that I've found.

That's great news!! How was the interview? My priority date is exactly the same as yours! Sep-22-2015 but I still was not interviewed. Anyways even we are interviewed the GC will only be issued when the final action date moves forward. Regarding that I've being hearing that the expectation is that the final action dates continues to move forward in April/2023: Hope that it's true.