Category: DOS

Charlie Oppenheim has released some more information on how he sees immigrant visa usage heading this year.

Overall his  predictions are largely positive, with forward movement predicted in most categories.  However, it should be noted that the new USCIS policy requiring transfer of employment-based I-485s to field offices for interview is expected to increase volatility in final action date movement in employment-based categories. These categories may actually see faster advancement of certain final action dates in the near term because fewer cases will be adjudicated, though once the transition is complete and the USCIS adjudications process has stabilized, there may be slower movement or retrogression in certain categories depending on usage.

In addition, if there are delayed adjudications, this would  mean less visibility in demand for the State Department, which may result in more rapid forward movement (if Charlie does not know of pending cases, or projected usage, he cannot account for it in setting dates in the visa bulletin). The timeliness of the sharing of demand data by USCIS may also be impacted, as data will need to be pulled from multiple offices, as opposed to a more centralized approach to adjudications and data collection in the past.

The total number of visas used by USCIS as a whole during this fiscal year (or, at least, the first quarter of the fiscal year (October through December, 2017)) has decreased by several thousand as compared to FY2017. Charlie plans to advance categories as needed to generate sufficient demand to ensure usage of all available visa numbers, while trying not to do so too rapidly to avoid retrogression or unavailability.

In terms of specific categories:

Employment-Based Categories

EB-1 India and EB-1 China:  The imposition of a final action date for EB-1 China and EB-1 India in July/August/September of 2017, created pent up demand which was largely adjudicated in October, November and December of 2017. However, so far, this fiscal year, EB-1 India and EB-1 China have already used 7,000 and 4,500 visa numbers, respectively. Charlie expects these categories to remain current for the coming months, but the imposition of a final action date in the summer remains likely if the current rate of demand continues. This could, however, be delayed if the transition of I-485s to USCIS Field Offices results in slowed processing of EB-1 China and EB-1 India cases in the coming months.

EB-2 Worldwide: This category should remain current for the foreseeable future.

EB-2 and EB-3 China:  As stated in my last post, EB-2 China will advance just under two months to October 1, 2013, and EB-3 China will advance five months to September 15, 2014 in the February Visa Bulletin. According to Charlie this category will continue to  advance at a rate of two to three months each bulletin, and may progress at a faster pace to generate demand. EB-3 China is predicted to advance at a pace of “(u)p to five months.” Charlie advised that EB-3 China will likely continue to advance at a faster pace than EB-2 China.

However, this may “flip” around, and EB-2 China may start progressing at. Faster rate.   It is unclear whether this “flip” will occur in FY18 due to a combination of factors, including the availability of otherwise unused family-based preference numbers for China, and uncertainty as to how the transfer of employment-based I-485s to USCIS Field Offices will impact the speed of adjudications and the processing of upgrade and downgrade requests.

EB-2 India:  Again, as stated in my previous post, EB-2 India will advance by less than one month in February from November 22, 2008, to December 8, 2008. Given heavy demand, the February Visa Bulletin predicts modest forward movement for EB-2 India at a rate of “(u)p to two weeks.”

EB-3 India:  The final action date for EB-3 India will advance one month to December 1, 2006. The February Visa Bulletin predicts forward movement in this category at a pace of one to three months. Once the final action date advances beyond August 2007, Charlie will have very little visibility into demand. Once this occurs, there is the potential for rapid movement of the EB-3 India final action date to generate new demand. This may happen either late this fiscal year (August or September of this year) or next fiscal year.

EB-3 Philippines:  This category will advance two weeks to March 1, 2016, in February. Demand in this category is comfortable, but not extremely high, which means there is less room to advance this date significantly. Charlie is watching this category closely since there have been spikes in demand, and he does not want to advance the final action date too quickly to avoid future retrogression. At this time, demand in this category is heavily weighted toward consular processing, but it is expected that USCIS filings could increase significantly in the coming months.

Family Based Categories

Final action date movement tends to be less erratic and more predictable in the family-based categories since Charlie has greater visibility into demand patterns based on the fact that these cases are primarily adjudicated at consular posts rather than domestically by USCIS. Charlie predicts FB-1 Worldwide advancing at a pace of up to one month, FB-2A Worldwide advancing three to five weeks, FB-3 Worldwide advancing up to five weeks, and FB-4 worldwide advancing up to three weeks.

FB-1 Philippines and FB-2B Philippines, which had retrogressed in December, will advance seven months and 21 days in February, respectively. Charlie will continue to monitor demand carefully in these categories over the next several months. Recent volatility is attributable to the lack of visibility of rescheduled appointments made by applicants through the Department of State’s Global Support System (GSS). Charlie is working closely with the post in Manila to obtain more accurate demand data, and he hopes that as a result, these dates will slowly advance and recover.

Please remember, as always, this blog does not offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, consult with a lawyer instead of a blog. Thank you.