tmushen

This really is crazy. I believe that we are going to be waiting another 60 to 90 days from the time the RFE was issued. Absolute BS. These people should all be fired because they have the clue how painful this is. National Security my ass because if it was National Security that was so important they would hire more people. It's all about money or lack of.

Hebapotamus42

I'm so sorry Tmushen that you're still waiting on MSC. The congressman's office still hasn't received a response from them? I know you must feel like you've reached your boiling point and the kettle is about to explode. Keep venting as much as you want. I think that's the only thing that helped me maintain my sanity while I was waiting.

tmushen

My father just got sick yesterday as well. He is 79 years old and his blood pressure was very high and a vessel broke in his nose. I just found this out so besides the Visa problem I am really upset now. Thanks for listening.

utopiacowboy

I know exactly how you feel. You're right - it is all about money and priorities. We need to get our families and friends and anyone we know to exert pressure on Congress to do something about this situation. They are always worried about all the illegals in the country but what about us - who are trying to do things legally? BTW, great photo! I can see why you are feeling frustrated. Buena suerte!

goldrush

tmushen,

I am so sorry about this situation. Please hang in there. Are you going to see your fiance over the Christmas break? I think it will ease the frustration to an extent.

I wish a speedy recovery for your father. Best wishes to him.

tmushen

I have an open ticket to go but with the advisory not to go to Turkey I am holding out hoping that she gets approved soon. If I go it will be my 3rd trip in the last 6 months and I am not that happy to fly.

Noorah101

Hi T,

I'm sorry things are taking soooo long for you. I know how you feel....I've been away from my fiance for 10 months now, and on top of dealing with immigration, I also have elderly parents (mom went to the hospital just yesterday), and I had a car accident on Saturday which now I have to deal with. ***sigh***

I love your picture! Thanks for sharing...hope things happen for you fast!

Best Wishes,
Rene

SidAngelika

I have been reading mainly on this message board, since it seems to be the most frequented on the net. And we have received valuable answers to some of our infrequent posts.
We seem to be in a similar boat according to our timelines.
NOA1 31st July, RFE documents received by MSC on NOV 17th, (the request for the RFE had never been online, but we and our assisting Legal Service got a request via letter and we mailed off the evidence the very same day). Now the 30 day waiting time frame for the RFE to be processed is up....

I realize a certain discouragement in my expectations to finally see that NOA2 online. I see people getting approved in much shorter time and I am happy for them. At the same time I keep asking myself why it can't happen for us?
The whole process gets nagging.
Friends and family cannot understand why we don't have those visas in hands already (k3/k4). Most of all I start feeling like a freak...like something is wrong. And I don't like that feeling.
On the other hand I hate to be negative and always try to follow the "positive thinking" route. But it gets harder with each day passing.
Your recent posts expressed a whole lot of how I feel today.
Vent if you must.....guess it's all thats left to do for us at the moment.

whistlestop01

I definitely know how you feel. You can see from our timeline of how long it took us to get our I-129F approved. Some people took just 2 months from the same Service Center. It's just random that it takes a shorter time than others. Hang in there!!

glasgowm

Yes, it sucks. I also think that it's about deliberately making the process longer. They don't want it to be too quick or more people will come into the country.

It's also a total joke that the point of the K3 visa was to shorten the time that a married couple must be apart. Well, we're at 8 months since our wedding and there is no end in sight. I guess they figure 12 to 18 months is shorter than 3 or 4 years.

tmushen

Well we are at 36 days after the RFE was issued. At this rate we should have just filed a new petition because the process is a joke as it seems RFE's just get lost in the pile.

Today I got to talk to an Immigration Officer because after you do 3 case status it flashes on the screen to transfer me to an Immigration officer. Guess what the immigration officer could tell me nothing. I asked her do you think it's right that we are waiting almost the time frame as we filed 2 seperate I129F's. The first wait was 94 days for these people to issue a RFE. Now we are waiting waiting 36 days since the RFE has been issued. Thus the real time frame is another 24 to 54 days because it looks to me that the process starts all over for another 60 to 90 days. I am holding back right now but this is absolute BS.

I am truly amazed this is what our tax dollars are wasted on. It's funny the 5 or 10 times I have actually spoke to Immigration Officers every single time I had a problem understanding them and to think these are the people doing our applications.

Matthew Udall

Are you suggesting they should just shut down immigration all together (meaning no more loved ones can immigrate) and not spend any more money on it since they obviously have not completed your case as quickly as you want?

You pay your taxes because that is the law. Congress then takes your and my tax dollars, and spends them on various things. Sometimes Congress could actually spend more on a certain area, like immigration, but don't (how much to spend on immigration is a political issue).

tmushen

Okay let me rephrase my statement: Our tax dollars are wasted on either bad workers or bad management. Yes I understand there is something called workload but when I see that people 50 days ahead of me are getting approved I call that bad management. Instead of answering the RFE I should have just refiled. Yes obviously I know that's not the true answer but just that me and others have such a thought that means soemthing is not being managed correctly.

I understand an RFE stops the so called process but that doesn't mean that once we answer the RFE that we have to wait like it's a new petition.

Additionally most cases are being approved either right around 90 days or a little after thus a good maanger would say instead of posting 60 to 90 days let's try not to piss everyone off and let's change the the time frame every now and then to more truly reflect what is actually going on. So if it's really 90 to 120 days then post that. It's called managing the workload, managing the people working and managing the petitioners. Like I said if I was within the time frame I would have no problems but when I see that I am waiting like I filed a new petition I would hope you agree that's not right.

I could even understand if maybe there was something wrong with my case and I had to wait longer well so be it but every single person that I know about with an RFE around the time I received it hasn't been approved either. Thus this is not a problem of money it's a problem in managing the cases. Thus my statement about our tax dollars being wasted because you know when you go the post office and you wait in line for an hour and when you get to the front the clerk says you forgot to fill this form out which is right over there. What does the clerk say to you well once your done get back and wait another hour no he/she says just get the form fill it out and come back to me and I will take care of it. That's called managing the situation.

glasgowm

Not to add fuel to the fire, but back in June and July, cases were being approved in 35 to 45 days. Check some of the old time lines. There was a huge slowdown in August and September, then they picked up the pace again in October, but the backlog of apps is 90+ days now. If we had gotten our NOA1 around 7/14 instead of 8/4, we would most likely have had our Visa in October, now it looks like we'll be lucky to have it by March.

It sucks, but you just have to deal with it. There is absolutely nothing we can do to affect this process.

Matthew Udall

By the way, nice photo.

I see it all the time. People who have never visited a service center, have absolutely no idea about the size and scope of their operation, don’t know about the procedures and processes they have in place to try to do this important work on a grand scale, don’t appreciate the fact that no two cases are indeed the same, have no idea what sort of prioritizing must be made when doing this work, might not be aware of a new deadline or other restraint just placed on them by congress, jump to an incorrect conclusion that just because someone else’s case (or a few someone else’s cases) took a certain amount of time that theirs must also be approved as per some sort of schedule… these folks “always� blame the USCIS workers or management when cases are not approved as quickly as they want.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe you have every reason to wish you were together with your loved one right now, and yes, it is true that they can and do make mistakes from time to time, however the speed in which your particular case is being worked on is far more likely due to workload than due to mismanagement (but if it makes you feel better to have this scapegoat, go ahead).

Who said you have to wait like it’s a new petition? Most of the time cases are approved pretty swiftly once the RFE materials arrive, but who knows what is going on at your particular service center right now that is obviously slowing (and according to you a few other people’s cases) the final approval of your case.

I think they worry more about trying to stay as current as they can on the dozens of case types they process, and probably a little less about whether or not they are pissing a particular person off (since I think they will get complaints no matter what they do). The ironic thing is that people are complaining about, and complaining to the wrong people. If you want immigration cases to be processed faster the culprit is Congress. I would hate to be a manager at a Service Center taking heat from the very people (Congress) who created the problem in the first place!

I will agree with you that managing a client’s expectations is important, however they are not perfect nor will they ever be perfect. The Service Centers themselves don’t have the authority to change the projected processing times listed on a receipt notice (USCIS HQ tells them what to list). Plus, processing times will always speed up and slow down for a wide variety of factors, some of which are completely outside the control of the USCIS. Unless people get instant adjudication of their petitions (and Congress could spend enough to hire a separate Immigration Officer for each and every case, but that is not going to happen), there is always going to be someone complaining about processing times (and people are going to continue wasting the Service Center’s time [and sometimes their political reps time] by contacting the service center to complain even when their case is not overdue yet!).

Hey, at least “they� are now posting their service center reports on “their� site. I’ve been advocating for a long time that they do this so it would not have to come from AILA and as it would give more realistic expectations than a wild guess made at the outset and printed on a receipt notice. That is progress, a good management decision that will help give the public more realistic expectations.

How do you know there is not something wrong with your particular case? How do you know what constraints and priorities the managers must take into consideration (or ordered by Congress to take into consideration) right now? If there are others waiting for the RFE/approvals, and if your attorney’s letters have not fixed the problem, then it sure sounds to me like they may have had to do some sort of prioritizing that did not work in your favor.

I doubt you go to work and work for free without pay, and your decision not to work for free has nothing to do with the managers at your job. Congress has underfunded the USCIS, and they have more work waiting to be done than man-hours budgeted to do it all immediately. I don’t think the managers at the Service Centers can get their employees to work for free any more than your manager can get you to work for free.

That is pretty much what I’ve always been told about RFE’s when I’ve asked about the procedures while touring the Service Centers. They don’t go back to the bottom of the pile, and instead the contract worker goes to the special shelf where they shelve the cases waiting for RFE replies, they find and pull the file and take it back to the (or an) immigration officer for further processing.

I was at the post office today around 4 PM. Even though when I first arrived there was hardly anybody there (there were only two people in front of me in the line), the people who already were with the clerks must have had weird transactions as it still took almost 20 freaking minutes to make it to a clerk! They should hire more of them so I “never� have to wait in line longer than 1 minute (and even that would be 1 minute too long :-). But alas, they are serving the public, not just me as an individual (and by the time I was finished with my two-minute transaction, the line of people waiting stretched out the door).

Plus I come prepared with things packaged up and stamped, and usually they only have to scan the priority mail bar code for me; and I hate it when I see “IDIOTS� in line who treat the postal employees like they were their own private Mailboxes Etc. employee who will wrap up their shipment for them, add extra tape on the box for them… that sort of thing. If people came prepared (and in the immigration context, if more people put together well documented submissions) I believe transactions would move through both agencies (Post office and USCIS) more quickly.