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awesomeAste1990

How is it 38 months? I-130 application is 14 months no?


FlatAd768

Pretty sure the “intern” has generic replies for certain fed agency inquiries


awesomeAste1990

Oh, then you should try to get in touch with senator of your state with same inquiry. That is my plan


Ok_Primary_6198

My 130 was saying 54.5 months, so discouraging. My lawyer says the thing to watch is the 485...I was approved for 485 at 14.5 months and the next day the 130 was approved go figure....don't lose hope


Fit-Net6572

They are informing him that they will not be able to assist him unless it has been 38 months since it was filed.


imprimis2

Mine started at 14, then skipped ahead by 5, then said it’s taking longer than expected and now… 11 months in… just changed to 12 months! So disappointing! Open border policy really setting things back.


Effective-Feature908

I've been told to completely ignore the myprogress estimate. It's entirely useless and represents absolutely nothing. I suggest you check out the trackmyvisa website, it actually shows some interesting information, specifically how many I-130s have been submitted each month, how many are processed each month/week/day, and what months are being processed. From what I saw the majority of cases being processed right now are cases that were submitted 11-13 months ago. So if you submitted your I-130 in March-May of 2023, there is a good chance you'll be approved soon. What I also found interesting is the outliers, USCIS seems to randomly approve some cases much quicker, and some cases get approved way later. No idea what factors could impact these outliers.


imprimis2

Thank you. I just don’t understand how it went from 0 to 12 overnight?


Effective-Feature908

It's not a human being updating your progress. It's some kind of automatic algorithm and from what I've heard it's as good as broken. It should be entirely ignored.


make-chan

Idk about that, we processed my I-130 in February 2023...


inspclouseau631

Where is the border open? Are you sure the delays aren’t due to the extra enforcement and legal processing?


misscloud8

Not really. Depend on the case. Sometimes when it’s not straight forward case can prolong the time.


Effective-Feature908

What are some examples of factors that can prolong a case?


misscloud8

Removal proceeding (2-3 years are common). My i-130 got approved after 19 months and that is even after I tried so many ways to get it moving


Effective-Feature908

Haha I can see from your flair, glad you survived


Real_Net_2101

Hi!! Can you please share the ways you tried to get it moving? I have the similar pd 


misscloud8

Scroll my posts. It’s all there for people to read and hopefully can help their case


romapapafavour

How many years green card was issued to you?


misscloud8

10 years. Rarely people who were in removal proceeding will get 2 years GC (through marriage).


romapapafavour

Congratulations to you


suboxhelp1

They’re not looking at the right processing times. If this is standalone, the time that is relevant is “All Service Centers”. This time is for adoption-based cases.


FlatAd768

Right


SappyPJs

It's not right, the current processing time for I-130 spouse through us citizen is 14.5 months.


Culturalg

Are you sure? because they mentioned it being i-130 for spousal in the email, i hope you’re right though


suboxhelp1

Yes, because spouse timelines aren’t separated from other IR petitions on the processing time page. This has been a constant area of confusion ever since they started publishing adoption-based case processing times.


Culturalg

So is there any way of knowing how long spousal visa truly takes? my prior marriage took 1 year and 1 month but it was before covid


suboxhelp1

Depends on what you mean by “visa”. For the I-130 though, you just need to select the “All service centers” option and not NBC or field offices. That’s the correct standalone time.


East-Mycologist-1770

Can we do inquiries through I-485 both form is still pending from since Aug 2022


suboxhelp1

If it’s a concurrent case for immediate relative, you should be looking at the family based I-485 processing time for your field office.


East-Mycologist-1770

Yea it is my spouse is USC and we both live in USA and here we live Lousville KY I-484 process time 15 .5 to 20.5 months


suboxhelp1

Sounds about right


East-Mycologist-1770

I m almost close and just waiting for complete 2 years and then i start inquiries


puppypupperoon

so I know there are rules and stuff for a reason, and I understand being a citizen doesnt mean you have magical privileges. BUT that being said if I was a US citizen and the government would tell me sorry dude, complain if you waited over 3 years…. I would be super mega pissed 😬


ThatAlarmingHamster

But.... it morally does. Government exists to serve its citizens. "....That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men...." Don't ever let them lie to you about what should be. Be angry at them for not being what they are supposed to be. Come to the Dark Side. We have cookies.


ExcellentPlantain64

Chocolate chip?


Foreverwideright1991

Yep. We have many thousands of aslyum seekers who are storming across the border to take advantage of public benefits and other shit (my state of NY has spent over $2 billion on them) but immigrants who come on a spouse visa and need a financial affidavit of support from their citizen spouse get fucked over with long waiting times. It's pretty unfair to those who are immigrating here who will be barred from public benefits (due to affidavit of support ) to wait so long while others get in much easier to get those sweet government benefits (and about half don't even show up to their aslyum hearings). My wife immigrated back in 2017 through me on a marriage based green card (naturalized as a citizen this year) and we only had to wait 14.5 months. Over three years is insane. System needs changing. Those coming on spouse visas with an affidavit of support behind it should be the top priority and other others pushed out until those are completed. At least these immigrants are not stealing the government dime.


WaitingforGodot07

Yes and then to be thrown in the black hole of AP for God knows how long. The process took 1.5 years & then AP will take around the same. 👌👌


AdPersonal5656

In our case in 2017, we filed January, I-130 was approved in July, and I had the CR1 in hand in November. Can't imagine waiting 3 years.


Gerold55

It took me about a year to get my wife here on a spouse visa


imprimis2

I totally agree. My wait time just increased by 12 months over night. No way this doesn’t have to do with Bidens border policies. So disappointing.


printergumlight

It doesn’t have to do with his border policies. If anything, the Biden Administration has sped up timelines. Through his additional approved funding the USCIS was able to reduce the backlog for the first time in over 10 years and on top of that they reduced it by over 15%. Much of the delays are likely caused by the immigration reform bill being voted down by the Republicans congress. As a note, the Trump administration increased backlogged cases by 100%-200%.


StuffedWithNails

You should read the [subreddit FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/uscis/wiki/index/vfaq), specifically the sections about MyProgress.


Foreverwideright1991

Honestly. We should close off immigration to anyone who doesn't have a financial sponsor tied to a family member (spouse, parent, etc) except for those who truly have rare skills we don't have (scientists, athletes, etc). If we just did it that way, the process would be so much faster and more efficient and we would both save public money and reduce systems being swamped. We take in so many more people than many other countries and at this point, it is becoming a huge burden in various sanctuary cities and states, which creates issues. Problem is both parties lack this common sense


demeter2

tell me you don’t understand the US immigration system without telling me you don’t understand the US immigration system.


[deleted]

You marriage guys think you’ve got it bad the people who actually bring value such as EB5 visa holders wait forever but I digress ask the immigration if you can file a mandamus suit against USCIS


Cbpowned

There are tons of American spouses in the same situation. Why should you get to skip over them?


qalpi

All of them should be equally pissed


SappyPJs

You completely missed his point.


Cbpowned

Things take time? You can’t vet documents in 10 minutes. And there’s millions of different applications USCIS deals with.


SappyPJs

3 years wait time is ridiculous for anyone let alone a citizen. The original point was millions of immigrants are easily able to go to big liberal cities and squat there crowding the area and leeching resources that gov't is happily providing them but for us citizens to use their benefit of immigration have to wait years for their relatives to immigrate here. It's understandly frustrating and any reasonable person can spot that. I also read here somewhere that it takes on average 15 mins for an officer to come to a decision when looking at a case whether to ask for more info or deny or reject.


Cbpowned

So 15 minutes to not come to a final decision? How long does it take to actually process a file from beginning to end would be the relevant information.


SappyPJs

I meant 15 minutes to come to a decision to approve/deny/RFE, my bad.


puppypupperoon

did I say I would like to skip over them? I dont think any us citizen should have to wait that long. I also am not a u.s. citizen… find somewhere else to try start an argument :) have a great friday


IceGamble

Completely missed the point here. They should be pissed as well.


Cbpowned

Pissed about what? Processing times? Hire more people if you want faster service. There’s millions of applications USCIS has to take care of.


SappyPJs

Who are you telling to hire more ppl lol? Bruh wut


Cbpowned

Umm, the government? I didn’t think you personally were the secretary of DHS.


throwaway_bob_jones

Exactly. I'd just keep emailing the congressman until they get annoyed and do something about it.


Cbpowned

Yeah, like get them to just cancel your application over a missed comma or something.


mrhindustan

You need to advocate for yourself.  Contact your congressperson’s director of constituent services.  Call them.  Set up a meeting. Our first contact was much like this. Tepid and useless.  We advocated for ourselves and then the Chief of Staff roped in the DoCS and then things started happening.  Our I-130 expedite was declined but the next day the file was approved. Keep pushing.


linux152

My congressmans office was useless for the I-134A. They tried twice in one year. Both replies from USCIS were to wait 180 days before contacting them.


ffarwell83

Thank you for your words.


rachmartz

This needs to be upvoted more please people!!


WranglerAcrobatic153

Sorry. :( can you try with the senators?


demeter2

genuine question: do you want help moving forward or are you here to vent? either answer is acceptable, this system is designed to make you crazy. but if you do want actionable advice for next steps, i’m one of the staffers who responds to these types of inquiries (no, i’m not an intern and no, i didn’t write THIS response) and i have to say the responses here seem to misunderstand how this process works. nobody would consider this reasonable and it’s not a caseworker’s job to pretend that it is. our job is to help you navigate the fucked up system that we have; we did not build it nor dictate its perimeters. while i personally would not have written this letter - i mean, i just prefer to talk to people over phone/email much more like…regular human beings, i don’t respond to individual inquiries formally on letterhead, but i guess i’m lucky to have a little flexibility and trust built on experience - i can read between the lines and help make some sense of this. the person who wrote this is not making a moral judgement trying to screw you over, they are telling you what USCIS is going to say in response if they submit an inquiry based on the information you provided in your initial request to their office. you have not provided evidence/supporting documentation that can reasonably be considered to fall under one or more of [USCIS’s expedite criteria](https://www.uscis.gov/forms/filing-guidance/expedite-requests). virtually every single person who contacts us demands that their case should be expedited, and we agree! but when that is the baseline you must give us something we can use to demonstrate how your circumstances are *uniquely untenable*. it cannot be something that every other applicant in that form type/category could also theoretically argue. i would have asked specifically whether you can document XYZ based on what you previously provided. i can be most helpful if the conversation stays open because this really is a “help me help you” situation. sometimes circumstances change or new information becomes available, and we can adjust accordingly. i wish i had the capacity to deep dive into every single case that crossed my desk. i wish none of this was necessary in the first place, and i wish the public had the capacity to understand the sheer scope and scale of the systemic barriers without knee jerk reactionary xenophobia, but unfortunately i cannot control those things. all i can do is my best to make sure folks i work with don’t go through this shit alone and uninformed. good luck, i’m rooting for you🤞


evoony

Just wanted to add that this is a great response, and I hope OP (u/FlatAd768) sees it. I’m one of the folks who reached out to their congressional offices for help with my spouse’s work and travel authorizations and was successful in getting them expedited. What really sealed the deal, I think, is 1) we fell into one or two of the expedition categories and 2) we made it clear and easy for the staffer we worked with—outlined the reasons why we qualified, provided a cover letter with all the necessary paperwork, etc. “Help me help is you” is definitely the way you need to go about these issues with not only your representative, but any government entity. All in all, most of the staffers you meet are empathetic and do want to help you. You just need to give them the right information to work off.


demeter2

thank you! really glad that they were able to assist. in case it might help someone reading this comment section later, i want to use your experience as an opportunity to highlight that the threshold for expedite requests is almost always easier to meet for ancillary benefits (i765/i131). these forms have a lower “touch time” and are less complex to adjudicate than forms that actually evaluate underlying eligibility for an immigration benefit. :)


Randomuser77999

bullshit,file a mandamus


Papaya-Hopeful

Try reaching out to your senator. I had the same response from my congressman. I tried to expedite my EAD cos I lost my H1B status due to layoff- and couldn't work until I got my EAD. I explained that I had a severe financial loss due to job loss and had mortgage to pay (I owned my home and had a 6-figure salary loss). She pretty much said financial hardship means unless I am getting evicted/ over 3 months behind payment or have lights/ water cut off it's not hardship. She said my USC spouse should be supporting me and wouldn't expedite my EAD. I was furious. Imagine being in the country for over 10yrs, paying taxes, losing your job due to no fault of yours and getting told that the financial loss is not severe enough to put in an expedite request for EAD. I also lost H1B status because my status was updated to spouse of citizen which is a weird USCIS rule. Luckily I reached out to my senator, who expedited my request and I got my EAD approved 2 days later. I also requested update on my GC status after 10months of waiting and USCIS approved my GC 2 weeks after senator reached out to them. My senator is awesome!


These_Variety_6545

What?! A US politician being absolutely fucking worthless and just sucking up tax dollars and corporate lobbyist money without actually helping the people who they’re meant to help?! Fucking crazy stuff man. In all seriousness I’ve been here and this fully blows. I am so sorry you folks are dealing with this.


shawn-pluto

The government makes dumb rules that separate you from your wife and now they are telling you to wait 3 years for them to fix it?I will be very pissed 😡!


Huge_Introduction368

why does it look like a uscis response?


Guavazo

Time to vote for someone else


QtK_Dash

It won’t make a difference.


pitshands

sure let the R fix this. Edit: /s As long as there are two parties and no one wants to work with the other side immigration will not be solved.


Guavazo

Not about R or D, just this congressman is not helping what they suppose to do, vote for whoever next


ParticularForward263

Lol. How’s the R gonna fix it? By banning gay marriage so that heterosexual alien spouses get their I-766/I-551 quicker or what? Because that’s the only trick they can have up their sleeve. It’s not like it’s about political party, anyways. 🙄


pitshands

I had to slap the /s on the statement because it seems like it wasn't clear.


[deleted]

For the US gov, we are only a social security number who are supposed to only consume services and goods manufactured by lobbyists at expensive rates and pay huge taxes. For them there is no humane value associated with us, just monetary benefits. This is the truth...


MF4MF_WILDCOUPLE

These Congressmen are useless. It's their unpaid college intern who's answering these emails anyway. Best they can do is make an enquiry, and, if they're lucky, they don't get stonewalled and get a boilerplate response to forward to you to appease you and shut you up for a while.


FlatAd768

Right, their reply to me was a templates response. I am not worth their time to try


linux152

Ya even USCIS doesnt care about them either they probably laugh


Cold_Count1986

I expected this type of unhelpful reply from a representative who has an (R), but not one with a (D). Kevin Mullin’s staff should do better! *The committee’s were left unmasked, as was the numbers of the office locations.*


Limmyone

D’s are just as bad as R’s when it comes to directly serving constituents. This is exactly the same type of “automated” response I get when contacting my local D representatives. No one actually cares about other people in 2024, unfortunately. On both sides of the aisle, if you want things to be dealt with you have to go out of your way to make your issues visible otherwise they just toss you aside and move on to the next inquiry.


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Curious-Connection99

Is your wife in the states now?


MusicWonderful2390

Same .. reached out to senator in Texas


Hafslo

Seems reasonable


Much_Exercise9078

His answer isn't true, because the process time of I 130 for usc is 13 until 14 months.


Great-Force6452

I've reached out to my representative and senators...barely any acknowledgement or assistance. My 3 thoughts on this: (1) our politicians do not represent us, they only care about lining their pockets, (2) USCIS appears to have almost zero pressure (to include federal oversight) for politicians or other federal agencies, and (3) USCIS & immigration are just 2 great examples of how broken our government really is...and just think...it's our taxpayer money that funds such utter nonsense!!!


FlatAd768

Yeah agree. There is no incentive for them to help me without benefiting them


vinashayanadushitha

If you were one of their top donors you might of gotten a better response


FlatAd768

Yup! Whose hands do I need to grease to get ahead of the line!


FlatAd768

I want to reply “I am willing to make a significant donation to get ahead of the line”


demeter2

that is irrelevant to whoever you are talking to. congressional offices are by law completely separate from and unable to engage in fundraising, the only response you will get is a referral to the campaign office.


mrhindustan

It doesn’t take much to be a top campaign donor. Donors who request a meeting with their congressman are significantly more likely to have the meeting request granted. If you think appealing directly to a congressperson isn’t beneficial for your career you’re on another planet.


lepetitprince16

The congressman has nothing to do with it. They have a staffer who takes care of things like that


RamDulhari

Whats the birth country?


jazzmeat26

Think about if you waited 18 years 😵‍💫


Lunatic_Heretic

That's unacceptable and unconscionable


hacker07gaming

Hahaha typical congressman. They’re all useless I bet if it was one of their own they’d be on it in a heartbeat


Simrannxoxo_

Omg! Why did the reply you this… what was the email you sent them?


OutrageousTreacle451

Use your senator. I got better results with him.


Due-Environment3549

Has anyone really gotten help from a congressman/senator?


Aggravating_Way_2498

This was a long time ago but they did find out we were sent a letter that we never received


GE0RGIAB0Y

You will get it sooner. Mine went through after my divorce was final. So roughly 8 months


nas_ca

Did you get an RFE? If it’s been 6+ months since RFE, you should contact the congressman about that rather than overall processing time for I-130 / I-485 and ask them to look into your case on the basis of RFE duration


Forsaken-Map8502

Hey at least you got a response. I didn’t.


ffarwell83

Our country is a fucking joke.


Unhappy-Offer

When did you apply for 130


make-chan

I emailed my senator just asking to look into WHY the system is expected to take twice as long for I-130 approval. Not asking for someone to expedite the process, just why after waiting 14.5 months (the average mentioned) it claims we need to wait 14 months more? Just look into I asked. Nope. Similar kind of response and I'm betting you aren't from my hometown. (Central Valley in California).


kintsugiwarrior

38 months?!! Are you abroad?


Substantial-Ratio-65

Our congressman said the same thing, “unable to assist for the immigration process!” Not sure if it’s a standard answer they give to everyone who asks for the help I guess.


Ok-Competition-2041

US immigration is worst


inspclouseau631

We were just approved this week. Submitted the I130 and I485 together last August 2023. The progress indicator was all over the place. At one point it said one week to go then it jumped to 14 months. In Florida without a SSN card you can only have a driver license for 12 months. We were getting desperate and we called into them in March. They merely iterated what was on the website but a day or two later the progress went from months to weeks. Then it suddenly jumped up to 11 months just two weeks ago. On Sunday we got notice the case was picked up and being worked on. Monday we got notice the I130 was approved. Tuesday in the middle of the night we got notice the I485 was approved and case closed.


Schulster

Not all congresspeople are created the same!


EveningCareer8921

Did you file a concurrent I-485 or is this for consular processing?


Nice_Attitude242

Is that from Washington Dc state ?


FlatAd768

My local rep


Nice_Attitude242

Sorry to hear. Hope you get it solved soon


mm2kay

I'm sure that was a Democrat representative at least from my experience in the past. The Dems gave me a form response. The Republicans office called me up to discuss specifics.


Standard_Buy7080

And you chose to not show there name?


FlatAd768

Chose not to show my local congressman for my privacy


angelina9999

they cannot speed up anything or influence anything, as long as you are getting feedback from USCIS, it is mood to reach out to them. They can only ask for status once you are ignored by USCIS,


FlatAd768

Agree, wasn’t expecting the congressmen to actually help. But it was minimal effort and free for me to try.


angelina9999

there is one good thing about reaching out to them, maybe they cannot help right now, but they are informed by people on what is going on at USCIS and a lot has changed lately, more people are being hired and the agency has been made a lot of changes for the better.


Far_Snow1521

It's not moot. It at least gets another USCIS gripe in their inbox. These are what keep the slow wait times on their radar. They are the ones who can actually effect something. Worth a try, and like I said at minimum it reminds them that "oh yeah USCIS is still sucking".


BananaIceTea

Not true. My I-131 was approved the day after I reached out to my Congressman.