Why does visa processing take long

For family-based immigration, the sponsor can file the immigrant visa petition Form I for a beneficiary who is inside the United States adjustment of status or outside the U.

Some applications require an Affidavit of Support Form I , showing that the person petitioning for you, or a qualifying sponsor, will vouch for you financially and step in if you are unable to support yourself while in the U. That shows the U. Depending on the situation, the petitioner may have to be present. To facilitate the interview, the applicant should take several supporting documents. USCIS updates their estimated processing times each month.

To check the processing time for your type of form, go to the USCIS Processing Times website, choose your type of form, and the field office processing your case. You can submit a request about your case when your case is past the date on the highest number of months in the processing times range. Visa wait times are not only dependent on the procedural processing of paperwork as described above.

One of the most important pieces of information in your immigrant visa case is your priority date, which is the date when a visa number will be available for you. As of , there were 3. This is just people waiting to apply while they are outside of the United States. These numbers do not include anyone applying for a green card inside the United States through adjustment of status. Immediate relatives of U. This is because the U. Other family members, such as married children of U.

Each month, the Department of State publishes the Visa Bulletin , which lets you see which priority date is up for your visa category each month. In addition to that, U. Applicants from countries that submit a high volume of applications — such as China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines — have the longest waiting times across all categories.

Since , a year after the country quotas were put in place through the Immigration and Nationality Act, visa wait times have grown by four and a half years for Indians and three years and two months, for Mexicans. By , Indians had the longest wait times overall of all countries — eight and a half years, according to statistics compiled by the CATO Institute.

The average waiting time for all categories was almost six years. Wait times become the longest for non-immediate relatives of petitioners. For example, the current wait for Filipino siblings of adult American citizens need to wait an average of 23 years to be eligible for a green card. Children over 21 years of age of U. Family-based visas and employment-based visas based on preference F and EB visas respectively command the longest waiting times overall.

Family-based visas take more than half of the immigrant visas available on any given year at 62 percent. There is a significant mismatch between the share of available green cards in each line and the share of applicants in each line.

Future visa wait times look impossibly grim — in fact, many applicants will die without having the chance to apply for a green card at all.

Statistics show that for nationals of some countries, such as Mexican siblings of U. However, there are some situations in which your case could be taking longer than usual. Errors and omissions any of the forms will contribute to longer visa wait times. Luckily, most of these are easy to fix:. This is highly unlikely, but certainly not impossible.

USCIS utilizes contractors to do the data entry. Before you send your application in, make sure you have copies of everything you sent.

If immigration officials lost or misplaced any pieces of your application, you can resubmit documents to your case processing center. Nor is it likely to be the fault of your lawyer, who has little more control over the actions of the immigration authorities than you do although an experienced lawyer can help you track the status of your application and make inquiries.

It's the regular subject of news stories and congressional inquiries. For the most part, U. Everyone, however, must stand in line behind the employment-related petitioners who have paid extra for "premium processing. Also, in certain family visa cases , USCIS may take longer to make decisions on I petitions where the beneficiaries' priority date will not be current for many years, such as in the case of the brother or sister of a U.

This does not hurt the person's case, because their place in line for a visa has already been established by their " priority date ," which is the date that USCIS first received the form I petition.

If you have already gotten a receipt number for your own petition or application, you can check its status on the USCIS website. If you are in a category of visa or green card applicant that does not allow unlimited numbers to be given out each year, a certain amount of waiting will be built into the process.

For example, if you are applying for a green card as the married child of a U. There is nothing you can do about this except to keep on eye on your progress. Be sure to advise the National Visa Center NVC if your address changes, so that you won't miss any important notifications when it's time for your case to move forward. It would not be paranoid of you to wonder whether your file has got lost somewhere in the recesses of a government building.

This happens. It's the reason every applicant should make a complete copy of every page of their paperwork before sending it, and never send original documents if a copy will satisfy USCIS or the relevant government agency's needs.

The possibility of loss is part of why it's important to track your case through the immigration system, as described above. But what if your file got lost before even having a case number assigned to it, and so you never got a receipt notice even after many weeks or months? In such a case, it will be harder to track.

It can take longer than a month if further information is required, for example you apply as a minor and the application is not linked to an adult, you have a criminal conviction or you are a non EEA or non Swiss citizen and you are applying but have not made a previous application.

Processing times start when using the ID Document Check app, or when submitted online or if using post, when documents are received. If you are required to provide fingerprints the processing time starts once fingerprints are scanned and received. The website caveats the information by stating that this is an estimate and therefore by no means a commitment.

Further, the information does not specify what you can expect if your application falls outside the one-month period or rather what you should be entitled to expect. Different waiting times apply for applications outside of the UK. Once you have submitted your application online, the waiting time starts when you either attend an appointment to provide your biometric information at a VAC visa application centre or when you verify your identity using an ID check App.

If you are visiting the UK or intend to transit the UK, are studying in the UK, working or investing in the UK, applying as a Commonwealth Citizen Ancestry , Returning Resident or for a biometric replacement, or transferring a visa or applying for a certificate of entitlement you should receive a decision within 3 weeks.

If you are applying to join a family pursuant to Appendix FM or on the basis of Family Reunion standard processing times are 12 weeks. There are priority services available for an additional fee. Whether you can use them will depend on what visa you are applying for and whether they are available at the VAC you are using.

The services range from super priority next day collection , to priority 5 working days and priority settlement 30 working days. Priority services are not always recommended if for example there are criminal convictions or an adverse immigration history that needs to be addressed. A list of visa application centres can be found: here. Most visa application centres have resumed service where local restrictions do not prevent it, but you will need to check this when you submit your application.

Examples given include because an interview is needed, supporting documents need to be verified or because you have a criminal conviction. Even if you have used priority or super priority services and the application is not deemed to be straightforward, the application will still be at the front of the queue and UKVI will try to process within the standard timescales.

You can consider contacting the Home Office by phone, in writing or both to request an update. You may wish to consider providing evidence of how the delay is impacting you, for example if you do not have a right to work or study.

If there is an urgency or the standard processing time has passed it is possible to ask for the matter to be escalated. When making enquiries always take care to make clear that you are not intending to withdraw your application.

Additionally you may also consider making a formal written complaint to UKVI.