CEAC data August 1

Over the last week or so I have been checking daily (sometimes hourly) for the “in Transit” update in CEAC for the September interviews. I normally like to publish the in Transit update to show how many interviews are being scheduled within a given month. As of Friday evening (July 31) no update had happened, so I started extracting the data for the 5 regions. I set the final extraction (EU) running before bedtime on Friday – expecting it would be finished during the early hours. When I checked it on Saturday morning, I saw that the global in Transit update had happened while my extraction was running! So – I did the whole extraction again!

So – the file attached shows the “in Transit” rows (very accurate because almost no embassies would have accepted these cases yet – some exceptions below). It also shows the issued numbers and the progress for the month of July.

So – some observations about the data.

It was a big month for issued cases – over 5600. Some of that activity is probably due to “catch up” from cases not updated during the June technical glitch. However, I am aware of suite a number of people whose status updates from that time are still not correctly reflected in CEAC. So – I still think the issued number (36.5k globally) is somewhat understated.

Africa has progressed well, but I suspect we are missing hundreds of approved visas, or at least cases that have cleared AP, but are waiting to have visas allocated. In order to hit the quota, AF is going to have to have two busy months. As for in Transits, the number shows as 1784 in transit cases, and there are an additional 78 cases updated to ready status by KHT (Khartoum). So – there were 1862 September interviews scheduled for AF region. I had hoped for more interviews, but I know that there were a number of interviews for August rescheduled, so this has taken some of the September capacity. Additionally the backlog took well over 600 of the 1862 interview slots. It is disappointing that so late in the game there were still people who hadn’t submitted their DS260 forms – despite having over a year to have done so. So – given this data it is clear that the low final cutoff was a combination of embassy capacity, backlog cases and the reluctance by KCC to allow for the no shows that are surely happening. For this reason the quota for AF will only be reached by clearing AP cases. This is good news for those people of course, and some cases that would otherwise clear AP and be left without visa slots will find themselves happy this September.

Europe also had another strong month of issuances, despite July being a relatively low month for interviews in EU region. At 15272 the issued number is showing that this will be the highest EU issued number for years – validating the increase in quota I wrote about several months ago. The issued progress is also exactly as I have been predicting for some months. In terms of In transit cases, the EU number is relatively low for EU. No embassies accepted the in Transit cases yet – so the 894 is an accurate number for in Transit cases. 224 of those interviews are from backlog – better than Africa, but still somewhat frustrating.   I think we will see August end on around 17500 visas issued in EU. They are without a doubt going to use every last visa by the end of September. That does mean that AP clearing cases in September could have a problem getting visas allocated since the regional quota will be achieved.

Asia has had a particularly large number this month – 936 issued. Whilst some of that could be from the June glitch, it seems clear that the Iranian AP cases are clearing through also. I expect another fast paced month in August. The in Transit cases are obviously low for AS region due to the static VB. I remains to be seen whether the quota will be achieved or not. As I have been saying for months, Iran AP is the key to the region. With just over 2 months to go, KDU (Nepal) shows 2955 issued visas. The Iranian number is usually stated as the AS cases at ABD, ANK, and YRV embassies – that number for issued cases is now 1807. That is an increase of 430 this month. This suggests that Iran could indeed be heading for a 3000 year.

South America is sitting on 1096 issued visas, an increase of 201 visas for the month. They will see a final number pretty close to the 1400 predicted quota – and it is becoming clear why the final VB did not move. Seems like a lot of late activity has been taking place.

Oceana as we know had a nice increase for the final VB. This gave 71 in Transit cases – one of the busiest months of the year. Again, it is clear OC will get above 800. Remember OC has high percentage of AoS cases that don’t show in CEAC, so the final CEAC number may only be around 700.

For those that like to do their own analysis of the data the file is here.

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CEAC data August 1