F2A retrogression to Oct 2017 in Aug 2023 visa bulletin

Did anyone here got family members who got affected by this huge retrogression in the F2A visa category?

It is a huge setback in terms of time. We submitted my husband's I-130, I-485, and I-131 back in January 2021. It was all current then, and remained current for more than a years, just in the recent months it started to "retrogress" by a few months, finally this month it retrogressed years! All the way back to Oct 2017 for all countries

More than 1.5 year after submitting everything not even his travel permit has gotten processed, we submitted an inquiry and they came back saying that basically they have too much work. Even if the I-130 gets approved now, they have just added so many years to the wait period for a visa. We thought he was finally so close.

This is just another case (of course, doe not compare to what we have gone through and many are still going through with DACA) where one can never rely on anything on our current immigration system.

I can understand the frustration. I am waiting for F2B final action date to move. It's been about two years since it has moved, and my PD is about 1.5 years from the latest final action date. At least I have received my combo card - about 10 months after filing AOS, and I can continue to renew it while I wait.

How long until you can naturalize?

about 3.5 years. I was issued the PR in 12/6/2021 (though i got the physical card about 60 days later). I would be 5 years in Dec 2026. My understanding is I would be able to send my application around September 2026, 90 days before the exact 5 years mark. Then wait for that to be processed, whatever the wait/processing period is at that time.

I hope they don't move that final action date too much for you. It is so hard to tell how all these processing times for all of our different applications will change.

Waiting on i130 approval. PD is March 2023... dates still look the same for India. Hasn't moved in months.

Assuming i-130 approval, it would still take roughly 8-10 years. I will be roughly 45 years old... that's a grim look.

Well here's hoping that this is just overflow from the pandemic, they over-issued the visas, and had to go full on into rationing to not go over the cap.

This has happened a few times, September being outright unavailable and then October moving forward by years.

You are right. There is still hope that there is some type of catch up. Thank you for actually mentioning that. I was not aware that there is a chance in October for timings to improve, of course it can get worst, but I would like to think I will get better, fingers crossed.