Retrogression : Useful Information on MurthyDotCom!
Posted Sep 23, 2005
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The immigration world has been deeply impacted by the U.S. Department of State's release last week of the October 2005 Visa Bulletin. The October 2005 Visa Bulletin established cutoff dates in the EB1, EB2, and EB3 preference categories. Details and specifics can be found in our September 13, 2005 NewsFlash: October 2005 Visa Bulletin - Widespread Retrogression, available on MurthyDotCom. [Note that the most current Visa Bulletin is always available on MurthyDotCom.] At The Law Office of Sheela Murthy, we have been receiving many questions about this development. People who are completely unfamiliar are simply asking "what is this?" Others have more precise questions. We understand the need to grasp the implications of the concept of retrogression and visa unavailability. To meet this need, and to provide MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers with as much advance warning and analysis as possible, we have written twenty articles and NewsFlashes over the course of the past year on the possibility and the meaning of retrogression and visa cutoff dates. We direct our readers to those articles as a source of background and information on retrogression. All can be found listed among the NewsBriefs in our Green Card section of MurthyDotCom. Even those who read the articles at the time of their publication may benefit from rereading them, since ensuing changes in their situations may cause retrogression to impact them differently now.
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Some of the more novel questions we have received at The Law Office of Sheela Murthy pertain to the I-485. Below we summarize two such questions and our analysis in order to help you plan.
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Question 1. My I-485 is already pending or will be filed by the end of September 2005. If my case is filed before retrogression / cutoff dates are established in my category, do I need to worry about all of this? Is my case affected?
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Yes and yes. In order to file the I-485, there must be a currently available visa number. However, to obtain the I-485 approval there must also be a currently available visa number. Thus, those who have I-485s filed, or who will get them filed while the priority dates are available for their cases, still need to be concerned about retrogression and cutoff dates. The pending I-485 cases cannot be approved until the visa number becomes available sometime in the future. People with these cases will be able to wait this out and obtain employment authorization document extensions and advance parole extensions year after year. Their green cards will await the availability of the visa number in the particular visa category, however.
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Question 2. My I-485 is pending but, as of October 1, 2005, the priority date will be unavailable. Can the USCIS deny my case on this basis? Can they tell me to re-file it once the visa numbers are available?
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No. The pending I-485 case generally will remain pending until the visa number becomes available. The I-485 potentially can always be denied for some reason unrelated to visa numbers and retrogression. The lack of the visa number for a pending case, however, does not create the basis for a denial.
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We at The Law Office of Sheela Murthy will continue to address this important subject for MurthyDotCom and MurthyBulletin readers to provide continuing updates and insight on this topic that is critical to many.
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