Listen, is this a subjective feeling or have there actually been more US visa approvals in the past 1–2 weeks? I’d like to understand — is this a trend or just a coincidence in the sample.
Detailed analysis of the topic: Administrative processing 221(g): timelines, statuses, what to do
In our circle of people waiting — yeah, it’s noticeable. But my take is that it’s not a new trend, just a wave of folks who’ve been in administrative processing for a long time. When they clear a bunch of admin-processed cases at once, it looks like a spike in approvals. I myself waited nearly a year on a J-1, and when it finally came through, about five people nearby got theirs at the same time.
Oh, right — cleaning up the admin stuff makes sense, I hadn’t thought of it from that angle. And about the J1, did it just sit there for a whole year with no requests, or did they send you anything along the way?
In fact, it’s the classic case — updates accumulate and get released in batches, not as a stream.
yeah, under 221(g) it’s always like that - they accumulate and come out in batches, not one by one.
Batch effect — that’s it. They’re being processed in batches; I was handling one case where 12 people were approved in the same week, even though their submission dates spanned more than a year.
Well, it’s definitely not an illusion — when my EB-1A got cleared after 13 months in administrative processing (AP), about five other people had theirs cleared that same week. It was literally a wave. Hang in there, everyone still waiting )
A year on J1 without any requests — that’s exactly the pattern. I’ve seen it several times — everything’s quiet, then in one week five to seven people get through at once. It’s like someone opened a folder and signed them all off in one go. Hang in there, whoever else is waiting)
Speculation about the color of the slips or about a particular officer doesn’t change the mechanics — the system is batch-based: one person approves a whole stack of similar cases at once, which is why it comes in waves.
I’ve seen it more than once — the lawyer says “it’s all fine, we’re waiting”, but that often hides a year to a year and a half of an investigation. People later are surprised that such a timeframe even happens, although that’s exactly the mechanism people write about here — in batches, not one by one. You’ll get through it)