I submitted my Petition for Alien Fiancée on August 6th. Since I live in California, I had to submit to the USCIS office also in California. Unfortunately at the time, according to the USCIS website, USCIS Processing Times for California, California was the furthest behind. On August 6th, they were processing applications they received on March 22. Every couple of weeks, I would check the website, and I saw that the processing dates were moving in-step with actual time. Meaning, they would process two weeks worth of petitions in two weeks time. This meant my application would come up for processing around December 19.

A couple of weeks ago, they sent me a request for evidence asking me to submit application photos. Now, I know I already submitted them, but at the time I submitted them, I suspected that my fiancée's was not up to their requirements. Basically, I think she was turned to much to the side. Knowing this, when I submitted my application, I asked my fiancée to retake her application photo and send it to me, which she did.

So when I got the request for evidence, I kind of knew why they were doing it. But I should note that NOWHERE in the request did they say that the other photo was not valid. So it's possible that people would simply resend a second copy of the original photo, which would then get rejected. So be careful. But I digress.

On Monday, I looked at the USCIS processing times and noticed it had jumped ahead three months, from April to August. Then yesterday, when I looked on their site for my case, it stated my petition was approved on September 22. That is a total of 48 days. It may have been faster had I sent in a proper photo the first time.

So I guess my advice is, don't despair. I'm writing a blog keeping track of my experience with the USCIS and Embassy. When it is all done, I will post a link so people know exactly what to expect, at least they can see one person's experience.

Sorry about the subject. Should said "USCIS in California Makes Up Lost Time"

They want to see an ear (I think the right one) in the picture. A Terrorist or Criminal could change their face through plastic surgery, but they usually don't change their ears! The Dept. of Homeland Insecurity uses pattern recognition software to look at people's ears to see if they are bad guys in disguise.

Just hope that your girlfriend's ears don't happen to look like Osama Bin Ladin's .

They want to see an ear (I think the right one) in the picture. A Terrorist or Criminal could change their face through plastic surgery, but they usually don't change their ears! The Dept. of Homeland Insecurity uses pattern recognition software to look at people's ears to see if they are bad guys in disguise.

Just hope that your girlfriend's ears don't happen to look like Osama Bin Ladin's .

Actually, the original picture did show her ear just fine. But it did not show enough of her face in my opinion. It showed her right ear and both eyes, but I think her face was just turned a little bit too far to the left. So you could not get a good impression of the entire face.