Folks waiting for more than 1 year

[helpMoi]

I was thinking that maybe the folks that have been waiting for 1 year or more congregate in a separate thread so that we can bounce ideas off of each other and generally console ourselves. Most of the threads now talk about folks that have applied this year (newbies ! , and usually pertain to questions that we asked and got our answers to early on in the cycle. Now we have bigger questions or no questions at all. Maybe questions on how to stay patient.

The way I see it, the issues facing the folks that submitted their application after March 2006 but have been waiting for a year or longer are:
- It is a foregone conclusion that we all are stuck in the FBI name check process
- Since we were not interviewed, we cannot file WOM
- Over a year has gone by, and we should be fingerprinted again as the fingerprints are valid only for 12 or 15 months?
- The elections are nearing and we obviously cannot participate, even though in some instances, we have been in the country for more than 15 years and have opinions about the elections and would like to participate
- There is really NO recourse for us. We just have to wait. (others may feel differently, in which case I'd love to hear what our options are)
- We have filed FOIPA requests and they all have come back negative
- Letters to congressmen, senators, first lady have not really yielded anything. All of them want to help us, but their hands are tied

One of the other things that I thought would be helpful (or maybe even a little bit of fun is speculation on the causes of the delay by the FBI. If it is taking more than 1 year to do a background check on me, there's probably something in my background that is causing that. And I probably should know about what that is. What could the cause of this prolonged delay be? Can we try and figure out some trends? Things such as:

- How long have we been in the country? Are the people who're stuck in this for the long haul ones that have been in the country for longer than 10 years, for example?
- What's the average wait time - for people that have been stuck over 1 year? Do majority of the cases get resolved in 2 years, or is there a trend that shows that if a case's stuck in the queue for longer than 1.5/2 years, chances are that it will take 5 years or more to resolve?
- Has anyone with a net worth of more than $1 Million ever been stuck in this process?
- What do most of us do for a living?
- Any women stuck in this process for longer than 1 year?
- This may be a sensitive one - and I totally understand that this probably is not the case - but just to get an understanding of this whole thing - ethnicity probably does play an important role here. Any stats on how many of us are from what region of the world?

This may lead into:
- Start a list of "things to do or not to do" after your boat has docked in the country and if you want to avoid getting stuck in name check process later. Of course that would defeat the whole purpose of the process. But looks like a lot of innocent people who probably have never even cursed all their lives are getting stuck in this - so there's got to be something pretty basic that could be fixed.
- If the government's automated system (or hopefully by now - a year later - some human) has flagged me as investigation-worthy, I really would like to know what it is. Especially if you've led a pretty uneventful and boring life like mine, it doesn't make sense - what could I have done? They probably don't need our help, but clearly a better algorithm would benefit everyone. How can we help?

Just trying to get some trends to make sense out of this name check delay.


P.S. - I have been waiting since applying in Apr '06

 

[frustrated_alot]

I sympathize with you. I was stuck for over 2 years. I did a lot of writing after finding this board. My name check was finally cleared this year. Anyway. You make valid points. One of the things i think is true but sad is that if you file as soon as you are eligible, it doesn't seem liek you get stuck. Again, it seems that way. I don't know for sure if that's true or not. Maybe this thread will mobilize people in this community. I am already out of it but i am happy to lend a helping hand. Good Luck to all of you.

 

[Nimche]

OK.
I am not personally there yet, but I have my co-worker.
She is from Coratia, came here through Citizenship marriage and 5 years ago and applied May, 2006 and still name check is one.
There is no reason for her to be there but FBI name check has no rules.

 

[Bobsmyth]

.....
The way I see it, the issues facing the folks that submitted their application after March 2006 but have been waiting for a year or longer are:
- It is a foregone conclusion that we all are stuck in the FBI name check process
- Since we were not interviewed, we cannot file WOM

Are you saying you can't file for WOM since you haven't had interview? My understanding is that you can file WOM eventhough you haven't had interview. Just make sure to have all pertinent evidence available. Are you referring to 1447b instead?

 

[derekleewo]

One of the things i think is true but sad is that if you file as soon as you are eligible, it doesn't seem liek you get stuck. Again, it seems that way. I don't know for sure if that's true or not.

In my case, I didn't apply until almost 18 months after I was eligible to apply and I didn't get stuck in name check. I had actually been procrastinating and the only reason I actually applied earlier this year was due to the fee increase.

Derek

 

[N400Jun06PD]

My Spouse and I on the same boat---waiting for N400 since June 2006

I agree with you totally. I don't know if we could have a separate board for people waiting for N400 for 1+ yr. I have another friend who has applied since April 06. At the same time, I have anothe friend and his wife applied 2 weeks after we did in July 06, He and his wife already got the passport in Jan-07, after the oath ceremony in Dec 06. BTW, we all are from same nationality background, so I can not say if any profiling been done or not...

Is there a place on the web that people like us go and input their information and update to see how long it is really taking to see if there are any patterns, if any?

Goodluck to all of us.
N400Jun06PD

I was thinking that maybe the folks that have been waiting for 1 year or more congregate in a separate thread so that we can bounce ideas off of each other and generally console ourselves. Most of the threads now talk about folks that have applied this year (newbies ! , and usually pertain to questions that we asked and got our answers to early on in the cycle. Now we have bigger questions or no questions at all. Maybe questions on how to stay patient.

The way I see it, the issues facing the folks that submitted their application after March 2006 but have been waiting for a year or longer are:
- It is a foregone conclusion that we all are stuck in the FBI name check process
- Since we were not interviewed, we cannot file WOM
- Over a year has gone by, and we should be fingerprinted again as the fingerprints are valid only for 12 or 15 months?
- The elections are nearing and we obviously cannot participate, even though in some instances, we have been in the country for more than 15 years and have opinions about the elections and would like to participate
- There is really NO recourse for us. We just have to wait. (others may feel differently, in which case I'd love to hear what our options are)
- We have filed FOIPA requests and they all have come back negative
- Letters to congressmen, senators, first lady have not really yielded anything. All of them want to help us, but their hands are tied

One of the other things that I thought would be helpful (or maybe even a little bit of fun is speculation on the causes of the delay by the FBI. If it is taking more than 1 year to do a background check on me, there's probably something in my background that is causing that. And I probably should know about what that is. What could the cause of this prolonged delay be? Can we try and figure out some trends? Things such as:

- How long have we been in the country? Are the people who're stuck in this for the long haul ones that have been in the country for longer than 10 years, for example?
- What's the average wait time - for people that have been stuck over 1 year? Do majority of the cases get resolved in 2 years, or is there a trend that shows that if a case's stuck in the queue for longer than 1.5/2 years, chances are that it will take 5 years or more to resolve?
- Has anyone with a net worth of more than $1 Million ever been stuck in this process?
- What do most of us do for a living?
- Any women stuck in this process for longer than 1 year?
- This may be a sensitive one - and I totally understand that this probably is not the case - but just to get an understanding of this whole thing - ethnicity probably does play an important role here. Any stats on how many of us are from what region of the world?

This may lead into:
- Start a list of "things to do or not to do" after your boat has docked in the country and if you want to avoid getting stuck in name check process later. Of course that would defeat the whole purpose of the process. But looks like a lot of innocent people who probably have never even cursed all their lives are getting stuck in this - so there's got to be something pretty basic that could be fixed.
- If the government's automated system (or hopefully by now - a year later - some human) has flagged me as investigation-worthy, I really would like to know what it is. Especially if you've led a pretty uneventful and boring life like mine, it doesn't make sense - what could I have done? They probably don't need our help, but clearly a better algorithm would benefit everyone. How can we help?

Just trying to get some trends to make sense out of this name check delay.


P.S. - I have been waiting since applying in Apr '06

 

[boatbod]

One of the other things that I thought would be helpful (or maybe even a little bit of fun is speculation on the causes of the delay by the FBI. If it is taking more than 1 year to do a background check on me, there's probably something in my background that is causing that. And I probably should know about what that is. What could the cause of this prolonged delay be?

I read an interesting document posted here some time last year, that very neatly described the whole namecheck process (see below for reference). The basic outline was as follows:

- your full name, and several variations of it, including common abbreviations and regional spelling alternatives are first passed through the FBI's automated database search. The search runs against main entries (i.e. anything in which your "name" comes up as a primary suspect), and also reference entries (i.e. anything which simply refers to your "name" in passing). If no hits are found, your namecheck is cleared, and USCIS gets on with processing your N-400.

- problems start if the automated check returns one or more against your "name" (which could of course be a partial name, alternate spelling or something not really resembling your name at all). At this point, the case gets stuck in the big pile of cases requiring manual intervention. As you might imagine, there are a great many cases in this queue and limited resources to do the legwork.

- the FBI claimed that 68% of names passed the automated queries immediately, while approximately 22% of cases required a single manual intervention that was completed within 30-60 days. The remaining 10% remained pending more detailed investigation (i.e. they required more than a single manual intervention).

- there are mechanisms in place to support the expediting of particular cases, however with the backlog at critical levels, USCIS & the FBI are reluctant to go through this route unless their backs are against the wall. Typically, people filing 1447(b) lawsuits would be expedited in this manner, just prior to their case being heard. The outcome was usually positive, with the applicant being naturalized and the case against USCIS being dropped. Unfortunately, these days, with interviews being delayed until namecheck is complete, there is no effective recourse which forces USCIS to request expedited service.

More info about namechecks here: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FBI_name_check
Description of namecheck process: Michael Cannon (01/30/2006)
Further reading: Michael Cannon (02/09/2006)

 

[Cybex]

helpMoi,

I'm about to join Over One Year club. Letter to FL didn't yield any results, and, since I placed service request in September, CIS refuses to talk to me till March.

I'll sue late summer. We can and should file WOM upon completing min 18 months grooming (but also educational) period.

This is democracy, and this is the way it's designed to work. I see it as an and extra civic lesson to learn and, better yet, practice.

 

[brb2]

several months back I had made an anonymous poll (where no one can see the member's vote) for country of origin to find the pattern for country of birth. Needless to say very few if any one voted. Even having a totally impersonal screen name people are still vary of posting their country of birth. Your post is very telling in the same light. The information you have remains with you, but others on this board who may be from the same nationality will never know it. However a quick check at the below web site gives a rough idea as to which nationalities are most likely to get stuck in name check:

Indians, Chinese, Arabs/Muslims and eastern european including balkans and russians. You might have a sprinkling of other nationalities in there.

http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?nc082505

I agree with you totally. I don't know if we could have a separate board for people waiting for N400 for 1+ yr. I have another friend who has applied since April 06. At the same time, I have anothe friend and his wife applied 2 weeks after we did in July 06, He and his wife already got the passport in Jan-07, after the oath ceremony in Dec 06. BTW, we all are from same nationality background, so I can not say if any profiling been done or not...

Is there a place on the web that people like us go and input their information and update to see how long it is really taking to see if there are any patterns, if any?

Goodluck to all of us.
N400Jun06PD

 

[meek1234]

Hi Guys,
MY PD JUNE 06.
still waiting for IL. name check is cleared. in june 07 i went through infopass and they said my file is in a pile for interview since then i am waiting (5 months !!)

 

[Atlanta_Brother]

Hey Cybex

helpMoi,

I'm about to join Over One Year club. Letter to FL didn't yield any results, and, since I placed service request in September, CIS refuses to talk to me till March.

I'll sue late summer. We can and should file WOM upon completing min 18 months grooming (but also educational) period.

This is democracy, and this is the way it's designed to work. I see it as an and extra civic lesson to learn and, better yet, practice.

Long time no see or may be I haven't been logging on that frequently. Per your advise and also talking and discussing with other attorneys, I have gone ahead and filed WOM. Let's hope it works out. I thought I'd let u know just to keep u in the loop.

Thanks again for supporting me and encouraging me to go ahead with WOM.

 

[Cybex]

Hi Atlanta_Brother,

Yeah, I was swamped with work lately, and didn't post here. It's a long Thanksgiving weekend now, and it feels like a whole vacation to me .

I'm glad you went ahead with WOM, and wish you fast and easy victory! Your situation is so unique, and I believe that filing WOM is the only way to make CIS do its job and finally resolve this bureaucratic deadlock.

All the best!

 

[vdostoi1]

I was thinking that maybe the folks that have been waiting for 1 year or more congregate in a separate thread so that we can bounce ideas off of each other and generally console ourselves. Most of the threads now talk about folks that have applied this year (newbies ! , and usually pertain to questions that we asked and got our answers to early on in the cycle. Now we have bigger questions or no questions at all. Maybe questions on how to stay patient.

The way I see it, the issues facing the folks that submitted their application after March 2006 but have been waiting for a year or longer are:
- It is a foregone conclusion that we all are stuck in the FBI name check process
- Since we were not interviewed, we cannot file WOM
- Over a year has gone by, and we should be fingerprinted again as the fingerprints are valid only for 12 or 15 months?
- The elections are nearing and we obviously cannot participate, even though in some instances, we have been in the country for more than 15 years and have opinions about the elections and would like to participate
- There is really NO recourse for us. We just have to wait. (others may feel differently, in which case I'd love to hear what our options are)
- We have filed FOIPA requests and they all have come back negative
- Letters to congressmen, senators, first lady have not really yielded anything. All of them want to help us, but their hands are tied

One of the other things that I thought would be helpful (or maybe even a little bit of fun is speculation on the causes of the delay by the FBI. If it is taking more than 1 year to do a background check on me, there's probably something in my background that is causing that. And I probably should know about what that is. What could the cause of this prolonged delay be? Can we try and figure out some trends? Things such as:

- How long have we been in the country? Are the people who're stuck in this for the long haul ones that have been in the country for longer than 10 years, for example?
- What's the average wait time - for people that have been stuck over 1 year? Do majority of the cases get resolved in 2 years, or is there a trend that shows that if a case's stuck in the queue for longer than 1.5/2 years, chances are that it will take 5 years or more to resolve?
- Has anyone with a net worth of more than $1 Million ever been stuck in this process?
- What do most of us do for a living?
- Any women stuck in this process for longer than 1 year?
- This may be a sensitive one - and I totally understand that this probably is not the case - but just to get an understanding of this whole thing - ethnicity probably does play an important role here. Any stats on how many of us are from what region of the world?

This may lead into:
- Start a list of "things to do or not to do" after your boat has docked in the country and if you want to avoid getting stuck in name check process later. Of course that would defeat the whole purpose of the process. But looks like a lot of innocent people who probably have never even cursed all their lives are getting stuck in this - so there's got to be something pretty basic that could be fixed.
- If the government's automated system (or hopefully by now - a year later - some human) has flagged me as investigation-worthy, I really would like to know what it is. Especially if you've led a pretty uneventful and boring life like mine, it doesn't make sense - what could I have done? They probably don't need our help, but clearly a better algorithm would benefit everyone. How can we help?

Just trying to get some trends to make sense out of this name check delay.


P.S. - I have been waiting since applying in Apr '06

One thing to note: when you file FOIPA, even if the the FBI records come back and say that there is no record, this only means that there is no MAIN file on you. Your name MAY appear in secondary FBI sources as only the main systems are searched when you file FOIPA.

 

[helpMoi]

Thanks all for your responses. To address some of the points that were brought up:

• Separate Board - I don't think it's necessary to have a separate board for the "veterans" - people who've been stuck for more than 1 year. This portal provides an invaluable service and we could still benefit from this. An active separate thread on this forum would be better
• Polls and participation - About polls that people didn't participate in - we need to put our heads together to see how can we make people to participate/collaborate. Its clear that no one is going to help us. I have had lawyers hang up on me the moment they hear that I am stuck in FBI name check. So, all we got is each other. Any ideas on this?
• Boatbod - thanks for the links. Your posts are some of the most informative on this forum. I gave the documents a quick read through but I'll go through them in more detail.
• WOM - so, what's the final word on this - is WOM an option for folks who haven't had their interview? There's still some ambiguity about this. Has anyone successfully pursued this option?
• Name Check Algorithm - My favorite topic these days. Would it be safe to assume that if FOIPA turned up nothing, and you're still stuck in the FBI name check process for more than a year then you don't have a "primary" file, but you do feature in someone else's file? Now, what reasons would put someone on a secondary file? Could it be because you met someone who's a primary, are an acquaintance of a primary, have been wiring a lot of money back home, etc.? Let's discuss this more in this forum. I don't know if anyone from the FBI name check program monitors this forum, but maybe there could be some sort of collaboration between the community and the authorities to make this a smoother process for all. (Something like what the open source movement has done to the field of computing. Why not leverage the collective intellect of the community and make this process better?) I don't think anyone in the government wants to make this any harder for innocent people. I also don't know if the authorities know the extent to which this is ruining people's lives. And for what gain?
• Out of the box thinking - Obviously people try and exploit all rules to their best interests, but maybe one of the solutions here maybe for the government to expand the criteria under which an application should be expedited. The reasons that they have now are too limiting. I can't imagine why staying away from one's month old baby isn't a good enough reason to expedite this. Another option may be to grant conditional citizenship - until the fbi name check is complete. The folks applying for greencard are in the country anyway. Why not grant them conditional citizenship on them meeting all other criteria except the fbi name check and then complete the citizenship process once FBI name check is complete. This way the people can continue on with their lives and the government can still continue with their checks without essentially giving anything away (the people are in the country already!). Is there a flaw in this logic? Comments?

 

[boatbod]

Boatbod - thanks for the links. Your posts are some of the most informative on this forum. I gave the documents a quick read through but I'll go through them in more detail.

You're welcome!

Name Check Algorithm - My favorite topic these days. Would it be safe to assume that if FOIPA turned up nothing, and you're still stuck in the FBI name check process for more than a year then you don't have a "primary" file, but you do feature in someone else's file? Now, what reasons would put someone on a secondary file? Could it be because you met someone who's a primary, are an acquaintance of a primary, have been wiring a lot of money back home, etc.? Let's discuss this more in this forum. I don't know if anyone from the FBI name check program monitors this forum, but maybe there could be some sort of collaboration between the community and the authorities to make this a smoother process for all. (Something like what the open source movement has done to the field of computing. Why not leverage the collective intellect of the community and make this process better?) I don't think anyone in the government wants to make this any harder for innocent people. I also don't know if the authorities know the extent to which this is ruining people's lives. And for what gain?

A broad description of the algorithm is given in the "Michael Cannon" links that I provided earlier.

As far as the question about how one gets in a secondary file, I believe its most often due to a false match against one of your 'name variations' (see explanation of the namecheck algorithm). The other alternative would be something like you having been a witness to something, or named in connection with a person of interest.

 

[lotechguy]

I agree with you totally. I don't know if we could have a separate board for people waiting for N400 for 1+ yr. I have another friend who has applied since April 06. At the same time, I have anothe friend and his wife applied 2 weeks after we did in July 06, He and his wife already got the passport in Jan-07, after the oath ceremony in Dec 06. BTW, we all are from same nationality background, so I can not say if any profiling been done or not...

Is there a place on the web that people like us go and input their information and update to see how long it is really taking to see if there are any patterns, if any?

Goodluck to all of us.
N400Jun06PD

There is an organisation called Americans For Families United that is lobbying for people stuck in name check.

 

[lotechguy]

You're welcome!

A broad description of the algorithm is given in the "Michael Cannon" links that I provided earlier.

As far as the question about how one gets in a secondary file, I believe its most often due to a false match against one of your 'name variations' (see explanation of the namecheck algorithm). The other alternative would be something like you having been a witness to something, or named in connection with a person of interest.

The FBI file system is more like your desk hanging folder system. When they have an investigation on someone they create a "Main File" with a category ID and this file is indexed by Your name, Birth place/date etc. This is what FOIPA requests gets you ie Is there a hanging folder with my name on it ??. But that is useless since most people here have no hanging folders. What is tricky is what they are calling reference check which is equivalent to an agent finding something (anything, paper, email, internet) having a name like yours (similar) and filing it as document in some totally unrelated guy's "main hanging folder" for reasons best known to the agent. I am speculating here, but an example would be, say a person with a similar sounding name like yours flew the same flight few years ago as a suspect under FBI investigation and the agent receives the passenger list and decides to file it in the suspects main file. Now suddenly you became a "reference file hit" because someone with a name sounding like yours flew a flight in which a subject of FBI main investigation also flew. add to this the fact that the reference checks scramble names to search and you realise how 50% of people can get stuck in this mess. This is because of the 0% risk factors they want in security check now ie Congress has required that 0% criminals should pass through immigration after 9-11 so FBI leaves nothing to chance ie they relax the matching rules for finding people in their files and have officers manually look any one with hits. Gerat policy except they dont have staff to handle all that manual work. Congress is aware of this problem but like a stack of problems they deal with, the solutions are slow to come. Recently Senator Levin (D,Mich) introduced a lesgislation that would require FBI to report to congress on the nature and times of this backlogs. No news on wether it passed or not.

 

[boatbod]

Thanks lotechguy - thats a clearer explanation of the point I was trying to make.