Hello. I know what you are saying and I knew about this problem months ago. I appreciate your concerns and I know they're not out of malice. I've written a whole post in details arguing respectfully why your concern may have been addressed months ago by the government and why this issue may have been solved at least better than your expectation. I know it's a lot, but I was in my arguing mood after reading the text you wrote and the video.
Before everything, I know that you think Iranians get the 4-6 months AP. I have some reasons to believe that I have the probability of getting cleared in time. I've seen a forum for Iranians sharing their AP experience every year from 2016-2008 (before telegram), having read 100s of timelines. I know that the 4-6 months was a rarity rather than a typical one which I also have clues of why it happened for them. I have also seen DV21/22 Iranians' progress in AP. Given my own circumstances, I do see a non-zero probability of getting cleared on time because of maybe a 100 cases that I've skimmed through.
Now, for the visa numbers, running out: I think the government did something in April/May with the expectation of exactly a scenario like this. They actually had the issue in April for AS. I've written some arguments as best I can relying on UAO vs Biden declarations since that is public.
Here's your world: There are only 54850 visa numbers available, literally as in like physical balls present in their system on day 1. To be issued, the person needs one of these. They get sent to the posts once scheduled along with the cases (people in the case) and if they are un-issued they will be sent back to the KCC/VO within 5 calendar days after the month's end by the post (FAM). So, take a perfect scenario, if 54849 visas are issued and the 54850th is at embassy A with one person for a September interview and the guy doesn't show up, the visa can't go to a person at embassy B that has gotten the clearance in September and the 54850th visa number would go to waste as the FY ends before it can be recycled.
Big contradiction:
According to Brenda Grewe's declaration in the UAO vs Biden, they've issued 30,537 visas by the end of July. There's also 712 visa numbers used for approved AOS by end of July. This means 23,601 visas for FY22 left to be issued. In other words, there would be 23,601 visa numbers in KCC/VO systems, embassies, Miles' pockets or wherever the visa numbers could theoretically go. Now, they've scheduled interviews for 69924 people for the entire FY22 according to Xarthisius (he likes to be humble, but that data is very good). According to the declaration around 41,435 visas were scheduled by the end of July. So, subtracting it gives interviews for 28,489 people scheduled in August and September. This means that there are 28,489 visa numbers in the embassies for August and September. I understand the errors are present from different sources, but I think this shows that the visa numbers in the embassies are significantly higher than those that could be possible should your world be absolutely accurate with respect to the 54850 visa numbers being there. This is a contradiction.
[Note 1: I know that you think that some of the September scheduling (1200-2000 cases) were done in early August because KCC was waiting for recycled visa numbers even though the VB was released on 8th July. I have heard that some IT stuff in the embassies's systems were under cyber attacks from who knows where and the systems were back up fully after 25th July. Some embassies had issues with even scheduling appointments (anecdotes). Notice the freeze with the CEAC too which we had. Furthermore, there wasn't an embassy which half-scheduled in July and then did a second run in August. The scheduling was kinda in the alphabetic order as before and the numbers didn't break up, I would dispute this point.]
Here's my world: Your world was correct and was what has happened for the past 10+ years of DV. This is un-disputable. However, in April/May I do believe that they did something to their systems. In my view, the number of visa numbers were pumped, which is a 5 minute thing to do in the code (ctr+f, 54850, backspace, 99999, done). This is why you see almost all the plaintiffs in the lawsuits are at the AV stage. The AV stage is described as when the case is allocated a visa and the acronym literally stands for it. I know that you have suggested that maybe the declarations are wrong (definitely possible), but I still think that they really are allocated one of the visa numbers. So in my world, when they hit the problem of going all current in VB and Av'ing people regardless of embassy capacity, they realised the problem, fixed it and now the whole DV22 system is basically on a free-roll until they hit the 54850 issuance where they would pull the plug. I think that's what they did. After May, we cannot see a single embassy which had capacity for DV but was sent less people because visa numbers weren't available. As I mentioned this did happen for many AS cases in April. Many people point to AS saying its invites have been lower for August and September due to visa numbers, but most good embassy in AS finished up earlier and they just hadn't had anymore to schedule whereas the handful of bad ones did as they were doing giving such impression. But again, not a single embassy had problem filling its capacity even though they were having such troubles in April for June interviews.
Here's the event that I know which made me think of this pump:
Iran's VB went current for June. Every single Iranian above the CN of 8500 was not scheduled for June regardless of their embassies. Like literally, every Iranian expat (with good working embassies) with CN above 8500 was scheduled for July and not June. I can literally give the case numbers if anyone wants. Examples: my embassy had capacity for June but got invited for July along with another Iranian FSC non-Iranian with AS86xx CN issued on the same day as me. I know there are two in Guangzhou (9k and 12k) invited in July as the only two. Lots in Montreal. One Italian with Iran FSC and 12k in Naples. One 9k in Nicosia. The embassies had capacity for June but they weren't scheduled for June. Interestingly, when they went AV and then scheduled for July, all other Iranians regardless of embassy or CN became AV too which means that these weren't the recycled visas allocated by embassy capacity. Furthermore, I know enough to say that every single one was kept at RV (ready for visa allocation) status in April despite going current in April (for June). Secondly, by the end of March, KCC processing DS260s by CN were at about 14000 and by end of April were at 17000 or so. Good embassies in AS like Colombo, Tokyo, Mongolia, ... who were doing extremely well by that point suddenly started scheduling very low numbers and even going like in low quantities of cases with ranges of 17k-30k cases which submitted in May . Interestingly, they also had a problem with AV'ing those after 14000 CN who didn't submit in May to be processed with the initial FIFO processing. I know people who were kept at RV here too. These embassies then scheduled all of their people for July. This again supports my opinion that they did pump the visa numbers available, I'm not talking about re-allocation but actually pumping the quantity of visa numbers in the system and how many they can AV. In April another thing happened which I can't disclose, but they did process all DS260s by the end of May because they pulled something. Also, I remember doing some rough calculation by the end of March, the visas numbers for AS in circulation (issued, AV, or at embassies) were close to the quota that has been mentioned.
What am I trying to say? That a) declaration saying that AV means visa allocated is correct b) once the visas are allocated to the RV-to-AV cases in KCC the visa number can't be dis-lodged without scheduling with the exception of the case being transferred(e.g. Ukrainians or embassies asking for transfer) c) the visa numbers at least for AS ran out in April/May and they did manage to fix it. Same was to happen in EU a month later but didn't d) They've pumped the visa numbers and they gonna free-roll with the intention of stopping only once the 54850 issued visas is hit (with some educated optimism as to quotas won't become a problem).
Finally as it pertains to the issue: In my world, the visas getting recycled from July and August are un-used or used at the minimum for the schedulings done for the August and September. Secondly, the August and September interviews are mainly the bad embassies and lower issuances. The EU ones are dominated by Warsaw(Russians with AP and no-shows which will be higher in coming months), Frankfurt (crazy no-shows), non-Schengens like Almaty and Tashkent. The AF ones are dominated by the likes of DRC (20% issuance), Nairobi (maybe 70% ), Monrovia(60%) and Yaounde and etc which ain't amazing. Casablanca and Algiers are the better ones but that's kinda it. So, the non-issuance of these August and September cases will not be 20%, but more leaning towards 25% and likely 30%. 75% is the issuance per Brenda Grewe for the July and prior interviews that had many months to clear and good embassies. I Thirdly, per FAM if I recall correctly, posts are instructed to use up all visas available in their post and then ask KCC/VO for visa numbers. Many posts also have dedicated specific dates in their calender to clear the (mainly non-DC) APs in batches apparently in non-early September. So, we have 7000 APs by now. There will be also at least 7000 un-used visa numbers for the allocated individual (not all recycled considering September) visa numbers assuming the 25% non-issuance for August and September interviews as per Brenda Grew's estimate.
