Case numbers being delayed on the I-129Fs. You are probably experiencing this. Those of you who have applied for an I-129F, the alien fiancé petition, as the first step in the process to get your K1 visa. You have gone through that process. Those have been delayed for many months and people have been waiting to get those approvals.
Before, when you got the approval it would just be quickly passed through the NVC and go straight to the embassy without too much fanfare at all. They would assign a number and pass you on. We’re seeing a lot of people be delayed at the NVC phase where they’re not getting a case number. It’s hanging in limbo.
People are really worried about what this means. It’s just a reflection of some other issues that we’re having with the system right now based on some of the management issues we’ve seen in the immigration system in the last few years as well as the closures of the embassies for the pandemic. What happened is because they didn’t do the interviews for a chunk of time when different US embassies have been closed and opened at different times depending on the local conditions.
But all of the embassies have been closed to some degree. Some of them for a year. And so, there were people waiting at that time and there have been people continually accumulating in the list of people who need interviews at these embassies. What the National Visa Center is doing is they’re only passing on the number of cases that the embassy is able to handle.
Instead of holding the backlog at the embassy, which is not really equipped to handle that kind of backlog, they’re holding the backlogs at the National Visa Center. So that’s why we’re seeing that. It’s frustrating but it’s also normal and it doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with your case.
Unless there’s some reason that you can legally expedite your case, there’s unfortunately nothing you can really do at that phase to make it go faster or to find out what’s happening. It’s just sort of one of those things where you wait and someday your case number will come and we’re seeing some clearing of the backlog.
Do be heartened by that. Slowly but surely, things are thawing. People are getting through. People are getting scheduled. People are getting case numbers which is great. We’re headed in the right direction worldwide. But hang on a little bit more and that’s still a very normal thing that we’re seeing. So don’t be alarmed if that’s what’s happening in your case.