Quite a few people have received correspondence from visa offices in response to their queries saying that over twice the volume of Feb2008 to June2010 applications (around 425,000) was received than expected, and therefore it could be 2 years or more before some of these are processed. This isn't just a baseless rumour - many people have posted the actual message from visa office. Although it's been kicking around for many months now so it isn't exactly "breaking news" either
But please consider this will not be for all applicants and some will get visas faster than 2 years. With the current 14,000 >J2010 applicants and the maximum 10,000 >J2011 applicants (plus a few FSW2s in the mix) - that's probably around 25,000 total visas for all FSW1 after June2010, so there will be a lot more visa target allocations available than there are >J2010 and >J2011 applicants. These visas will be able to go to Feb2008-June2010 and pre-Feb-2008 FSW applicants. They won't be able to clear the entire backlog this year, but hopefully they will be able to make a serious dent in it.
Seems logical..... but will the Visa processing of Pre June 2010 applicants (to be done in 2011 quota), depend upon the catagory or randomly chosen ones by the immigration officers.... I meant to say that what will be the allocation criteria, if PRe June 10 applicants are processed this year?.....
Wayne.