On June 10, 2009 the Department of State (DOS) issued an update on the number of employment based visas that will be available for the remainder of the fiscal year. The government’s fiscal year runs from October 1, 2008 until September 30, 2009. Each fiscal year there are a total of 140,000 employment based immigrant visas available across five preference categories.

As the result of a recent surge in applications in the employment based fourth preference (EB-4) religious worker and employment based fifth preference (EB-5) immigrant investor categories a cut-off date could be established at the end of the year. Moreover, usage of the EB-4 and EB-5 categories impacts the entire pool of visa numbers, as past practice has been to transfer unused number in these categories to meet demand for visas in the employment based first (EB-1) and second preference (EB-2) categories. This is particularly significant for nationals from China and India, as it permitted cut-off dates to advance further than it would have been possible if these categories were subject to only their annual limits.

The long term implications of EB-4 and EB-5 usage are that EB-2 China and India applicants will likely experience even longer delays in obtaining permanent residence status than they currently do. Both India and China have an annual limit of 2,800 EB-2 numbers plus any leftover EB-4, EB-5 and EB-1 visa numbers. Therefore, without legislative relief, the waiting time for Chinese and Indian EB-2 applicants may be many years or even decades, according to DOS.

DOS has indicated the following figures for the remainder of fiscal year 2009 per category:

 EB-1 will remain current for the rest of the fiscal year. However, EB-1 applicants from China and India could be subject to cut-off in August or September if demand remains high.
 EB-2 India and China have 1/1/2000 cut-off dates for July 2009 and may become unavailable in August or September 2009.
 EB-3 worldwide will remain unavailable for the rest of the fiscal year. EB-3 cut-off dates for the next fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2009 will have cut-off dates from 3/1/2003, and EB-3 applicants can expect extended delays in this category.
 EB-3 visas for India, China and Mexico applicants will be unavailable for the remainder of the fiscal year. It is estimated, based on current demand for visa numbers that as of the 2010 fiscal year, the following cut-off dates could be established: China will be March 1, 2003; India will be November 1, 2001; and Mexico will be March 1, 2003.