The latest extract of the CEAC data produced an interesting finding. This year (and last year) the script that produced the csv file would occasionally misalign the columns of data for a row of data, adding an extra column. It was rare and was affecting about 5 rows globally up to the most recent file – so I adjusted the alignment manually and never bothered to look into what was the cause.
Then on the final DV2015 extract I got hundreds of misaligned rows. The fix is to delete a field and move the columns for that one row but for hundreds of columns I did not want to do that manually. So – I looked into it more carefully. Here is what the data shows for an example case 2015AS221. Up until a few days ago that case had three family members listed in the lower section, the principal derivative number 01, and then two family members 02 and 03. Now, that case has had the 01 (principal) winner removed. It seems that winner was disqualified. The derivatives are still on the case but could not be issued of course.
deletedceacrow
There are quite a number of these cases that have suddenly appeared.
290 in Africa
564 in Europe
98 in Asia
12 in South America
45 in Oceana
Now – those are only the case that have had the principal removed but family members remain in the system. There must also be some cases where there were no family members – and those cases would be missing from CEAC. Checking that I found that the number of cases removed within the last two weeks (including those above) are:-
AF – 573
EU – 1049
AS – 154
SA – 26
OC – 100
That is a lot of cases – and of course all the family members would be ineligible to process their cases once the principal was deleted.
OK – so what does this mean. Well we know that many selectees are disqualified prior to the winners being notified. This would mainly be entries that the KCC systems had identified as fraudulent – usually for multiple entries. Those cases appear as “holes” or gaps between the numbers. THESE cases were notified, submitted their DS260 and were even scheduled. At some point they were removed, and the nature of the sudden mass update (across many embassies) tells me that KCC were involved in the deletion of these cases. So – that suggests that something happened to disqualify these cases rather than “refuse” them at the interview. To me that suggests multiple entry disqualifications, but that is just speculation on my part.    I’d be happy to hear other theories on what could be the reason – or hear from anyone that is in this scenario and wants to honestly discuss it.
I’ll be publishing the final CEAC data this afternoon and over the next few days I will publish analysis of that data and start talking about applying that information to 2016 to try and draw some conclusions.