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Posts Tagged ‘immigrant visa numbers’
Saturday, December 17th, 2011
Two weeks ago, I reported on a bill that passed the House of Representatives and would have helped addressed the severe delays faced by natives of India and China in the employment-based second and third preference visa categories (EB-2 and EB-3).
Yesterday, Senator Grassley, R-IA, informed the Senate that he was placing a “hold” on the Senate’s consideration of HR-3012. Such a hold greatly complicates the ability of the Senate to pass the bill, as it is a warning that the Senator would filibuster the bill if it came to the floor.
You can read my thoughts on the bigger picture at AILA’s Leadership Blog, but it’s enough to note that for now, the bill is effectively dead unless other Senators can convince Senator Grassley to remove his hold.
Tags: EB-2, Green Cards, immigrant visa numbers
Posted in Green Cards, News & Politics | Click Here To Comment »
Thursday, June 9th, 2011
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).
| Employment- Based |
All Charge-ability Areas Except Those Listed |
CHINA- mainland born |
INDIA |
MEXICO |
PHILIPPINES |
| 1st |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
| 2nd |
C |
08MAR07 |
08MAR07 |
C |
C |
| 3rd |
08OCT05 |
01JUL04 |
01MAY02 |
01JUL05 |
08OCT05 |
| Other Workers |
22NOV04 |
22APR03 |
01MAY02 |
22NOV04 |
22NOV04 |
| 4th |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
| Certain Religious Workers |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
5th
Targeted Employment Areas/ Regional Centers and Pilot Programs |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
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.
Tags: Agency Updates, EB-2, immigrant visa numbers
Posted in Agency Updates, Green Cards | Click Here To Comment »
Thursday, May 12th, 2011
The State Department has released its June 2011 Visa Bulletin. As was the case last month, we again see a significant advance on EB-2 priority dates for China and India.
Employment-
Based |
All Chargeability Areas Except Those Listed |
CHINA-
mainland born |
INDIA |
MEXICO |
PHILIPPINES |
| 1st |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
| 2nd |
C |
15OCT06 |
15OCT06 |
C |
C |
| 3rd |
15SEP05 |
15MAY04 |
22APR02 |
22DEC04 |
15SEP05 |
| Other Workers |
08NOV03 |
22APR03 |
22APR02 |
08NOV03 |
08NOV03 |
| 4th |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
| Certain Religious Workers |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
5th
Targeted Employment Areas/ Regional Centers and Pilot Programs |
C |
C |
C |
C |
C |
Whether this acceleration in priority dates will be sustained in the coming months remains to be seen. The State Department explains that there is an increased demand by applicants “upgrading” their category from EB-3 to EB-2, which could potentially stymie the advancement of EB-2 priority dates. Nonetheless, the impact of this increased EB-2 demand has so far been minimal. The State Department cautions that priority date cut-offs for upcoming months cannot be guaranteed and therefore no assumptions should be made. At this time, we make no changes to our prediction that decreased EB-1 applications and approval rates should advance Chinese and Indian EB-2 priority dates to late 2006, and perhaps to January 2007, by September of 2011.
Tags: Agency Updates, Green Cards, immigrant visa numbers
Posted in Agency Updates, Green Cards | Click Here To Comment »
Friday, April 1st, 2011
While the USCIS numbers of pending I-485 make me relatively pessimistic on movement for India and China EB-2, the State Department’s internal case management staff are feeling more optimistic. In fact, we are seeing the National Visa Center issue fee bills for EB-2 India immigrant visa files with priority dates as late as November 2007, which would seem to indicate that NVC, at least, thinks the visa numbers will move at least that far ahead this year.
A caveat against reading too much into the NVC action: recall that it was imperfect information-sharing between USCIS and the State Department that led to the July 2007 “Visagate” debacle, and NVC likely has a small minority of the overall number of visa petitions with India and China EB priority dates in 2006 and early 2007, since so many of those beneficiaries could file for adjustment of status in July of 2007.
It’s also possible that NVC is simply trying to get cases set up with fees paid and documents submitted in case the numbers stay current for the rest of the fiscal year – but applicants would lose their filing fees if the numbers retrogress later this year.
We will have to wait for the May Visa Bulletin from the State Department, likely released by April 13 or so, for more detailed information on the State Department’s thinking.
Tags: EB-2, Green Cards, immigrant visa numbers
Posted in Agency Updates, Green Cards, Hot Questions | Click Here To Comment »
Thursday, December 17th, 2009
The Department of State issued its January 2010 Visa Bulletin. The new visa bulletin reveals little movement across employment-based immigration categories. The employment-based first preference (EB-1) category will remain current for all nationalities. Cut-off dates in the EB-2 category will remain stalled at January 22, 2005 for India, while they will advance slightly for China (May 1, 2005). The EB-2 category will remain current for all other countries.
The Eb-3 category cutoff for skilled workers is June 22, 2001 for India and July 1, 2002 for Mexico. The cutoff for China, Philippines, and all other countries is August 1, 2002. The cutoff for Eb-3 unskilled workers is June 1, 2001.
The January 2010 Visa Bulletin also contains the first projection of what priority dates are likely to become currently during this fiscal year, which is of great interest to adjustment of status applicants with long-pending applications. The Visa Bulletin predicts, based on current indications of demand, the best case scenarios for cut-off dates which will be reached by the end of FY-2010 (that is, by September 30, 2010) are as follows:
Eb-2:
China: July through October 2005
India: February through early March 2005
Eb-3:
Worldwide: April through August 2005
China: June through September 2003
India: January through February 2002
Mexico: January through June 2004
Philippines: April through August 2005
The Dept. of State advises that the above date ranges are only estimates which are subject to fluctuations in demand during the coming months. The actual future cut-off dates cannot be guaranteed, and it is possible that some annual limits could be reached prior to the end of the fiscal year.
Tags: Green Cards, immigrant visa numbers
Posted in Green Cards | 1 Comment »
Friday, September 18th, 2009
The Department of State has issued the visa bulletin for the new fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2009. As predicted, retrogression in many categories continues with some dates being pushed back even further than they were before numbers became unavailable earlier this year. Last year, we explained why the Department of State keeps priority dates early at the beginning of the fiscal year and then advances them later in the year.
The employment based first preference (EB-1) category will remain current for all nationalities. Cut-off dates in the EB-2 category will advance by two weeks for India, to January 22, 2005, and just over 2 months for China, to March 22, 2005. The EB-2 category will remain current for all other countries.
The EB-3 category remains severely backlogged but will once again be available with cut-off dates of June 1, 2002, and even earlier dates for Indian (April 15, 2001), Chinese (February 22, 2002) and Mexican (May 1, 2002) nationals. The cut-off dates for the EB-3 other worker category have been set at June 1, 2001 except for Indian nationals who will have a cut-off date of April 15, 2001.
The EB-4 religious worker category and the EB-5 immigrant investor categories also remain current. While these pilot programs are set to sunset on September 30, 2009, it is expected that Congress will extend them for an additional period of time.
Tags: Green Cards, Greencard, immigrant visa numbers, Visa Retrogression
Posted in Green Cards | Click Here To Comment »
Monday, August 31st, 2009
Employers who rely on foreign nationals to provide needed expertise in their workforce – from technical programmers to biochemists to wind turbine engineers – should take notice of three troubling trends which are becoming clearer as the discussion about employment-based immigration reform gets drowned out by the ongoing debate about comprehensive immigration reform.
The first trend is captured in this blog post by Vivek Wadhwa, a professor at Duke University who has studied high-tech entrepreneurship extensively. Current backlogs in the employment-based immigration categories trap foreign workers in the original job for which they were sponsored, meaning their companies cannot promote them to positions where their experience and skills can best be used. Nor can the workers take the initiative to start their own companies – while a small company may be able to sponsor one of its owners as an H-1B, a green card is much less likely in that situation. Wadhwa points out that eliminating the green card backlog (a major part of which consists of cases trapped by bureaucratic delays that should have been approved in past years’ quotas, which do not carry over from year to year) would free an enormous amount of human capital to innovate and create the next generation of companies that will drive economic growth in the US. (more…)
Tags: CIR, immigrant visa numbers
Posted in Green Cards, News & Politics | Click Here To Comment »
Thursday, April 9th, 2009
Yesterday, the Department of State issued its May Visa Bulletin. The surprising news was that USCIS has managed to use up all of the visa numbers available in the EB-3 category (professional, skilled and other workers) by granting adjustment of status cases, so that they will have to suspend processing of pending EB-3 cases until October. (For a more complete explanation of priority dates and how they work, see our Client Alert.)
Fortunately, there is no hint that worldwide first preference, or second preference (except India and China), will become backlogged or run out this year. More on the EB-3 unavailability after the jump. (more…)
Tags: Green Cards, immigrant visa numbers
Posted in Green Cards | Click Here To Comment »
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