asynchronous - Does Jquery append() behave asynchronously?

Question

I've seen a number of posts (append supposedly immediate) with conflicting accepted answers on this. We're using JQuery 1.4 (http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/jquery-ui.min.js) and append() seems to be asynchronous, such that:

Edited to show code in context of AJAX callback

 ...
 var message = $.ajax({
   type: "GET",
   url: "/getVolumes/" +  _Id,
   async: false 
 }).responseText;
 if (parseInt(message) != 0){
   var $results = $(message);
   $MAIN_DIV.append($results);
   retrieveTargets();
 }
...    
function retrieveTargets(){
  var $targets = $(".resultTargets");
}

Executes and creates the page as expected, yet the targets query yields nothing at runtime. Running the same code in the JS console retrieves the elements as expected.

If this is the expected behavior in JQuery what's the proper way to wait until append is finished?

Answer 1

All of the comments helped track this down. I was following a red herring in the console. The problem wasn't with synchronicity, it was with the next lines:

$targets.each( function(){
  ...
  this.html();
  ...

Needed to be

$(this).html();

In short, everyone was correct. Jquery append() behaves synchronously.