NOBODY knows exactly who the father of the word “dedma” is. All we know (from Google or Bing search, even ChatGPT) is what the meaning of “dedma” is.

The word is the offspring of the marriage of two English and Filipino words: “dead” and “malisya,” which grew up to be the Tagalized “patay malisya” — in English literally “dead malice,” or pretending not to know of something, someone or some event.

To be dedma is to feign unawareness, pretend not to know that something is amiss.

Victor is one of the 408,456 immigrant visa applicants waiting for his embassy interview date as of last month.

He cannot pretend not to know this fact since he monitors the monthly backlog report from the National Visa Center (NVC)

Also, until yesterday, Victor had been monitoring the visa interview dates and consular processing reports at the US embassy in Manila because the embassy’s operations, including visa scheduling, is directly related to the NVC backlog.

He had also been receiving at least 10 advance notices of a potential interview appointment in the next 60 to 120 days.

Victor was hoping the numbers would have been less than the previous report. The December 2022 backlog from NVC was 377,953.

Why was the January 2023 total more than that reported in December. The remaining documentarily qualified (DQ) visa applicants in December was 377,953.

The January 2023 report shows 36,372 DQ applicants were scheduled for interviews so the December balance should have been 341,581.

Instead, the January starting balance was 444,828.

“What the heck happened?” Victor, an F1 visa applicant, asks himself.

“Where did all these new immigrant visa applicants come from?”

1st source: From USCIS to NVC

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) receives an average of 3,700 petitions from US citizens and lawful permanent residents (LPRs). That translates to 111,000 petitions a month.

When petitions are approved, the USCIS forwards the files to the NVC where they are either processed immediately or archived until the priority date of individual petitions become current.

Assuming an 80 percent approval rate, that would be 88,800 approved petitions that are added to the immigrant visa waiting list, especially immigrant visa applicants who either a) could start processing their visa applications online; or b) are in the process of completing their cases with NVC’s Consular Electronic Application Center (CEAC).

2nd source: NVC visa applications in process

Petitions of US citizens for the spouse, minor children and parents are forwarded to NVC immediately after approval. NVC then sends a case creation letter to the beneficiary (spouse, minor child or parent).

These applicants are defined as “immediate relatives” of US citizens not subject to quota or annual limits.

The law — Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) — that enables these petitions to be exempt from the yearly quota contains the provision that allows them to be processed ahead of the visa pack — those in the family-preference categories.

Section 201 of the INA sets an annual minimum family-sponsored preference limit of 226,000. The worldwide level for annual employment-based preference immigrants is at least 140,000.

Section 202 sets a per-country limit for family-preference immigrants to ensure that not one country grabs most of the 226,000 visa allocation.

The total annual family-sponsored and employment-based preference limit is 7 percent, or 25,620. This per country total is then further subdivided among and allotted among the various family-preference categories.

Essentially, an F1 applicant in a family-preference category from the Philippines is not only competing with other F1 kababayan applicants, but also with other F1 applicants from the other countries.

The same nature of competition exists in each preference category.

When the F1 visa allocation from the Philippines is used up (based on the prorated quota worldwide), the F1 visa applicants