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I disagree. Anyone I've seen in recent months that's been approved outside of the current sequential order of things has always either expedited, filed a K3, or contacted a congress person that was proactive. No one with an earlier than usual approval has not done at least one of these 3 things. And a lot of those are K3 filers that have had earlier than usual approval. Does it work for everyone though? I don't think so. But there are a lucky few who manage to skip the line by months or weeks with it. I reach out to people on VJ who get an earlier than usual approval, and they've always done one of the 3 things. Same for other channels of discussion on IR1/CR1 processing, I always ask them if they did one of the three. I have not yet encountered a case that was approved earlier than usual and didn't do anything at all from the listed. Not a single case.

Someone with a PD of 2nd September 2023 got approved 2 days ago. Nebraska SC. September has started guys! Congress person can be tricky, depending on the person. When we tried, they just looked at the USCIS processing time webpage and said until we pass that timeframe they won't put in an enquiry for us. We've not passed the 15.5 months yet.

Track My Visa website now shows August 2023 approvals at 60.4%. These last few months I've oberved (and commented under other posts) that when a month hits 60% we start seeing the next month's approvals coming in. We should be seeing September approvals coming through any second now, if the same pattern applies! Good luck everyone waiting on here.

Congratulations and thank you for sharing!

Saw a July 14 approval come through just today.

I've seen up to August 25th

Congrats!!! did you file a K3?

I saw people from June and July 2023 getting approvals yesterday. And first few days of August too. The ones left behind, basically. Hopefully you guys hear back soon.

Congrats! Which service center? This is the first week since around March this year I am seeing approval times seemingly coming down. I want to be carefully optimistic since it's the first week but I am hoping things are going to start improving....

Last I saw someone report their NVC welcome letter timeline, it was 15 days from when it was approved.

It can happen for various reasons. I saw someone with August 7th PD get approved just yesterday. You'll hear something soon.

Congrats! I also saw a lot of Aug 14th approvals come in yesterday, for the benefit of all others on here.

Thank you for posting and congratulations!!!

A bunch of 8th August approvals happened today. So you should be next in line soon.

I find VJ's estimates have been erratic since around March when I-130 processing times started slowing down. I think the best way is to focus on who got approved most recently, what their PD was, and then calculate the amount of total days it took for them to get an approval. Apply those days to your own PD to give yourself the most accurate and current prediction. Our I-130 was filed in September 2023 and the same time you posted this, my estimate went up to January 2025 by VJ. It's now back down to the 'Nov - Dec' range.

Makes sense as July hit 60% finally.

Stuck on 58.8% since end of Friday, but I am hoping today's approvals are going to bump this up to 60%. Will be more telling first thing tomorrow once all the data pulls in for them for Monday

I know. I was referring to Crazy Cat's comment "this does not apply to medical exams done for immigrant visas". The link I gave does mention immigrant visas, but also mentions that the rule change is under USCIS, which I guess is the key difference? For consular processed visas our medical falls under specific embassy's/consulates, which I think still carry the 6 month validity rule.

One thing I've picked up on the Track My Visa Now website under "What does the current case backlog look like?" is when a month hits 60% the next month starts seeing approvals come through. July is at 58.3%, so we're getting closer to August approvals.

You are correct, I see that it specifically mentions USCIS. However, it does mention 'immigrant visas' throughout, which had me confused. And I saw the FAQ's link too, which had me further confused, as that still states 6 months. Thank you.

Is the Form I-693 the same as the medical we get done for CR1/IR1 visas? If so, that means there's no longer a 6 month expiry on them according to this: https://www.uscis.gov/newsroom/alerts/uscis-announces-new-guidance-on-form-i-693-validity-period?

If you spoke to an Emma agent in the last few weeks it will trigger this email automatically after a given time.

No, VJ estimates are pretty accurate. It's gone up because processing times have gone up. We are now up to an average of 14 months and 5 days. It's going up rapidly so I'm expecting it to be up to 14 months and a week, by the end of this week.

Did your congress person attempt to reach out to USCIS? Because I tried and was told I'm within normal processing times, and that they won't do anything until I'm past that. Anyhow, I am finding for a few months that anyone getting approved outside the norm has filed a K3. Usually with a margin of getting approved roughly a month earlier than they typically would have.

Congratulations. Did you do anything different that may have made your case go faster? Since they are on mid-July right now, that’s pretty fast. Also, which service Center?