foobaz123

Of course, we could be honest and call this what it is. Vote Buying.

This is about STAYING in the US while your hardship applications and petitions are being processed. No more "three months" away from your family. It won't affect people who are in their home country, which is just about every case here. The point is that it makes it easier for someone who screwed up, while doing nothing for those of us who follow the law and spend much longer than "three months" apart. Or to put it another way, it is awesome for those who can just walk across the border and get married. Or those who can have a sudden change of heart at baggage claim on a B2. Yeah, those of us who either choose to do it the right way or have no practical choice but to do it that way are hung out to dry. This could also cause a flood of I-130s being processed, presumably with priority, further screwing those of us doing it the right way. I do notice in the article there's no mention at all of those separated from our spouses for months on end if not years. Just people who skipped the process and will now be rewarded for it. Not that I'm bitter or anything... 169 days...

Do you recall how many miles those domestic flights are running? We're flying from GZ to SH on this trip and I'm wondering if I should have checked on that before booking... Odd, it never occurred to me to use the miles in that way.

Your completely still within the expected timeframe. If it gets to 4 months since sending to USCIS then your having a bit of a delay. But I think a January interview is not realistic; as you have shown in your timeline, March is probably a good bet. Funny, back in October it seemed January was at least a possibility and March was the latest. As things stand now, we're looking at April if not May/June.

Day 168... various information indicates that CSC processed a pathetic 97 petitions per day on average over the last two weeks. I suppose that partly explains their excuses and refusal to move the date from 16June. I'm starting to think our only hope for getting processed before the end of January (Day 183) is an expedite. Who would have thought an expedite would be needed to get them to process a petition already a month out of time?

Without a doubt. I'll be tipping over Gold Status with Delta after this trip over. I'll be losing my silver status with Continental though. Just be glad you're not at CSC... Day 167 of no action out of them.. lots of other are tipping over 180 days and more with nothing.

Since you already know the odds are very slim, I'll skip that bit and just ask what your backup plan is. And wish you good luck if you try this.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record.... Young+Chinese+Single+NoKids+NotRich(Assets)-Magic == Denied TheAbove+VistingBoyfriend+MeetFamily == Double Denied The consulate rarely issues visas in the first place. Asking for one so that a girl friend can meet your parents is nothing more than paying them $150 to tell you no. The sun will rise at midnight first. I tried it thinking I knew better. I was wrong. In our case she had graduated from University recently, but had more classes for certifications lined up post visit here. Her family is there and at that point we had only met once in person. The denial was so fast you'd hardly believe they looked at the evidence. That would be because they didn't. They applied some form of the formula I gave above before she ever showed up to the interview. The purpose of the interview was just to determine exactly which flavor of denial to issue. Nothing more. Some what like Zesty said, I didn't fully take into consideration the impact the denial would have on my then girlfriend, now wife. It wasn't so much a 'face' thing for her as it was just crushing disappointment. Here it is now approaching two years later and we're working on a CR1. Something that is also been extremely slow going. You can try if you like. The stars just might align and you get super lucky. The VO might have had a wonderful day and take pity on you/her. Just have a backup plan already in place for when you're denied. Good God this is depressing... What's wrong with this system when really the only realistic option for a perspective bride to meet ones family prior to the wedding is for them to go to China? Setting aside certain unusual cases where Magic is available.

There's visajourney.com. It's more broadbased than CFL, so the information there isn't specific to China. That said, it also provides a far broader picture of what is, or more accurately isn't, going on. These graphs, though using user reported data, tells a start tale: I-130s I-129Fs You could check the processing times given by USCIS themselves, but at this point that is a complete waste of time as it isn't even close to accurate and is only updated once every few months.

Day 165... A couple of people on VJ finally reported success. They were late June or very early July. Otherwise, CSC is at a continued reported standstill.

There is no evidence that CSC is actually working on Family Based Visas of any kind with semi-rare exceptions. In short, God be with you... Day 165 with no action.. no word.. no movement.. I'm going over there next week. The terrible prison of CSC has me seriously wondering exactly why I'm going to get back on the plane to come back and whether I'm going to....

Also, if you pray, pray that you don't get sent to CSC right now...

It seems all forward motion out of CSC has stopped dead. Has anyone ever had any success getting them to move forward? We're at day 162 and all we can get out of them is excuses and lies.

Of course, they've been singing that 16May - 16June song now for at least 2 months, getting on three months now. I've been convinced for a while that they're barely working on I-130s at all for some reason. It's fairly easy to see when comparing their processing volume for periods prior to mid-June to those for all months after that.

I kinda hate to be the doom and gloom guy, though it does fit the times right now, but isn't what the OP asking for effectively impossible? A visitor visa for someone who is your long term boyfriend so he can be in the States with you? It would be awesome if it happened, but I'd sooner expect the sun to rise at midnight to be honest. Barring some form of magic or extreme luck, it isn't going to happen. Does that mean you shouldn't try? No. You could get exceedingly lucky and the only cost is time and money. Just be prepared for an almost certain denial and have a backup plan. I hate that it is this way. Your largest difficulty is whether or not the VO will actually bother to examine any of your evidence that he'll return or listen to any argument. They often don't and will deny out of hand, seemingly based purely on factors such as age and assets.

I'm in the same boat. My I130 was sent to California Service Center. My NOA1 has a date stamped July 14, 2011. I am still waiting for NOA2. I have gone to their website and check my case status online. It says it is still pending. I will call them and fine out my status next week. It will be about 6 months then. I'd call today to be honest. They haven't approved anyone that wasn't obviously military or probably what would have been DCF in nearly a month. But they're working so hard!!! Lies... damned dirty lies... The unfortunate thing for both of us is that even though there is no movement at all, they'll just hide behind 'standard processing time' and refuse to even look up the case...

I have the feeling that what they are talking about are NON-Immigrant visas like B-2 tourist, business, student visas, the ones with no immigrations intent, which is more in line, with the way the economy has been in the USA, there are actually illegal immigrants moving back home voluntarily because the jobs are not out there, coming to the USA as a non-immigrant visitor and staying probably is not as high of a problem as it use to be. As for visa waiver countries, this has more to do with reciprocity, those countries do not require US Citizens to have visas to visit the other country. A US citizen has to pay $140 or so to get a visa to visit China, so their citizens have to pay for a visa to visit the USA. Immigrant visas like Spouse, and K-1 fiancee will always have the hurdles of having to show that no visa fraud is involved, as well as the other higher inadmissibility standards. Also the day you sat on the 4th floor is immigrant (CR-1, IR-1, IR-5, K-1...) visa time, I don't think they interview for non-immigrant tourist, business, student visas at that time. Actually, isn't that the other way around? Don't they charge us $140 because that's what we do to them? For countries that aren't treated so nicely by us as Europe isn't that pretty common? That said, given the US government is about as likely to add China to the VWP as the sun is to rise in the west tomorrow I can't say I blame China for requiring a visa which is practically a rubber stamp.

Not that I'd be surprised that politicians would use our lives for political chess pieces, but incompetence seems more likely given that VSC doesn't seem to be having any serious issues. Their volume is more or less normal, or at least within trend.

The thing is, see this comment I posted in the another topic. It'd swear that sometime in June CSC sent 90% of their staff home and just said to hell with it all.

Interesting... This brings to mind something I've been wondering for a while. Back in June/July the volume of approved/processed I-130s coming out of CSC cut off as with a knife. Every month before that they were processing around 80 - 90% of applications per month and then BAM, no higher than 30% each month from then until now with the trend continuing. This is with VJ user reported data so it isn't the entire data set, but for the purpose of plotting a relative trend it is still useful. I'd really like to know what happened at CSC in Mid-June. They've also been reporting to callers that they've been working on '16June' now for several months.

On day 151 I contacted my Senators (one blew me off, the other promised to look into it), my Representative (looked into it) and made an INFOPASS appointment. Most of that resulted in "You're within Normal processing times (that they get to define however they wish of course) and there is nothing to be done at the moment." Of course, that is more or less what I expected. The appointment at the local USCIS office did provide some insight but nothing particularly useful. Probably the largest takeaway was that I seemed to know more about the current process than the lady I met with. She was very nice and did check several things for me. However, she was assuring me that it would probably take 'years' based on her father's experience. I didn't bat an eye and just asked her when he did his petition and whether or not he had problems at the interview. It was in 2005 and he did. Suddenly the 'years' thing was in a whole new light. My Representative told me, in short, that CSC told him the same thing about normal processing and he suggested I check back with him/them in a couple of weeks. I actually thought about taking no action at all until mid-January on the grounds that it is just over five months. However, since I could see no advantage to waiting and no disadvantage to proceeding I went ahead and called everyone I could think of. I'm only going to get to go to China twice this year, unless I quit my job. The first trip was already scheduled for January when I thought I had a fair chance at a March interview. Now I'm not so sure that was a good idea and that maybe I should have made it later. We'll see what the next week or so brings. Thanks guys as always

Today is Day 155 with no movement out of CSC and nothing but excuses from anyone I call. I had hoped strongly for a March interview. I'm wondering now though whether there is any realistic chance of that at this point or not. What does the hive mind think?

Day 153... No significant movement at all out of CSC. Nothing but excuses and what almost has to be lies, or at least only a shadow of the truth. Day after tomorrow my Representative is supposed to be looking in to it, so we'll see what good that does. Day after that I have an Infopass appointment at the local USCIS office, though I don't expect anything much to come from it.

Day 150, more or less... Just called USCIS... told me they won't do a damned thing since they're still supposedly working on 16June. Asked the girl how that was even remotely possible and all she could tell me is that's what they're reporting. In short, they refuse to do a service request or anything else.

Given the practically bullet proof nature of the DCF process why would any other option even be considered? If you married soon and tried to renew a B2 while on contract in China I'd be surprised you wouldn't get it as you have the various "magic bits" that help: 1) Already had a B2 2) Generally renewing for future travel vice a specific "going to meet the family or whatever" trip 3) Can easily show you'll both be coming back to China which ought to satisfy the requirements for greater ties Given the alternative would be to try and get married here in the States and do the AOS thing, possibly risking them saying you were misusing a B2 visa, why would any other option be seriously considered?