After June/July Visa bulletin fiasco we have seen two times December , January bulletins retrogress India Employment Second preference to far cut-off date which clearly indicates demand for EB2 numbers by USCIS for (AOS)adjustment of status cases has remained extremely high in recent months . Recent bulletin (FEBRUARY 2008) released yesterday reflected this big drop making India EB2 category as "Unavailable" where as EB3 category retrogressed to 08MAY01 - Which means EB3 for India is now more current than EB2. Remind you that this is just start of the fiscal year for visa numbers and this demand proves to be very costly for Indian applicants as they have to wait no one knows (even USCIS too) when they will become current.

Why did EB2 become unavailable in February Bulletin?

This is expected as January 2008 bulletin gave good signs of this prediction - EB2 for India is retrogressed by 2 years to January 2000 & EB2 remains unchanged to 01 May 2001. EB2 approval needs Master's degree or 5 years experience and we already know I140 is the stage with the most scrutiny since I485 is only adjustment of status. One probable reason for unavailability is that employers hurried up to use LC substitution as USCIS announced that they no more be accepting LC substitutions. Sure as to every one guess that these I140s will have issues. I140 processing times are more and against to guidelines probably the dates are made unavailable.

Other obvious reason needless to say is mass filing that happened in June/July ' 2007 which used years worth of visa numbers.

Unless visa numbers quota is increased I believe the same story continues and priority dates may take years and years to become current.

All the best for those who are waiting for dates to become current.

Labels: eb-2, green card, Immigration, India, priority dates

Back to old story again and all rumors of how long priority dates will be current came to an end with USCIS latest press release. Now all dates have retrogressed and became unavailable for employment based categories.This means we cannot file I485 and get EAD now.Since bulletin comes in June middle looks like USCIS miscalculated the visa numbers usage for June.All visa numbers for this fiscal year looks like been used.

The hopes created with this USCIS making all numbers current drama for July literally played fool false hope game with many immigrant lives.Think of this how many of us spent numerous dollars for this drama.Who benefited from all of this - a) Immigration Lawyers. b) USCIS nominated doctors for medical exams. c) Air line industry and d) documentation businesses.

a) Immigration Lawyers - Upon receiving this news many lawyers recruited temps to quickly file I485 applications and charged that overhead costs burden on the applicant (or for some the sponsoring employers bearing all GC cost usually pay the lawyers fees). As applicants now are struck in dilemma of what happens whether their lawyers re-charge them again when numbers are available.Of their no fault immigration lawyers benefited because of USCIS

b) USCIS nominated doctors for medical exams - Medicals for I485 created huge crowds at the doctors offices to get medicals done on time in order to take use of July bulletin news. These doctors charged anywhere between 250 $ and 400$ for these medicals from applicants.



c) Air line industry - One may wonder how come air line industry banked from this fiasco.Here are genuine cases.During summer usually July time frame many Indians go for a vacation. All travel plans either shortened the vacation or canceling the vacation resulting in penalties.My case I lost $1500 for my advancement of tickets to an earlier date because of demand for the seats as airlines are booked for student travels heavily this time during the year.

d)Documentation businesses - I don't know how many trips I made to copy/scan center to put the documents together for I485.Some lawyers just demanded scanned copies instead of fax to avoid any delays.Extra miscellaneous expenses for the applicant.

If you have any additional miseries to share - please do so via comments.

Thank You USCIS for all this :(


Press release says

The sudden backlog reduction efforts by Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices during the past month have resulted in the use of almost 60,000 Employment numbers. As a result of this unexpected action it has been necessary to make immediate adjustments to several previously announced cut-off dates. All Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices have been notified of the following:

Effective Monday July 2, 2007 there will be no further authorizations in response to requests for Employment-based preference cases. All numbers available to these categories under the FY-2007 annual numerical limitation have been made available.

Employment preference numbers will once again be available to these chargeability areas beginning October 1, 2007, under the FY-2008 annual numerical limitation.

Department of State Publication 9514
CA/VO: July 2, 2007

Labels: green card, Immigration, priority dates, retrogression, visa bulletin, VisaNumbers

Update: Click me for Green Card Drama: Visa numbers are unavailable again

WOW still can't believe they have become current ...indeed a real good day for immigrants who are in Green Card process retrogression.

This news is significant and all those who are effected with retrogression should start rejoicing as the wait is over for all applicants who are waiting to file I485 for EAD.

Please check July Visa Bulletin.

All our H1-B and travel hassels will end once we get EAD.My guess is we get probably EAD fast but GC might take a bit longer who cares ...

Get your documents ready do it as soon as possible before things change ..my guess as monthly bulletins we have one month time to do apply.Come August who knows what the bulletin looks like.

Here is the immihelp documents link for I485/EAD/AOS


I'll post all the updates here ..check back soon

Labels: eb-2, eb-3, GreenCard, Immigration, priority dates, retrogression, visa bulletin, VisaNumbers

Update : Priority dates have become current.Please check the July visa bulletin

Yesterday was in deed a real good day for immigrants who is in Green Card process as long-awaited priority dates movement appeared in US Department of State's current Visa bulletin for June 07.

This is what happened for India applicants : EB-2: Jumped from 01/08/03 to 04/01/2004 , EB-3 From 08/01/2002 to 06/01/2003 and Other Workers from Unavailable to 10/01/2001.

This news is significant and all those who are effected with retrogression should start rejoicing as the wait is over for some people (with priority dates less than what was mentioned in bulletin) who are waiting to file I485 for EAD.

For others too this is a good news if we see the same pace in the numbers movement then there is a high chance that priority dates may become current.

Please check June Visa Bulletin and see for your case if retrogression is over for you.

Labels: eb-2, eb-3, GreenCard, Immigration, priority dates, retrogression, visa bulletin, VisaNumbers