Interview in 3-4 months?

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nyc_naturalizer

Registered Users (C)
NYC, despite being bogged down with the July backlog still, has seen some oddly fast timelines for more recent applicants--three December applicants that we know of have interviews. We've speculated that this is possibly due to peculiarities of queuing or staff assignments. Yesterday ladka posted that his wife (in Baltimore) had received IL for an even shorter timeline; many, myself included, assumed USCIS had made a mistake. But I've looked on some other forums, and such cases seem to be coming out of the woodwork at various DOs, especially for May interviews, while earlier applicants still wait.

I've compiled these timelines below, from receipt date to interview date. I excluded any that mentioned they were military. If you know of others please add.

What is going on? Bobsmyth speculated on another thread that USCIS is trying to weight the average processing times by throwing in some more recent cases. But the average processing time is dismal, so I'm not sure about that.

11/20/2007--02/14/2008 Columbus (86 days)
12/07/2007--04/04/2008 NSC / DO unknown (119 days)
12/13/2007--05/06/2008 New York City (145 days)
12/20/2007--(IL sent 4/09/2008) Chicago
12/27/2007--04/30/2008 New York City (125 days) (two timelines)
01/03/2008--03/27/2008 Cincinnati (84 days)
01/04/2008--04/09/2008 Jacksonville (96 days)
01/04/2008--04/19/2008 Atlanta (106 days)
01/04/2008--05/22/2008 Buffalo (139 days)
01/07/2008--05/29/2008 Boston (143 days)
01/23/2008--05/30/2008 San Francisco (128 days)
01/31/2008--05/06/2008 Jacksonville (96 days)
02/04/2008--05/09/2008 Baltimore (95 days)
02/06/2008--05/15/2008 Denver (99 days)
02/19/2008--05/11/2008 Milwaukee (82 days)
02/25/2008--06/18/2008 Fort Smith (114 days)
02/27/2008--05/13/2008 Milwaukee (76 days)
 
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Vorpal said:
I wonder if it would make sense to withdraw our applications and reapply?
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If it were December 2007 and I had this knowledge, I probably would. At the moment, it seems like a crapshoot. If an April applicant follows a timeline like these ones, they may get their interview around the time we do.
 
nyc_naturalizer said:
If it were December 2007 and I had this knowledge, I probably would. At the moment, it seems like a crapshoot. If an April applicant follows a timeline like these ones, they may get their interview around the time we do.
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If they tell me to wait another "1-2 months" to get my IL during InfoPass, I'll definitely ask if it makes sense to withdraw my application and reapply. I'll gladly pay another $675 just to get this crap over with.
 
I sent mine on 10/2/07, FP on 1/18/07 and got the IL, scheduled end of May. I the delay is in NYC district office. Mine is Boston.
 
Vorpal said:
If they tell me to wait another "1-2 months" to get my IL during InfoPass, I'll definitely ask if it makes sense to withdraw my application and reapply. I'll gladly pay another $675 just to get this crap over with.
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I don't know about you, but the same thing happened with my GC (in NYC). People who applied one year after I did had a GC in about six months, whereas most people in my cohort took 24-30 months to get GC. It's a cruel irony that had I waited longer to apply for my GC, I would have been a N-400applicant when NYC was humming, and likely have my citizenship in hand long ago.
 
fizk said:
I sent mine on 10/2/07, FP on 1/18/07 and got the IL, scheduled end of May. I the delay is in NYC district office. Mine is Boston.
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Congrats, I hope your interview goes well. Your timeline is fast, given the backlog, but not absurdly fast like the cases cited above. You're a classic example of a seven month timeline.
 
nyc_naturalizer said:
NYC, despite being bogged down with the July backlog still, has seen some oddly fast timelines for more recent applicants--three December applicants that we know of have interviews. We've speculated that this is possibly due to peculiarities of queuing or staff assignments.
I've compiled these timelines below, from receipt date to interview date. I excluded any that mentioned they were military. If you know of others please add.

What is going on? Bobsmyth speculated on another thread that USCIS is trying to weight the average processing times by throwing in some more recent cases. But the average processing time is dismal, so I'm not sure about that.

11/20/2007--02/14/2008 Columbus (86 days)
12/13/2007--05/06/2008 New York City (145 days)
12/27/2007--04/30/2008 New York City (125 days) (two timelines)
01/03/2008--03/27/2008 Cincinnati (84 days)
01/04/2008--04/19/2008 Atlanta (106 days)
01/23/2008--05/30/2008 San Francisco (128 days)
01/31/2008--05/06/2008 Jacksonville (96 days)
02/04/2008--05/09/2008 Baltimore (95 days)
02/06/2008--05/15/2008 Denver (99 days)
02/27/2008--05/13/2008 Milwaukee (76 days)
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Actually this has also been an observation from the USCIS ombudsman in his 2007 report to congress: that more recent cases are being worked on faster and those 6 months or older are increasingly backlogged.

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/USCISO_Recommend_Response_2007_FINAL_OMB_cleared.pdf
 
It sounds unfair, but by doing just that, the number of angry/dejected customers does not go up. If they delay the newer ones to work on the backlogged ones, the entire USCIS customer base ends up angry/frustrated. I know it sound bad but this is my speculation on why this is the current modus operandi.

Bobsmyth said:
that more recent cases are being worked on faster and those 6 months or older are increasingly backlogged.
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Triple Citizen said:
It sounds unfair, but by doing just that, the number of angry/dejected customers does not go up. If they delay the newer ones to work on the backlogged ones, the entire USCIS customer base ends up angry/frustrated. I know it sound bad but this is my speculation on why this is the current modus operandi.
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Not sure about this theory. In terms of sheer numbers, the "frustrated" base would remain the same - for every newer case they delay, a backlogged one should be processed. And we're talking about newer cases being processed inside four months! Generally these people are quite surprised when they receive their IL in 2-3 months -- still quite a few months away from the "angry/dejected" threshold (which I am presently hitting).
 
Bobsmyth said:
Actually this has also been an observation from the USCIS ombudsman in his 2007 report to congress: that more recent cases are being worked on faster and those 6 months or older are increasingly backlogged.

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/USCISO_Recommend_Response_2007_FINAL_OMB_cleared.pdf
Click to expand...

Thanks for pointing this out, Bobsmyth, I hadn't read this report. The USCIS responses are utterly evasive and circular, it's like having a conversation with a CSR!

I especially love the sentence: "Providing accurate and timely information to its customers continues to be a long-standing goal of USCIS."

"continues to be a long-standing goal"! That's quite a phrase, if you deconstruct the implied tenses. It translates as, "An objective that has remained for some time unaccomplished shall remain unaccomplished in the future."
 
I am looking at it from a different angel. Suppose there are 100K customers pending for 9 months plus. Call them officially "angry". Then there are 100K customers with less than 3 months on the waiting queue, call them "fresh". Suppose USCIS now delays the "fresh" and starts adjuducating the "angry. Say it takes 6 months. So if a survey of customer satisfaction is conducted then, you have 100K freshly adjudicated customers who averaged 15 months. Although they have now been adjuducated, they still identify themselves as "angry" since they are not happy with how they were provided serviced. By now, another 100K have reached the 9 month mark and are "angry" too. So a total of 200K "angry" customers on the survey.
Now suppose USCIS works on the "fresh" and adjudicates them before they reach the 9 month limit. When surveyed, they give USCIS good marks since they never reached the "angry" limit. The "angry" ones are now past 15 months of waiting and continue to wait. They are still "angry" but the survey shows only 100K of them.

The above is my speculation of course.

nyc_naturalizer said:
Not sure about this theory. In terms of sheer numbers, the "frustrated" base would remain the same.
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I like to think of it as a never ending ticket queue at a helpdesk. Volume spikes cause the queue to grow larger and larger. As the queue increases, resolution time decreases. After a while the queue is no longer under control and complaints from end users begin to rise. The complaints trickle up to upper management who then order a reactionary "flame out" solution to reduce the queue. Naturally, the most recent cases get worked on first to make it appear that they have a handle on things, while older cases get neglected. Eventually, the queue does come under control, but a root cause analysis is never fully explored or implemented. The cycle just starts over again until the next spike in volume occurs.
This is the inherent nature of any queue based system that doesn't have proactive policies in place to catch and implement the trends before they happen. Hopefully USCIS will finally have learned it's lesson and prevent this from ever happening again.
 
nyc_naturalizer said:
Thanks for pointing this out, Bobsmyth, I hadn't read this report. The USCIS responses are utterly evasive and circular, it's like having a conversation with a CSR!

I especially love the sentence: "Providing accurate and timely information to its customers continues to be a long-standing goal of USCIS."

"continues to be a long-standing goal"! That's quite a phrase, if you deconstruct the implied tenses. It translates as, "An objective that has remained for some time unaccomplished shall remain unaccomplished in the future."
Click to expand...

I agree..even the Ombudsman himself admitted on one of the conference calls that the USCIS responses are vague. I'm seriously thinking of asking the Ombudsman about a recommendation he provided in 2005 to have USCIS remove the "return service requested" postal stamp on correspondence since the USCIS's response to that suggestion was that they are working towards updating their postal stamps with the fee increases of last year and are working towards a 2 day delivery system to deliver GC. Almost 3 years after that Ombudsman suggestion, USCIS still continues to use the return service requested stamp on some correspondence. It goes to show how long a simple suggestion can get caught up in the bureaucratic red tape of the Government.
 
You guys may be right. The only consolation is, that with volume being very low for January and February applicants, the resources needed to process the newer cases under such a scenario are hopefully minimal. In fact, the low numbers of applications in the last few months probably explains why these people are being processed not only before applicants from last July, but well under the six or seven month timeframe. But as Bobsmyth points out, if they don't sort out July before the next natural swell, the rest of us may find ourselves in permanent backlog.
 
Bobsmyth said:
I agree..even the Ombudsman himself admitted on one of the conference calls that the USCIS responses are vague.
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Chertoff - though not USCIS per se - gave a classic example of USCIS circular argumentation the other day when questioned by Chuck Schumer. This is not verbatim, but a paraphrase of his logic in responding to the Senator:

Schumer: Why is there a backlog?
Chertoff: Because of the fee increse.
Schumer: Why did you increase fees?
Chertoff: To hire more adjudicators.
Schumer: Why did you need more adjudicators?
Chertoff: To process the backlog.
 
Out of sheer curiosity, have you stared writting letters to your representatives or scheduled an infopass appointment? Your PD is now six months old. I am only asking since you made it clear in one of your earlier posts that you find it servile to just keep waiting.

nyc_naturalizer said:
find ourselves in permanent backlog.
Click to expand...
 
nyc_naturalizer said:
Chertoff - though not USCIS per se - gave a classic example of USCIS circular argumentation the other day when questioned by Chuck Schumer. This is not verbatim, but a paraphrase of his logic in responding to the Senator:

Schumer: Why is there a backlog?
Chertoff: Because of the fee increse.
Schumer: Why did you increase fees?
Chertoff: To hire more adjudicators.
Schumer: Why did you need more adjudicators?
Chertoff: To process the backlog.
Click to expand...

Sounds like Abbott and Costello's Whose on First routine. :))
 
Triple Citizen said:
Out of sheer curiosity, have you stared writting letters to your representatives or scheduled an infopass appointment? Your PD is now six months old. I am only asking since you made it clear in one of your earlier posts that you find it servile to just keep waiting.
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I believe I said "passive, if not servile," and the reference was to a certain attitude toward government, not to the necessity of waiting for this process to complete itself, which is unfortunately quite out of our control. Our elected representatives have made some effort to put pressure on USCIS, but at best the result of this is that USCIS puts on a show for them. Like executive power generally in this administration.

Thanks for remembering my six month anniversary. At the moment, I am waiting to see if I get an IL in a couple of weeks when ILs for NYC seem to go out. It's unlikely but possible. I don't know that infopass is any more useful than speaking to an officer on the phone, which I've done, and thanks to which I know at least that I've cleared name check.
 
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