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As the title of this video suggests, we are asking the question “how long are US Marriage Visas taking to process?” I thought of making this video after watching a recent video from a colleague, I will go ahead and put the link in the description below, Jim Hacking over at Hacking Immigration Law. I watch his videos from time to time. He's a much deeper practitioner of US Immigration Law than I am; I primarily deal with family-based cases as they rise primarily and to this point almost exclusively now here in Thailand. But yeah Mr. Hacking, I am a big fan of his videos, a fan of his work. He has done a lot with regard to US Immigration and he has used YouTube to do it which as someone who has done similar things, I have got a lot of respect for him, so tip of the hat to Mr. Hacking. But yeah, he brought up, and I went and looked this up, yeah it's true; the USCIS is posting current processing times associated, I shouldn't laugh, I shouldn't laugh, but it's one of those where it is like if you don't laugh you will cry. So they're posting processing times of some 50 months for the I-130 and as he brought up in his video, this is like the baseline family visa for Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents. This is the baseline petition, this is the base line form if you will associated with Immigrant Spousal Visas. Immigrant Spousal Visas to my mind is probably the one visa that definitely the US Government has a duty to go ahead and process these things. Again it's an adjudication. Just because you are married to an American doesn't mean you have the right to residence in the United States, the right to a Green Card. I get that, I have dealt with that for 15 years; nobody is disputing that. But that said, now they are saying 50 months just to process the petition. Bear in mind that is just to process the petition, then you have got to deal with the Visa on the back end. Over here in Thailand, we deal with things at the Embassy after petition processing. 

Now for those watching this video, especially clients of mine or prospective clients do not freak out, okay. First of all, I have never been a fan of USCIS posting their processing times - one it has been my experience they're wildly off in the sense that, I look at individual cases. Each and every one of these cases is like a snowflake; they are all unique; they process in their own unique manner. When you look at sort of a general processing time, what's that going to do for you? You will see cases that run wildly fast, you see cases that run wildly slow, and as Mr. Hacking pointed out, there may be methods of prodding them to make your case move faster most notably as we have discussed previously on this channel, the Writ of Mandamus. But that said, just from a starting point, I have never liked the posted processing times because I have never felt like it is a very accurate representation. It also causes clients to kind of flip out because they will say "oh my case, it says 6 months on the website and it is 6 months and a day." Yeah it is not dispositive. Just because they say that the average case processes in X amount of time, doesn't mean it's going to work that way. Now that said, they also can massively overestimate. I think this 50 months is kind of ridiculous but as Mr. Hacking pointed out, it's getting a little trying here and it's getting a little boring if you will listening to the inane responses when you ask why is this taking so long because they do keep harkening back, "well things changed under Trump." Well some things were changed and a lot of those policies were reversed. I am not getting political here but honestly I didn't like the way that the prior Administration honestly in my mind, came in and intentionally sort of modified the Immigration System only to make it harder. I don't think anybody in a partisan way, to talk politically, had problems with legal immigration. I don't think anybody was clamouring for an end to legal immigration, their problem is illegal Immigration, that's the issue. So why the last Administration decided to come in and start quite honestly throwing spanners into the works if you will, throw in a monkey wrench in everything to make it harder, I don't get that policy, that didn't make any sense to me but whatever I wasn't in the Administration. Then this Administration has just sort of cited COVID and the last Administration "well everything is taking a while". 50 months is more than as Mr. Hacking pointed out, 50 months is more than a Presidential term, to process a Marriage Visa? Come on, there is no reason that that has to be the way that it is. And quite honestly and again I guess we have got to blame the last Administration for this, there was some easing of the backlog in the past because there were local USCIS offices abroad that could process these petitions. Yeah we don't have those anymore which that is another great one! Yay, no more USCIS office. That has caused slower processing as well. I'll admit that I used to be able to process cases here locally and it took a matter of months to get things done, when it could take over a year to get things done processing it through Stateside. Now when you look at the current estimated processing times you have got to really wonder how long things are going to take. That said, I hope this turns around. 

Our own case log, our own case load is moving ahead. We definitely saw the thaw post-Covid and cases are moving through the Embassy; we are seeing them here, but as of the time of this video I don't know what USCIS is doing. For those out there that are not presently married, it is probably a good idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed because perhaps not getting married may be more optimal to getting your loved one in the United States; again it's going to be case specific. For those that are married, again there may be options other than having to wait out 50 months for sure, so again it may not be a terrible idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.