Massive problems with K1 Visa's at CSC due to DACA
Posted: March 28th, 2013, 10:34 pm
Hi guys, I'm writing tonight to bear some very troubling news and share with you a reality that is affecting me very deeply every day. This is also an enormous domestic issue that could adversely impact current and future Happier Abroad members who wish/need to bring a fiancee to the US and get married here. Winston and mods, I am reaching out and I ask you to make this topic a sticky here until the situation I'm describing is addressed. Unfortunately, it may be awhile.
This is a long read, but for the folks on here who feel that the nation is driven into the ground by the NWO and Obama's socialism ... it will be well worth your while to read this. The further you go, the more Orwellian it gets.
Let me step back for a moment and explain the situation. I'm Mike and I met my fiancee Shai online last year. We vacationed in her native Philippines last Setpember and I asked her be my wife on September 5th. I left the Philippines on September 15th and that is the last time we have seen each other in person. We chat daily using a mobile phone app and both miss one another very much. You can read more about my engagement HERE [viewtopic.php?t=15769] if you like.
We applied for a K1 fiancee visa and I sent the paperwork to USCIS in late October. The USCIS's California Service Center(CSC) acknowledged receipt of the paperwork on November 5th and cashed my fee check of $340 very soon after. The process works like this ... once the CSC receives your paperwork (this step is called NOA1), you will then wait for their next notice(NOA2) that your application has been approved and can move on to the National Visa Center - and then proceed to the US embassy in the country where your fiancee lives. The USCIS National Goal for citizens to get from the NOA1 to NOA2 process (which involves only a brief check of my paperwork and background before moving my case to the National Visa Center), is - astoundingly - 5 months. It had been a tough pill to swallow that the USCIS's ground rules are to cash your check, and sit on your paperwork for 3-5 months before letting the immigration process resume. Nonetheless, like other Americans with foreign brides having no other choice, I have been patient and followed the red tape procedure as it was laid out.
There is a free immigration community site, named Visajourney.com, for all the folks who have filed some manner of paperwork with the USCIS. The site allows its community members to post the timeline of your immigration paperwork. It is a website to discuss various immigration issues and a tool to analyze how rapidly requests are currently being processed by the USCIS.
As 2013 has continued, I have begun using the site more frequently and reading the forums more often. Me and many other Visajourney.com members, who have also applied for a K1 Visa, have noticed and are affected by a very disturbing trend at the CSC. The processing of K1 Visa's at the CSC has slowed down. Not just a seasonal bureacratic slowdown, but a systemic slowdown, generating an unprecedented K1 Visa backlog.
On Visajourney.com, there had been speculation that the slowdown was due to the DACA processing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_A ... d_Arrivals), which is being done exclusively at the CSC. I myself was not quick to jump to conclusions and let my anxiety get the best of me. But over time, it has become clearly evident that there has been an insidious plan at the CSC to maximize the output of the DACA work, solely at the expense of K1 Visa sponsors and beneficiaries like myself and my fiancee.
For those unfamiliar with DACA, here is a quicky summary - in June 2012, after failing to push the Dream Act into law, an abridged version of the law (sometimes referred to as Dream Act Lite) was put into place by the Obama administration. The purpose of this law is to allow the children of illegal immigrants, now around ages 18-30, the ability to apply for a 2-year work permit and essentially have amnesty from deportation during this timeframe. I'll discuss DACA later and disclose more of its true nature toward the end of this writing.
So back to the K1 Visa delay being caused by DACA. Two events have turned my speculation about DACA being the culprit of the slowdown into a certainty for me ... (1) On March 12, the USCIS via their website stated that "some" of the DACA workload is going to be transferred from the CSC to the Texas Service Center (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ ... 2ca60aRCRD). This was significant, as it is a telling sign there is a problem at the CSC regarding the DACA's. They likely felt they had to release some bare minimum information but they did not want to discuss it any further. (2) One of my peers on Visajournery.com, who filed his K1 visa paperwork with CSC in September and has been waiting for his bride just like me, took the time to aggregrate the opaque data published by the USCIS themselves in their PDFs and has shown, statistically, that the rate of K1 Visas processed substantially dropped since the start of DACA processing at CSC (http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic ... -the-data/). What his numbers bear out is that the K1 Visa processing has been 3-5 times as slow as normal since the inception of DACA at the CSC.
This evidence shows that the CSC made a managerial and concious changes to give the DACA work immense throughput and make the K1 Visas a very low priority. There have been confirmed reports of DACA applications being processed in 2 or 3 weeks, and, in contrast, they are still slowly churning through the backlog of K1 Visas from middle of July NOA1. That means that those people from the middle/late July that are finally getting their NOA2 have had to wait 8+ months for a 5-month process. In stark contrast, the Vermont Service Center (which serves K1 Visas for residents on the US eastern seaboard and under normal conditions is a little slower than the CSC) is already working on early-mid October K1 Visas and is pretty much on their 5-month course.
With the size of the CSC's K1 visa backlog increasing due to the ridiculously slow processing, my father and I estimate that if processing continues at this same rate indefinitely, I will get my NOA2 around April 2014. That will have meant I waited 17 months for a 5-month process - one which arguably shouldn't even be a 5-month process to begin with. And any people filing after me at the CSC would have to wait proportionally longer.
Now we have to ask ourselves - "Why would the CSC put the petitions of illegal immigrants so far ahead of those of fiancees of US Citizens?" There are some disturbing reasons ...
- The state of California is digging for a little extra tax revenue. More than 25% of the illegals eligible for DACA reside in California. Turning around work visas and keeping these illegals in the state increases the state tax revenue. But IMO this is not a major consideration, because most of the DACA applicants are low or minimum wage earners and some are working part time and going to college. Given the amount of high rollers in California and the amount of taxes collected from them in the state through various taxes, my dad and I question that the DACA applicants tax revenue really amounts to much at the end of the day - despite articles I've read from pro-DACA Cali politicians bragging about how much the tax revenue will help the state. So in reality, it's an economic band-aid at best, with short-lived help because these DACA workers' permits will expire in 2 years.
- Voting and Politics. The Obama administration was very persistent on pushing DACA through to appeal to younger minority voters for the re-election campaign last year, and it did help him. Sadly, this is what the President means by "Immigration Reform" ... taking actions to get illegals to the voting booths and vote Democratic. It is attempting to set the stage to win the common vote for Democratic elections to come in the future, and keeping out the GOP and other candidates. The Democrats are playing a numbers game with the Latino population in the US, and particularly California.
- Public Relations and the Master Plan. The State of California and the Obama administration have engaged in backroom politics and made DACA a reality so they can present the facade that "Immigration Reform" is underway. But the "Immigration Reform" is doing nothing at all to streamline the flawed USCIS processes, such as the excruciating 5-month NOA1-NOA2 wait. The "Immigration Reform" the federal administration is promoting is the tactic of getting more illegals in the country esp. California to purport their own political agendas of controlling the polls and getting more people into the welfare system. This, in my opinion, is Obama's coupe to kickoff the serf-centric socialist state feared by many.
- Promoting feminism and the NWO. The USCIS or the ones calling their shots realize that every foreign bride coming into the US is a slap in the face to feminism and the eventual subjugation of the male population. I suppose we can't be certain, but let's just remember that USCIS's boss is Dept of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Napolitano). Now, there's a feminist if we ever saw one. I shudder to think what her idea of Homeland Security really is. The NWO wants a larger US serf population - legal or illegal - because it's a building block to get them to the point they want to be at ... which basically looks like the social structure of provinces and ruling class you saw in the Hunger Games movie. The NWO is trying to phase out the middle class by using sheer numbers of lower class citizens, particularly Latinos. They are dangling a carrot on a rope for the illegals to get their votes and then they've got them hooked - and soon they'll wish they had stayed in Mexico.
It disgusts me every day that my rights to an immigration system my German ancestors used to come here in the 19th century are being trampled over so the Dems and California can pander to illegals and put on a public relations front. Soon I will be writing my senators and congresswoman to try to advance my fiancee visa and I am also laying out a plan to contact Governors who opposed DACA, newspapers, publications and radio shows ... anyone who will hear the plight that the USCIS fiancee K1 Visa program is being severely crippled at the expense of DACA - and is willing to spread the message. I ask you all to do the same ... if someone mentions "Immigration Reform", tell them about the real crap that is going on and inform those citizens who are going to stay and rail against the increasing corruption in the American government and its agencies.
Thanks for reading and feel free to post your feedback and thoughts.
This is a long read, but for the folks on here who feel that the nation is driven into the ground by the NWO and Obama's socialism ... it will be well worth your while to read this. The further you go, the more Orwellian it gets.
Let me step back for a moment and explain the situation. I'm Mike and I met my fiancee Shai online last year. We vacationed in her native Philippines last Setpember and I asked her be my wife on September 5th. I left the Philippines on September 15th and that is the last time we have seen each other in person. We chat daily using a mobile phone app and both miss one another very much. You can read more about my engagement HERE [viewtopic.php?t=15769] if you like.
We applied for a K1 fiancee visa and I sent the paperwork to USCIS in late October. The USCIS's California Service Center(CSC) acknowledged receipt of the paperwork on November 5th and cashed my fee check of $340 very soon after. The process works like this ... once the CSC receives your paperwork (this step is called NOA1), you will then wait for their next notice(NOA2) that your application has been approved and can move on to the National Visa Center - and then proceed to the US embassy in the country where your fiancee lives. The USCIS National Goal for citizens to get from the NOA1 to NOA2 process (which involves only a brief check of my paperwork and background before moving my case to the National Visa Center), is - astoundingly - 5 months. It had been a tough pill to swallow that the USCIS's ground rules are to cash your check, and sit on your paperwork for 3-5 months before letting the immigration process resume. Nonetheless, like other Americans with foreign brides having no other choice, I have been patient and followed the red tape procedure as it was laid out.
There is a free immigration community site, named Visajourney.com, for all the folks who have filed some manner of paperwork with the USCIS. The site allows its community members to post the timeline of your immigration paperwork. It is a website to discuss various immigration issues and a tool to analyze how rapidly requests are currently being processed by the USCIS.
As 2013 has continued, I have begun using the site more frequently and reading the forums more often. Me and many other Visajourney.com members, who have also applied for a K1 Visa, have noticed and are affected by a very disturbing trend at the CSC. The processing of K1 Visa's at the CSC has slowed down. Not just a seasonal bureacratic slowdown, but a systemic slowdown, generating an unprecedented K1 Visa backlog.
On Visajourney.com, there had been speculation that the slowdown was due to the DACA processing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deferred_A ... d_Arrivals), which is being done exclusively at the CSC. I myself was not quick to jump to conclusions and let my anxiety get the best of me. But over time, it has become clearly evident that there has been an insidious plan at the CSC to maximize the output of the DACA work, solely at the expense of K1 Visa sponsors and beneficiaries like myself and my fiancee.
For those unfamiliar with DACA, here is a quicky summary - in June 2012, after failing to push the Dream Act into law, an abridged version of the law (sometimes referred to as Dream Act Lite) was put into place by the Obama administration. The purpose of this law is to allow the children of illegal immigrants, now around ages 18-30, the ability to apply for a 2-year work permit and essentially have amnesty from deportation during this timeframe. I'll discuss DACA later and disclose more of its true nature toward the end of this writing.
So back to the K1 Visa delay being caused by DACA. Two events have turned my speculation about DACA being the culprit of the slowdown into a certainty for me ... (1) On March 12, the USCIS via their website stated that "some" of the DACA workload is going to be transferred from the CSC to the Texas Service Center (http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/ ... 2ca60aRCRD). This was significant, as it is a telling sign there is a problem at the CSC regarding the DACA's. They likely felt they had to release some bare minimum information but they did not want to discuss it any further. (2) One of my peers on Visajournery.com, who filed his K1 visa paperwork with CSC in September and has been waiting for his bride just like me, took the time to aggregrate the opaque data published by the USCIS themselves in their PDFs and has shown, statistically, that the rate of K1 Visas processed substantially dropped since the start of DACA processing at CSC (http://www.visajourney.com/forums/topic ... -the-data/). What his numbers bear out is that the K1 Visa processing has been 3-5 times as slow as normal since the inception of DACA at the CSC.
This evidence shows that the CSC made a managerial and concious changes to give the DACA work immense throughput and make the K1 Visas a very low priority. There have been confirmed reports of DACA applications being processed in 2 or 3 weeks, and, in contrast, they are still slowly churning through the backlog of K1 Visas from middle of July NOA1. That means that those people from the middle/late July that are finally getting their NOA2 have had to wait 8+ months for a 5-month process. In stark contrast, the Vermont Service Center (which serves K1 Visas for residents on the US eastern seaboard and under normal conditions is a little slower than the CSC) is already working on early-mid October K1 Visas and is pretty much on their 5-month course.
With the size of the CSC's K1 visa backlog increasing due to the ridiculously slow processing, my father and I estimate that if processing continues at this same rate indefinitely, I will get my NOA2 around April 2014. That will have meant I waited 17 months for a 5-month process - one which arguably shouldn't even be a 5-month process to begin with. And any people filing after me at the CSC would have to wait proportionally longer.
Now we have to ask ourselves - "Why would the CSC put the petitions of illegal immigrants so far ahead of those of fiancees of US Citizens?" There are some disturbing reasons ...
- The state of California is digging for a little extra tax revenue. More than 25% of the illegals eligible for DACA reside in California. Turning around work visas and keeping these illegals in the state increases the state tax revenue. But IMO this is not a major consideration, because most of the DACA applicants are low or minimum wage earners and some are working part time and going to college. Given the amount of high rollers in California and the amount of taxes collected from them in the state through various taxes, my dad and I question that the DACA applicants tax revenue really amounts to much at the end of the day - despite articles I've read from pro-DACA Cali politicians bragging about how much the tax revenue will help the state. So in reality, it's an economic band-aid at best, with short-lived help because these DACA workers' permits will expire in 2 years.
- Voting and Politics. The Obama administration was very persistent on pushing DACA through to appeal to younger minority voters for the re-election campaign last year, and it did help him. Sadly, this is what the President means by "Immigration Reform" ... taking actions to get illegals to the voting booths and vote Democratic. It is attempting to set the stage to win the common vote for Democratic elections to come in the future, and keeping out the GOP and other candidates. The Democrats are playing a numbers game with the Latino population in the US, and particularly California.
- Public Relations and the Master Plan. The State of California and the Obama administration have engaged in backroom politics and made DACA a reality so they can present the facade that "Immigration Reform" is underway. But the "Immigration Reform" is doing nothing at all to streamline the flawed USCIS processes, such as the excruciating 5-month NOA1-NOA2 wait. The "Immigration Reform" the federal administration is promoting is the tactic of getting more illegals in the country esp. California to purport their own political agendas of controlling the polls and getting more people into the welfare system. This, in my opinion, is Obama's coupe to kickoff the serf-centric socialist state feared by many.
- Promoting feminism and the NWO. The USCIS or the ones calling their shots realize that every foreign bride coming into the US is a slap in the face to feminism and the eventual subjugation of the male population. I suppose we can't be certain, but let's just remember that USCIS's boss is Dept of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Napolitano). Now, there's a feminist if we ever saw one. I shudder to think what her idea of Homeland Security really is. The NWO wants a larger US serf population - legal or illegal - because it's a building block to get them to the point they want to be at ... which basically looks like the social structure of provinces and ruling class you saw in the Hunger Games movie. The NWO is trying to phase out the middle class by using sheer numbers of lower class citizens, particularly Latinos. They are dangling a carrot on a rope for the illegals to get their votes and then they've got them hooked - and soon they'll wish they had stayed in Mexico.
It disgusts me every day that my rights to an immigration system my German ancestors used to come here in the 19th century are being trampled over so the Dems and California can pander to illegals and put on a public relations front. Soon I will be writing my senators and congresswoman to try to advance my fiancee visa and I am also laying out a plan to contact Governors who opposed DACA, newspapers, publications and radio shows ... anyone who will hear the plight that the USCIS fiancee K1 Visa program is being severely crippled at the expense of DACA - and is willing to spread the message. I ask you all to do the same ... if someone mentions "Immigration Reform", tell them about the real crap that is going on and inform those citizens who are going to stay and rail against the increasing corruption in the American government and its agencies.
Thanks for reading and feel free to post your feedback and thoughts.