Sometimes, being a little off is not a bad thing.

Last month, we held to our prediction that EB-2 dates for China and India would advance to late 2006, perhaps January 2007, before this September. While technically correct, the State Department yesterday released its July 2011 Visa Bulletin indicating a much steeper acceleration: the India/China cutoff date has leapt to March 8, 2007 (up from this month’s October 15, 2006 date).

Another surprise found in next month’s bulletin is that the date for EB-3 Other Workers has advanced from November 8, 2003 to November 22, 2004. Recent Visa Bulletins offered no indication that such a major leap was coming. For those who remember, around this time two years ago all EB-3 advancement came to a standstill.

For the past two Bulletins, the State Department has offered some commentary explaining the acceleration in EB-2 China/India categories by attributing advancement to unused EB-1 allocation. In the May 2011 Bulletin, the State Department predicted that because increasing amounts of Chinese/Indian EB-3 applicants have been “upgrading” to EB-2, less than a month’s advancement was to be expected for either country through July. Clearly, the dates have been advancing at a much faster rate. This month’s bulletin offers no commentary explaining the sudden acceleration or predictions for future cut-off dates through the summer.

Although some may optimistically argue that the movement for China/India EB-2 is beginning to form a pattern, it is not certain whether this acceleration in priority dates will be sustained or whether dates will retrogress in the coming months. Stay tuned.