tmushen

I wish no one but the best and I am happy that the last couple with a NOA of 9/26 who were approved but for the rest of us who are sitting here with RFE's and they still have not finished our applications it's really upsetting, frustrating and painful. Today for me is a bad day because I can't believe I pay as much taxes as I do to be treated this way by people who are paid by our taxes.

I have a receipt date of 8/6 and I answered my RFE on 11/19 for a form that I know 100% that I sent. The form was sent and checked by three people which included myself, my lawyer and his secretary. I don't even feel like typing anymore because this is an absolute joke.

juliep

I am with you. My RFE receipt date is Oct. 15, 2003, and I still have nothing. According to the USCIS website, I should have gotten something over 20 days ago. I am glad that the USCIS keeps up with their own time frames! Then on Tuesday Tom Ridge says that "we have to come to grips with the presence of 8 to 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status some way." What about us who are trying to do it legally? How did we fall out of the loop?

Hypertweeky

Aww tmushen.. I am sorry to hear that.
I am praying for you to get your approval soon!!!
Take care and keep us updated!!

Hypertweeky

Hope you gets yours soon too!!!!!

glasgowm

I feel your pain. We are in the same boat. Our NOA1 date was 8/4, got an RFE on 10/30. Got the documents to them on 11/13, and then nothing.

I know ours was 100% intact and correct as well. They lost both of our G-325's. That's 8 pages of documents that they lost. Not sure how that could happen without losing everything. I still think that we were a victim of either a quota for RFE's or payback because my Congress Rep's office called to inquire about status.

Either way we are stuck and it is very painful to see approvals come through for Sept. And seeing 9/26 really makes me mad. Of course, I am very happy for the people who got approved; I'm mad at the NBC people.

The only thing I've heard about our case is what they told my lawyer. They said it takes 2 to 4 weeks for the documents to get from the mail room where they were received to the case officer working our case. They said, that was due to the large volume of mail that they receive.

I've heard on this NG that once they get your documents for an RFE, things get processed pretty quickly. Well, I guess that's not the case, because it's been 4 weeks today since they got our stuff.

I was still keeping hope that we'd get an approval by Christmas, now I'm begining to think maybe by Easter, or July 4th, or next Christmas.

tmushen

For everyone out there just to let you guys know both me and glasgown contacted our Congressional reps on our own and then we both got RFE's for G325-A missing forms. It seems that NBC misplaced both sets of forms (Petition and spouse) for both me and glasgown. I know I sent my forms and as you can see from glasgown's post they did as well.

This is what I am so mad about. Where the forms lost accidently or purposely?

Matthew Udall

My guess is accidentally. It takes "more" work on their part to do an RFE or case denial than it does to simply issue an approval.

It’s not unheard of for them to lose something. That has happened in a case or two that I've submitted.

Tip: Don't be a binder-boy with your submission! This is not a presentation where you are trying to impress your school teacher with a fancy binder, plastic sleeves in which to put in your written materials, etc.

While that might earn you a point or two from a teacher, it just slows the Contract workers down if they have to pull apart your submission to get it into the format they use there at the service centers, and it would definitely increase the odds of things becoming lost if they have to pull apart and reassemble a submission.

The best approach is to simply two hole punch everything and don't put things in binders or plastic sleeves (and I'm not saying that the two people in this thread were binder-boys... I don't know the condition of their individual submissions... this is just given as a general tip to those getting ready to file).

tmushen

Whatever the case my be and what ever anyone says to me there should be no RFE's for missing forms after 93 days. Step number one in this process should be a checklist of forms. If something is missing request then and not after 93 days. This is BS to have to wait now because someone finally after 93 days noticed a form (which was sent) was missing. I also think it's BS that they do any kind of processing in the previous 92 days except maybe move the file from one place to the next. If they did any kind of processing in the previous 92 days I guess they missed something all those days. As I stated if I have to wait and we all have to wait then that's fine but this is an unnecessary wait.

CharlieS

I'm sure it doesn't make you feel any better but I received an RFE after nearly 180 days.
Yes it sucks, yes it is totally frustrating and yes, there should be a more efficient way of processing applications.
Sadly there isn't at the moment and you will drive yourself mad if you let it get to you. All you can do is grit your teeth and give them what they want unfortunately.

I know it isn't what you want to hear but nothing we can do will make them process any quicker.

I'm sorry you're having such a crappy time with your service center, and hope you get that approval soon.

Matthew Udall

They do provide “instructions� on the I-129f, and I suppose one could make up a check list based on that although I don’t recommend one just go by the bare bones instruction and instead I recommend people use their experience to be sure to put together a well documented submission despite poorly written instructions.

I believe if a contract worker could not find a form or filing fee, they would likely kick back the submission, however they might not kick it back “or� the form might have become lost after the initial presorting and sorting process have been completed.

The contract workers at the mail room, presorting, sorting, data entry, the file room and the contract workers who do a wide variety of other tasks are “not� authorized (or trained) to approve or deny your case. Their job is to move your file through the various steps necessary until the “last� step of being given to an officer for evaluation.

That’s the logistical reality here. They don’t employ officers to evaluate the case in the earlier stages, only to have another officer later on decide on the merits of the case. They don’t have enough officers as it is already under the current set up and is one reason for the lengthy processing times.

Matthew Udall

I’ve toured each of the service centers except for the VSC, and in my opinion, they are “very efficient� in their processing of cases. Before touring my first service center (the CSC) I had a mental picture of what the facility must be like, the size of their operation, that sort of thing (based on my visits to other INS facilities).

I discovered that I had tremendously underestimated the size and scope of their operations (somewhere between a factor of 10 to 100)! For example, the file room is the size of a football field, but the files contained in that room were all well organized (did you know that before the CSC took over that building’s space, it used to be occupied by the Rockwell Corporation that used to manufacture missiles on the premises… and at one time Richard Nixon contemplated using the top floors of this “huge� building for his western white house, however that was scrapped as it was felt that it would not look good to have our president sitting atop of a missile manufacturing facility [at least, this is what was told to me by the Ombudsman at the CSC during one of my tours of the facility] :-). Sure, they do tweak their systems from time to time when they think they can do something even more efficiently, and sometimes Congress will throw a monkey wrench by implementing new requirements for them to follow (IBIS would be a good example) that will definitely slow everything down.

The reality is that there is more work to be done than most people can possibly appreciate (unless they too go there and see it for themselves) and they are short changed by Congress when it comes to giving them a budget in which to hire enough staff and officers to wipe out all of the backlogs.

tmushen

Any way there is not much anyone of us can do except wait. I had my congressional rep send another email on Wednesday to see if she could find out how much longer it will be. I asked her to CC me in the email which she did. I am thinking that she probably should not have done that because I can see the email address of the person at MSC.

This was the exact email except for the blanked out names:
Please advise status of I129f petition filed by my constituent **** on behalf of ******. Thank you ****

I would have liked her to include how I submitted the form at the beginning and that they have had the form resent and received on 11/19. Additionally applications from over 45 days ahead of this constituent are being approved. Please advise the status of this petition.

I would have felt better if my situation was some what described instead of a generic email. Any way sadly enough I will be having my companies Christmas party tomorrow without my wife. Prior to going out to dinner we will have drinks (Wine, Champagne and Beer) from 4 to 6PM. Anyone who is in the Wall Street area is more than welcome to come just send me a PM

sibsie

Matthew do you have any idea of many applications they get per year?

Hebapotamus42

Tmushen and Michael,

If it's any consolation, I got approved by MSC about 23 days after they acknowledged receiving my reply. Yours might be taking a little longer, but I think it'll probably be coming any day now. I contacted my congressman after I had submitted my reply and got fed up with waiting, but I got my approval before my congressman got an answer form them. Once you get your approval, though, all this pain and frustration will evaporate and you'll really start to relax. I'm waiting on your RFE from VSC, tmushen, so I hope you get approved soon!

Matthew Udall

No, but I'll bet they publish that information somewhere.

What I do have in my binder (where I put in the old service center processing time reports) is an old report from the TSC dated 05/2002. Back then they used to list the number of cases "currently pending" for each case type.

According to that report, at that given moment in time, the TSC had approximately 364,486 cases waiting their turn to be processed.

They don't list those numbers on their processing time reports any longer, so I don't know how many cases would be pending at the TSC today (but I'll bet the number has jumped to a higher number since then).