Elenfair

I'm among the people waiting for an approval from NSC.

I'm frustrated. I'm tired. I'm cranky. I miss my fiancé, every day, and I wish processing would go as fast for us as it does in Vermont.

I listen to others complain, I join in, too! It helps to vent frustration...

But the more I read, the more I think... regardless of how much I'm fed up... I think we're misplacing the blame for the long wait. We need a target, we find the easiest one: the people who handle our petitions.

I wish we wouldn't take it out on Bob, Mary, John, and Ann - or whatever their names are (because they DO have names, too) - who work I-129F petitions at NSC... The people who do the grunt work don't get much say in the process. They get handed their pile of work, they get through it as best they can. If the bosses pull them off their work for a "special assignment", they do what they have to do. Some days, they're less productive than others. Heck, I'm like that too - there are days when I just can't seem to get anything done. There are days when I'm sick, too. There are days when I've had to take my mother to medical appointments and have had to take time off work... They have families. They have emergencies. They have lives, children, and rents or mortgages to pay. Life doesn't treat them better (or worse!) than any of us... but rather, equally. Sometimes it hands them lemons, too.

I guess my point is that these people are... human... too. I don't think they "don't care" about us all. They have families. They have loved ones. They probably really feel for our situation and wish they had more help to get their job done. I know my mom's oncologist really CARED for his patients. It wasn't his fault that he had to tell them "Sorry, but the waiting list for surgery right now is about 4 months. Yeah, that means your cancer could spread, but we can't do anything about it. Every other patient is just as "urgent" a situation as yours..." Doesn't mean he didn't care, and wasn't incredibly SAD about the situation... He wished he'd had more power.

Maybe our officers at NSC wish they had extra support from their bosses so they could do their jobs more efficiently. Maybe they understand what we're going through - and genuinely feel our pain - but can't produce more than they already are...

Can you imagine what kind of pressure *they* feel, since 9/11? Just like us, when something goes wrong, their "bosses" also point the finger at these workers - those who are closest to where the rubber meets the road. If there's someone to blame, the person closest to the lowest rung of the ladder (but with some decision power) gets the blame.

Can you imagine the stress, too, felt by the people who work the phone lines? Sure, sometimes they treat us like dirt - maybe I would, too, if I spent half my day being screamed at by irate callers. No, maybe that's not any of us... but it may well have been the last 15 calls. I know. I worked Tech-Support before. My boss expected us to have no more than 10 seconds of rest between calls. Yes, those calls were monitored.

I don't think that VSC's staff is more efficient than the souls who work the grunt work at NSC. Their responsibilties may be different. Their loads may vary. Their administration is different.

Maybe we should point our accusations and frustrations elsewhere - higher up the chain of command - and instead of requesting our petition (which is no more or less important than ANYONE else's) be treated better, faster than anyone else's, we should be looking at requesting for a betterment of the process for the people who will follow us down this road.

Maybe the battle's not about our petitions. Not the individual petitions, at any rate. Maybe the battle we should fight is for " Bob, Mary, John, and Ann", so they get the resources, support, and extra staffing help THEY need in order to do their jobs better - for us, and all of those who will follow.

Food for thought, I guess.

Elly

meauxna

Thank you for this intellegent, thoughtful, humane rebuttal to the nasty piece of work I just skimmed on this NG.

katesuiter1

You're right. These people are humans too, and God knows, I've had my fair share of lazy or unproductive days. I think everyone knows who's to blame, but the only people we get to talk to are the ones who answer the phone, or the ones we come into contact with at the local offices, so they're the only ones we can really take our frustration out on.

You're right when you say we should blame the ones at the top. If they trained their staff properly so that each and every clerk/officer has the same information, and ALL the offices and SC's had the same requirements and regulations, things would run a lot more smoothly, and everyone would be happy.

I've had so many conflicting answers regarding my various queries to BCIS, I'm dizzy, I read the post here about the SS officer who didn't even know that K1's were allowed to work, much less seen the 2000 memo, (not just BCIS who's clueless), and I've been refused when I went to file my AOS forms because of things I was TOLD I didn't need. GRRRRR!!!!

A well informed system would be so much easier to deal with, and there wouldn't be so much bitterness and resentment. Personally, I dread every new stage in my process, because I'm starting to feel like I should be doing their job for them.
Kate. xxxx

Khadija

Elly,

Very well said! As I've often said in various postings on this NG, there is little sense in blaming the service centers. Their workload and priorities are beyond their control. It is Congress who should be listening to the frustration felt by those of us on this NG and appropriating more money to the BCIS so it can do its job effectively and efficiently.

The key is figuring out a way to get Congress' attention. I fear in the current political climate the benefits of immigration for our country are lost in the din of keeping our shores safe from terrorists or illegals. On top of that, immigration reform is not an issue "with legs" for potential presidential candidates. Until we organize and make ourselves heard with these folks there is precious little chance of those poor folks at the service centers getting any help anytime soon.

Patty

Noorah101

Very well stated, Elly. Thank you :-)

ScottHenshaw

I think that the service centers do a fine job processing our petitions. The people there are kind, curteous and have our vested interest at heart. Never once in the brief 142 days did I ever think that anyone was being lazy or uncaring to my sensative needs. Everytime I called, I was treated with respect and dignity. Just yesterday I was thinking about my previous trip to the planet Zeldar and how I was treated there. Dispite the various medical testing the fact that I was unable to pass a bowel movement for three weeks, I found that the world was an alright place to raise my 50 wild Canadian yaks. Perhaps it had more to do with the the fact that I became hooked on prescrition pain killers during the wait, or possible lost some of my sense of reality during the wait. Thank god it is over

Scott

leebarton

Very well written... and a lot of food for thought

Mvstolar

I am incredibly grateful that we had to wait 237 days for our approval from NSC
for the following reasons:

1. I finally figured out the redial system on my cell phone.
2. Psychics are legitimate - they, according to the NSC phone operators, are
only ones that knew when our petition would be approved.
3.Many intellectual films on immigration were recommended to me by the NSC that
opened my eyes to the screwy hairpin turns and twists of this fascinating
procedure.
4. Made several new friends at NSC who taught me many valuble life lessons -
Michelle ( "you'll just have to be patient, Marian"), Ruth - how to save money
("you're just wasting your money by calling us so frequently") - hee hee, my
cell phone plan includes free long distance, Dave - political procedures
(''since you're in touch with your Congressional immigration liason we're not
allowed to discuss anything about your case with you" slam goes the telephone.
Susie - linguistics ("yes, your 1st notice does state 150-180 days to process.
That's eactly what it means. It does not say we will reach a decision during
that timeframe" f...kyou!!!.........

Ok, don't get me started...............
Hang in there everyone. Have fun and don't let the bedbugs bite.

Marian

ScottHenshaw

All good points, yet thinking of the rectum as a whole, I still have a pretty shitty outlook on the whole process.


Scott

Dekka's Angel

Well, if someone was monitoring the very first call I made to the CSC in January, the person who took my call should have been fired, and would have been if they worked for me. Nasty, insulting, untruthful and rude beyond belief. In response to a very politely asked set of questions, asked by someone who was not going to take the party line (because I'd done some homework in advance to know that the party line was false) as a answer no matter how mad that refusal made the phone person. I was in tears by the end of that phone call. I paid my government $110 to be treated like shit for asking legitimate questions, all of which could have been responded to with "I'm sorry, I don't know" or a "I'll have to pass your call to a supervisor" instead of the lies and snappishness and cutting me off mid-sentence everytime I asked a question (and ultimately, hanging up on me when I was trying to ask when it would be reasonable to call back for information). My expectations as an attorney who has dealt with government bureacracy a lot were already low, but they went into the toilet on that day because this person wasn't even *pretending* to care about my distress from how I was being treated. I have never forgetten it. Nor will I, despite "Officer Velasquez" (a different phone person) later being a ray of sunshine and making me far less upset than I was for months after that call. And yes, I complained -- including to my congressperson when I wrote to advise of the facts and ask for help in figuring out what the situation was at CSC. Still didn't make me feel much better.

There is NEVER any excuse for being an asshole to someone on the phone when the phone person is being paid to give service to when you have not first been treated badly by that caller. I've done customer service too, and if a CS rep talks to a customer the way that some of the phone people at BCIS talk to *polite* petitioners who call, generally they are out of a job in short order and, if fired more than once for that reason, are unemployable in that type of position ever again. Nobody gets a license to take their angst out on me no matter how bad a day they have had. They are welcome to go scream about their legitimate frustrations in a pillow like Nani and Lilo (seen Lilo & Stitch?), or overeat or overdrink or dance or exercise or horizontal mambo their stress away like many other people in this world. But a government employee card does not give them license to be a buttmunch (my 12 year old's current fav phrase). BCIS employs more than enough "Lily Tomlin Phone Ladies" (including men!) than any single organization should, if the reports on the NG are accurate.

The above is my highly professional detached lawyerly opinion on the matter.

This I agree with 150%. The problem is a conflicting mandate to both increase and restrict immigration that has been sorely underfunded for years, and a Congress that bends with no spine to every lobby's demand for changes in the immigration law to accomodate their particular constituency, with no regard for making sure that all these changes (a) make sense in terms of overall goals and objectives (b) make sense in terms of how they relate to other aspects of immigration; (c) are efficient and (d) don't cost a fortune to implement as intended. 9/11 made this worse, not better.

Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be in the marriage-based visa community a critical mass of folks willing to fight the big fight of Washington politics on behalf of anyone but themselves. Look at the TSC situation. As an outsider looking in, the initial protest was intended to get the center moving again after a complete stall. I am not sure that the original VDay protestors had any idea that many of their personal petitions would be adjudicated by BCIS almost instantly as a result. But once that happened, and it became known, future TSC protests quickly devolved in just a matter of weeks into "threatened protests" whose primary objective was getting *individual* cases handled (instead of the original, far more important issue of keeping heat on TSC to keep processing once it restarted, even if it meant that the protesters did not get adjudicated instantaneously). We see where the TSC situation has ended up - BCIS TSC finally ended that game of chicken, as I expected. (*BUT* the good news is that this group is again looking at the larger political agenda, free from the possibility of having their motivation derailed by an approval in any short period of time. I'm absolutely thrilled to see that group's reinvigorated, broader efforts, which seek to effect systemic change that will benefit everyone and now are broader than the TSC.

I look at successful immigration lobbies on behalf of foreign workers and especially illegal immigrants and wonder why Congress does not show the same type of deference, interest and willness to protect, in terms of law, policy and funding, to that constituency seeking to benefit from marriage based visas. I can think of two reasons off the top of my head (who knows if either is right, since I'm not an immigration lawyer or lobbyist). The first is that the economy is not dependent on this group of petitioners or our loved ones -- we simply are too small a percentage of those who file petitions for immigration benefits each year. But the second is that we don't make much noise, nationwide, as a group. And even when we make some noise, we don't appear to keep making that noise to ensure that our petitions are at least an equal priority to all those TPS petitions and 245(i) petitions and asylum petitions and what have you petitions filed by foreign nationals that Congress passes "do them NOW" laws for every so often. It would seem to me, in the only category where the vast majority of applicants are United States Citizens, our congresspersons would be more responsive to our needs if we made clear that we are willing to hold their feet to the fire publicly for ignoring our immigration needs, just as much as other immigration interest groups already do through their lobbies and advocates. Responsiveness from Congress=ideally more money (although with Bush's latest deficit budget and our ongoing expensive international war involvement, who knows if anyone is to get more money for anything for a long time).

All IMO and YMMV of course. Elly, thanks for your eloquent and thoughtful post.

Khadija

The problem with those of us in the middle of the quagmire forming any kind of cohesive protest is that our emotional and physical resources are stretched to the limit! Mounting a campaign is the answer. My idea was that those who maybe have completed, or are near to completing, their BCIS experience could help those of us who just can't take on this battle at the moment.
It's a thought.

NevAnna

Couldn't have said it better myself, Dekka. Believe me, the move I made 4 states away from my friends and dealing with this BCIS BS, has sent me close the the edge, at times. No matter how stressed out I got, I was never rude, insulting, or lied to any of the customer's I dealt with. I'm a Software Technician that deals with customers on a daily basis, and that can be stressful in itself. Just because you work for the government, doesn't make your job more frustrating than another and gives you some type of power to be an asshole. I still have bad feelings towards what I had to go through with NSC, no matter if I brought it on myself by calling to inquire about my case. No one will make me feel guilty about calling. I don't feel sorry for the folks at the Service Centers, either. You don't like your job or your boss, find another. Easy as that.

Elenfair

Hey, I'm not saying the process doesn't stink to high heaven.

On the contrary - it does. I'm equally fed up, and sometimes I take out my frustrations on the people at NSC in my rants and raves about BCIS.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that we can blame the PROCESS. We can blame the way things are being ADMINISTERED. But we shouldn't blame the individuals who handle our petitions - besides, we don't even know who they are, what they do, or how we do it (maybe that's part of the problem)...

For example, I feel that all the talks of how things get approved when an officer "gets laid" are a little... well... inappropriate and uncalled for. And yeah, I sure sometimes feel like saying things like that too! Hell, I'm just as frustrated with the process as everyone else is! Still, these officers are people too. I don't think BCIS hires uncompassionate, evil people for fun.

As for the call-answering people, I know many got treated rudely, and that's uncalled for. It's not *their* fault that they don't have a clue what's going on either - but it *is* their fault for being assholes when we call. I wish there was something constructive we could do to fix that situation... and maybe there is.

I was rereading Mr. Udall's post about overdue petitions and calling service centres - and according to him, we shouldn't even *bother* until petitions are overdue the 180 day count. Basically, we all *know* the people at the call centres don't have any more information than we do with the online service. We can't expect them to know more - they don't! Sure, we'd like them all to go out of their way for us, and check up on our petitions personally. Sure, that'd be super custommer service - but they can't humanly do that - not with the amount of calls they receive (we all know how long it can take before we get to talk to a person when we call!)... and if we all cry "wolf", then what happens to the people who really *do* have an emergency situation on their hands that badly needs looking up right away?

I dunno. I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone.

I think we ALL have legitimate complaints - from K1filer who is still waiting, to MVStolar who saw so many petitions go by while hers was still sitting on a desk, to all those who have been mistreated along the way. It's not humanly *FAIR* to have to wait so long, I agree! Not when other centres are processing so fast! Still, I'm not so sure "personal attacks" about officers is the right way to go, no matter how frustrated we are...

*shrug*

YMMV.

Matthew Udall

Hi Elly,
You are partially correct and partially incorrect. I agree that it is generally a waste of time to call them before the case becomes “overdue� (and I’ll bet most calls come in before the case is overdue and might have something to do with the fact that they are now yanking out all of the phone lines at all of the service centers), however “DON’T� use the 180 day language to decide when a case is overdue.

Instead you go to the AILA reports for the NSC and monitor the date listed for I-129f’s. Once you see that the date listed for I-129f’s is “later� in time than your notice date, then take note of the date that report was published. Then add 30 business days onto the date of publication of that report. “That� is your overdue date and you should contact the NSC at that time if your case has not been approved by that date.

Forget any processing days quoted on your receipt notice or listed on the BCIS (legacy INS) website. Those projected processing times are meaningless and are not to be used to determine when your case is overdue.

Good luck.

M.U.