It is going by Nationality of the Principal applicant. Some people are getting processed faster while others are left in the dark with no updates at all!
People will get mad at you for this observation. Tread lightly. They say that there are more Indian submissions overall therefore it looks that way here. Or they'll tell you that maybe the amount of people who find this forum seems to be of that decent over any other. Either way 'It's completely random and we should ignore what or eyes are telling our brains.
Either way we will all get that Golden ticket sooner or later.
First, I agree it's
appalling that they seem to have just decided to proceed with first-stage processing (eg AOR1) for more recent months without a far more serious effort to clear the backlog of files going back to March.
Second,
after the AOR, some nationalities definitely ARE processed faster. Security issues, military service, history/likelihood of fraud from some countries, types of relationships, information sharing with home country, etc all vary considerably.
But: I've outlined many times that it's easy to perceive patterns of favouritism by nationality because of things like eg how many applicants from some countries apply and are active in this forum (Indians are a large percentage of immigration, more likely to be outland, language affects who participates here, etc). Esp when there is only partial data at the beginning of the process.
And when I've looked at the spreadsheet and other info for AOR process, I don't see anything obvious.
What I do see is: it
seems they are 'discriminating' on the basis of what month applications were received. For whatever reason - more likely some internal processing / operational issues, perhaps management decisions about how to deal with the backlog (eg just call 2020 an
annus horribilus and try to start over with apps beginning in Nov/Dec.)
I'm not defending that. While I don't think they have to abide by a strict first-in/first-out approach, it's utterly appalling to leave applicants from eg March-September hanging in limbo.
But I
don't see clear indications this is based on nationality at the AOR1 stage.
And yes, I'm one of those who doesn't like the implication and think the bar for making such a claim should be fairly high. "I heard a rumour" is NOT a good basis to make that claim.
