shepslady

My husband heard from his congressman today & we arent at all impressed with the news. Apparently I-130 visa applications are not thought to be a priority with the INS & often they get put back to the bottom of the pile while other non immigrant visas are processed. We have been waiting for six months to have our I-130 processed & have now been advised that we should seriously look at filing an I-129f to apply for a K3 visa as this would be faster. After all this time we feel like we have been robbed of the last six months. Why dont they tell people these things right from the start. It isnt fair to play with our lives like this. Now we are looking at starting the entire process over again & who knows how long our wait will be. This is definately not the christmas present either of us were expecting. Now we both feel we are being punished for choosing to get married outside of the US so my family could all attend the wedding. Merry Christmas from the INS huh??Also we were told that they are still working on applications received back in May 2002?? Funny that because we heard the same thing in July & cant help wondering what they have been doing for the last 6 months???

angeles73

Which service center are you going through?

shepslady

Surprise surprise we are dealing with the Nebraska Service centre!!!

angeles73

Ughh... sorry to hear that

I think the best thing to do is contact your congressman, see if there is anything they can find out for you. Then go the other route. Starting over.. I can't imagine what you must be feeling. But if there is anything you need or want to vent... drop a line.

Ange

shepslady

The sad news is we already contacted the congressman & he told my husband that the INS regard I-130 applications as low priority & also that nebraska is still handling applications from may 2002. We have been reading that may 2002 thing since July so does that mean that they havent processed anything since July? I think not. The communications are not good are they. We have already spent 6 months in what feels like a leaky boat & trying so very hard to stay afloat!!

angeles73

I am so sorry, I did read that before regarding the congressman. And I know what you mean regarding the leaky boat. It is devastating to never have good news to share.

Ange

cindyabs

Ah yes, but then again you could be going through TSC, now processing 130s from June of 2001.............

jcsutton

I see a reference to New Zealand on your registration. Are you from NZ?? If so, why don't you DCF?? This would be much, much, quicker and easier for you if the USC will go to NZ for the initial filing.......

shepslady

sadly because of work committments that is not an option for us at this time even though we know that the US Consulate here in NZ does direct filings. We didnt know that when my husband was here so he returned to his job etc & we have to go through this process no matter how long it takes but thanks for that anyhow!

Kedar Deshpande

jcsutton wrote in message news:...
    > I see a reference to New Zealand on your registration. Are you from NZ??
    > If so, why don't you DCF?? This would be much, much, quicker and easier
    > for you if the USC will go to NZ for the initial filing.......


JC,

The only problem is that they have already filed the I-130. I don't
think you can have two I-130s going on at the same time. PLus if they
try to stop the US filing, I'm sure there is a lengthy procedure for
that.

I unfortunately found out about DCF in New Delhi after I submitted my
app to VSC in November. If I could only quickly reverse my
actions.... DCF is definitely the way to go. DCF'ers are looking at
3 month wait times till visa is in hand via the New Delhi consulate.
I'm sure NZ will be that much quicker..

Matthew Udall

Hi Shepslady,
Sorry to hear of your news.
As to your Congressman’s characterization that I-130's are a low priority, that may very well be the case (although I’ve never heard that said before or read that on an NSC liaison report). I’m not disputing anything your Congressman has said, nor anything the NSC might have told him or her (obviously neither one of us were on the phone to hear the conversation), but I thought I’d share a few thoughts about processing. Of course, sharing these thoughts and information is unfortunately not going to make your I-130 speed up, however I thought you might be interested in some of this information. And please note that I wish I could do something for you to get them to move faster… I think Congress should fund them better so they would have enough staff so eliminate the backlogs. By offering this information, I’m not “defending� the INS.

I assume you are aware of the different types of I-130 that can be filed with a service center. Since you are married to a U.S. Citizen, that would be an immediate relative case. Immediate relative I-130’s are not subject to the “priority date� criteria associated with I-130’s filed by Permanent Residents for their spouses and children, and unmarried son’s and daughters.

I was at the NSC on 10/30/02 attending the AILA liaison meeting, and the division leader that does I-130’s (Sadie W.) gave a speech about her division. I was doing my best to keep up with my note taking, but unfortunately I can only scribble so fast (can type “much� faster than I can write). From the notes that I did manage to take, she indicated that at her product line they sort out the various types of I-130’s and place them on different shelves. One category is for spouses of U.S. Citizens. Another is for spouses of Lawful Permanent Residents. Another would be Immediate Relative petitions for kids or parents. Some of these case types will naturally be easier to do than other types, and she characterized some as “lower graded work� and some as “higher graded work� (with cases involving stepchildren and adopted kids being in the higher graded work category). She also mentioned that IBIS has slowed down her product line considerably.

Her product line does I-129f’s, I-130’s, I-360’s, I-589’s, I-730’s, I-751’s, and N-400’s (At least I believe I have this written down correctly in my notes… and I do know that they process the N-400’s at a different Federal building in Lincoln). I did not get the number of officers specifically assigned to her division, but she did tell me how many of her officers could be assigned to I-129f’s on a given day (I would assume that they have a similar sized division staff as the one at the CSC. Last time I asked, the division at the CSC that processes I-129f’s and I-130’s had around 77 officers, with most of them [around 74] assigned to I-130’s. Again, I would guess that the NSC breaks up their officers in that division in a roughly similar fashion).

After her lecture, I followed her out of the meeting to ask her more detailed questions about I-129f processing, and during those questions and answers she did mention that her Family Division lost the highest percentage of their officers for reassignment to the IBIS triage area (more so than the business line), but she also mentioned they just finished training 2 new officers for their division the proceeding Friday.

During the Director’s speech (Mr. Way), he discussed the slowdown caused by IBIS checks that they must now perform. He mentioned that doing the IBIS work has increased the time officers spend on the actual adjudication from a range of 25% to doubling the processing time. From the numbers they had at that time, he estimated that due to the imposition of IBIS, the NSC will process 240,000 fewer cases to completion this year. So instead of reducing the backlog, the backlog is increasing this year thanks to IBIS.

Whenever I get a new Service Center report, I print it, update my site, and then save the report in a binder. The binder only holds so much, so from time to time I go through and toss out some of the old reports. Right now, the binder contains NSC reports going back to September 27th 2002. On that particular report, I see I-130’s for spouses of U.S. Citizens with a “Date in Process� date of 04/19/02. On the “next� report (as of October 15th, 2002) we see the date of 05/16/02, and its been frozen on that date since then (been frozen on that date for a little over 2 months now).

In early October, the INS did its annual audit. During the audit, all file movement stops at all of the INS offices (including the NSC). But they want to keep their officers busy adjudicating cases during the audit (the Contract workers do the counting in the audit), so they load up the officers’ desks with cases right before the audit hits so the officers can continue to work during the audit. I don’t know how much of a factor this “loading up of the officers’ desks� was in the fact that we saw some movement in the report between the end of September and mid October, but I suspect it came into play to some extent. And if they did load up the officers’ desks, it could be that we have not seen much movement since then as they could still be working on the cases that were brought to them right before the audit (but of course, this is pure speculation on my part).

I don’t know how many I-130’s are pending at the NSC at this time (don’t know the total number of all I-130’s, nor the number for Immediate Relative I-130’s [which I assume are processed faster than ones that have to wait years for a priority date to become current]). I know that when I hear the CSC’S numbers, it’s usually in the hundreds of thousands (while fiancée cases might be in the upper hundreds or perhaps low thousands… and is why the bulk of the CSC family product line is assigned to I-130’s rather than I-129f’s). I don’t remember if the “older� NSC reports used to give stats about the number of pending cases for various case types, but I know the “older� TSC reports did.

Again, this is the TSC’s numbers, not the NSC’s; however I offer it only to show the difference in proportion between case types that were pending at one time at the TSC. Of course, this won’t be the exact same proportion as are pending at the NSC (and in fact, unlike the TSC, the NSC has “exclusive� jurisdiction for all I-130’s for petitioner’s who happen to reside Canada), but it does give a rough illustration of the huge difference in the number of cases pending. The last TSC report that I have in my binder that lists the “Number of Cases Pending� was a TSC report as of May 2002. On that report, they listed the following numbers for cases pending:

I-129f’s: 810
I-130 U.S. Citizen/Visa Available: 59,975
I-130 Other (these would be the preference cases): 121,981

These numbers show that back then at the TSC, there were “74 times� the number of I-130 Immediate Relative cases than fiancée cases pending. Again, I only offer these old out of date numbers for the TSC just to show the difference in the sheer number of cases, and I suggest that we would see a similar disparity right now at the NSC.

If you and your husband have the extra $110.00, I’d file the I-129f for the K-3 (It goes to Chicago, which forwards it on to the MSC for final adjudication). Who knows, it might end up being faster than your I-130 (but you never know). I do know that we “will� again see movement for I-130’s (immediate relative cases) at the NSC, but I just don’t know when that will be. I must have missed it, but what is your I-130 “notice date� (you go by the notice date, not the received date when looking at the AILA courtesy reports to determine when a case is overdue).

Good luck.

Regards,
Matthew Udall
Attorney
http://members.aol.com/MDUdall/fiancee.htm

shepslady

Thankyou for your wonderful reply Matthew. It gave us a great insight into how the system actually works. Im not sure what you mean by notice date? Our online status shows the following if thats any help to you..........






Application Type: I130, IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR RELATIVE, FIANCE(E), OR ORPHAN

Current Status:

Your I130 IMMIGRANT PETITION FOR RELATIVE, FIANCE(E), OR ORPHAN was received on July 13, 2002. We mailed you a receipt with information about processing. It is taking between 160 and 190 days for us to process this kind of case. We will mail you a decision as soon as processing is complete.
WE never actually received our first NOA in the mail but they did supply us with a letter stating we could use that as proof of receipt if we wished to pursue other avenues eg. I-129F etc.
As far as the following which shows on the bottom of our online status,

* The projected processing time frame can be found on the notice you most recently received from the INS.
We have never received anything from INS in the mail so I guess we just keep going by the online status & pray that it doesnt keep changing.

We have been seriously considering hiring a lawyer to help us but arent sure if at this stage it would be advantageous to us or not. We respect your opinions & wonder if you think this is something we really should be considering.
We would also like to know from you if during this time of waiting for my visa to be processed am I allowed to travel to the US on a visa waiver to have a holiday with my husband? We feel that if we were able to have some time together it would help us greatly. Of course I would not overstay the limits of the visa waiver & would return to NZ to await the process anyhow. After almost 7 months apart any time we could have together would be incredibly wonderful but we dont want to run the risk of affecting my visa process. Do you know of any reason why I couldnt visit for a holiday during this time??
Thanks for your support.
Happy Holidays!!

Matthew Udall

My pleasure.

Since you apparently have not received your official receipt notice (I wonder why... did your spouse move since filing? Let's hope the approval notice arrives (knocking on my desk for you) my part about using the Notice Date instead of the Received Date would not have made sense to you.

On a receipt notice (which your spouse never received) there are two dates listed. The upper box on a TSC notice says, "Received Date". The lower box says, "Notice Date". The "received date" is the date your materials made it to the sorting section, while the "notice date" is the date the contract worker in Data Entry entered the data into the computer and hit the enter key (which triggers a printer to print your notice which is then automatically stuffed into an envelope by machine... never touched by a human hand... and unfortunately this machine malfunctions every once in a while and two notices or more get stuffed into one envelope [and in that case, at least one unfortunate petitioner never receives his or her notice]). Right after data entry, the case is taken to the file room and placed on the back of the shelf. As cases are pulled from the front of the shelf, your case makes its way to the front of the shelf. Eventually, it is given to an officer for adjudication.

So if one sees two different dates… one for the "received date" and one for the "notice date", than you know it took that many days for it to make it from the sorting section to data entry. I was first told by Dona Coultice (the former director of the CSC) in no uncertain terms that we must use the “notice� date, not the received date when using the AILA reports to determine if the case is overdue. I’ve asked this same question to the top staff at the NSC (I specifically asked Sadie W. at the NSC this question and she said to use the notice date), MSC and TSC, and the answer is always the same… use the notice date, not the received date. Fortunately, there is usually not too many days between the two (often they have the same date), however I do recall a couple of years ago when one of the Centers was really backlogged, seeing around a 30 day gap between the two dates.

I’m not sure if the date they are giving you on the automated systems is the notice date or received date. I’ve not been able to figure that one out yet, as I never see one always being picked over the other (in other words, I’ve seen them list Notice dates and Received Dates). Bottom line though is that odds are there was not too large of a gap between those two dates that you would have seen on your notice (had your spouse ever received it), so just use the date that you have when using the AILA report to determine when/if your case becomes overdue.

Ignore the 160 to 190 day language. It’s meaningless and will just upset you if and when it goes by. No use getting upset over something that has no meaning or accuracy… right? Instead refer to the AILA reports. One of these days you will see a new NSC report, and the I-130 date for spouses of U.S. Citizens will eventually be “after� 07/13/02. When you see that, then take note of the “as of� date (the date the report was created) and than add 30 business days onto that report date (last I heard it was 30 days, but they might have bumped it up to a more realistic amount if they thought it necessary). Once those 30 days go by, then contact the NSC (have your rep do this for you) to make them aware that this case has now become overdue (of course, that is assuming the didn’t change it from 30 days to a higher amount).

And of course, we can’t really know if your case received an IBIS hit (meaning you couldn’t then use the AILA report as that is only for cases that did not get an IBIS hit). But if you know you and your spouse have not been arrested before, then I would have your rep contact them once you determine its overdue (even though there might be someone else out there with the same name and with an arrest record that could cause an IBIS hit in your case). But if you know your spouse “had� been arrested before, than forget using the AILA reports and just know that your case “will� experience a delay (slight to significant).


Wow, that was nice of them. How did you swing this? Did your rep help get this for you (I’ve always said a rep might be helpful if the INS screws up which they do far too often).

Again, forget that. Those dates are imposed on the notices from INS HQ, not the NSC itself.


Even if it “does� change, just ignore it (I'm talking about a change in the projected processing time here). The change won’t be any more accurate than the prior information. Now the online system “is� good for checking to see if it indicates the case is approved, denied or RFE sent. But as far as projected processing times, forget it and instead use the AILA reports as those numbers “do� come from the Service Center (but those reports are not 100% perfect either and might even have a typo or two in them from time to time).

That’s up to you. I suppose an attorney could make them aware of the case becoming overdue “once [or if] that happens�. Having an attorney might also be helpful in that they will send the approval notice to both the attorney “and� your spouse (nice safety net in making sure you get a notice). Who knows what other issues might pop up along the way. However as I don’t participate here to gain business, I would have to refuse representation. Besides, I rarely ever jump into the middle of a do-it-yourselfer’s case, and I “never� will jump into one (I suppose I should never say never… hey Romeo Void :-) where a Congressman has been called in. I have a variety of reasons why I don’t jump into the middle of a diy’ers case, but I’m not going to list them all now.

I’ve seen your name around the group for a while, so I'm surprised at this last question. I’ll keep my answer short and say; yes, of course you could be denied entry at the POE. Nobody is guaranteed entry and the issue will be have you convinced the INS cowboy at the border that you really have non-immigrant intent. What are the odds of being turned away? I don’t know. I’m sure there will be others who will have additional comments to make in the way of answering your last question.

shepslady

Originally posted by shepslady
WE never actually received our first NOA in the mail but they did supply us with a letter stating we could use that as proof of receipt if we wished to pursue other avenues eg. I-129F etc.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Wow, that was nice of them. How did you swing this? Did your rep help get this for you (I’ve always said a rep might be helpful if the INS screws up which they do far too often).

We actually wrote them a very nice letter explaining the situation of never receiving the NOA in the mail & they replied with a letter that said we could use in place of the NOA receipt. Although it didnt get us any further ahead with this it did make us feel like we had acheived something even if it was something as small as this. I guess maybe we struck the right person the day they received our letter!!

Matthew Udall

Well again I say, wow that was very nice of them :-). Yes, they are slow, they make mistakes and the system is far, far from perfect, but to their credit I can say from "my" interactions with INS officers at Service Centers and District Offices, that they are generally nice people doing a thankless job under horrible conditions, and are usually willing to help when asked (especially when approached with a nice attitude). I know there are some bad apples too (believe me, I've met a few of them too) and I've read some of the reports in the group about rude behavior experienced at the hands of INS officers (and I don't doubt those reports for a moment). All I'm saying is that I usually have far more good experiences with them, than bad ones (maybe 99 to 1 ratio... but that's a wild knee-jerk guess too).

I've always been told by the INS on my tours, that they are "unable" to print a second receipt notice. They always spout off some sort of "claims software limitation" reason, however I know that is not entirely true. First, if one files an I-824 and pays the filing fee, they can certainly print out another one! Second, while on my tour of the NSC, I specifically brought this up to my guide. I mentioned what I've always been told about getting another receipt notice, and she said that yes, that is sort of the official word/policy... but then she added that if one were to talk nice to an officer, an officer might be persuaded in getting another one for the attorney (I was asking this from an attorney's perspective because sometimes we don't receive the receipt notices too).

I’m usually much more concerned about getting the approval notice (rather than the receipt notice).

M.U.