Sep 2008 Visa Bulletin : Continued Availability for EB2 India / China
Posted Aug 22, 2008
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The September 2008 U.S. Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin was published August 13, 2008. The September Visa Bulletin continues to be favorable for persons from India and China with permanent residence (green card) cases in the employment-based, second preference (EB2) category. This category experienced significant forward movement under the August 2008 Visa Bulletin and has, again, moved forward to a new cutoff date of August 1, 2006 in the September 2008 Visa Bulletin. All other employment categories remain unchanged. The latest Visa Bulletin is always available on MurthyDotCom.
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Summary of Visa Bulletin
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Employment-Based, First Preference (EB1)
This category is current for all countries of chargeability.
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Employment-Based, Second Preference (EB2)
This category remains current for all countries of chargeability, with the exception of India and China. Fortunately, for individuals chargeable to India and China, the EB2 cutoff date moved forward by two months, to August 1, 2006. This is significant, as it follows last month's forward movement that was in excess of two years. This provides a continued opportunity for green card approval for many EB2 nationals from India and China with pending Applications for Adjustment of Status (I-485) or immigrant visa consular processing requests, if they have priority dates prior to August 1, 2006. This also provides a potential opportunity to those who have not filed their I-485s, if they are otherwise eligible and have priority dates prior to August 1, 2006.
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No explanation of this movement was provided. However, September is the last month of the 2008 USCIS fiscal year (FY). Any visa numbers not used during September, therefore, will be wasted. Accordingly, regulations permit certain visa numbers, that otherwise would go unused, to be shifted to the depleted EB2 India / China category.
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Employment-Based, Third Preference (EB3)
This category became unavailable in July 2008 for all countries of chargeability. This means that no more numbers will be available for the remainder of FY2008. The September Visa Bulletin indicates an expectation that the cutoff dates in EB3 will be reestablished in the October 2008 Visa Bulletin (which begins the FY2009), with the dates that had been available in June 2008. Due to ongoing heavy demand for the EB3 visa numbers, however, the date may have to be pushed back further than its previous cutoff. The expected cutoff date in EB3 category in the October Visa Bulletin cannot be determined at this time, and it is unclear whether the expectation that cutoff dates will be set further back than they were in June 2008 refers to all countries of chargeability in EB3.
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Employment-Based, Fourth / Fifth / Religious Workers, and Targeted Employment
The EB4, EB5 (investor), religious workers, and the targeted employment categories are all current.
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Conclusion
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The forward movement in EB2 is good news for those from India and China who are awaiting the I-485 approval. It provides one more month of possible action on the cases with current priority dates. As a practical matter, it is not likely that the USCIS will complete the I-485 processing for all EB2 cases that are current for the September Visa Bulletin. The EB2 movement also indicates that visa numbers are being shifted to EB2 India and China outside of the normal annual per-country limitation. It remains to be seen whether this shift has any noticeable impact on the cutoff dates (which are based upon demand for visa numbers) that will be set in FY2009.