Friday, December 9, 2011

January 2012 Visa Bulletin and analysis

January 2012 Visa Bulletin was released today and the priority dates are 01 JAN 09 for EB2 India and 08 AUG 02 for EB3 India. For China, the numbers are 01 JAN 09 for EB2 and 15 OCT 04 for EB3.

EB2 India moved from 15 MAR 08 in December Visa Bulletin to 01 JAN 09 in January Visa Bulletin. The EB3 India has moved 7 days compared to last visa bulletin.

EB2 India movement is a good news for all the folks whose priority date is in 2008. It has moved 9.5 months, covering the whole of 2008. Given this type of movement, retrogression at some point in this fiscal year is absolutely necessary. They say this in the visa bulletin link given below,

"D. CHINA-MAINLAND BORN AND INDIA EMPLOYMENT-BASED SECOND PREFERENCE VISA AVAILABILITY IN THE COMING MONTHS

The China and India Employment Second preference cut-off date has been advanced at a rapid rate in recent months. As previously noted, this action was intended to generate significant levels of new filings for adjustment of status at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) offices. USCIS has reported that the rate of new filings is currently far below that which they had anticipated, prompting an even more aggressive movement of the cut-off date for January and possibly beyond. While this action greatly increases the potential for an eventual retrogression of the cut-off at some point during the year, it also provides the best opportunity to utilize all numbers available under the annual limit. "

The demand numbers for this month is not released yet. So, for EB2 India, we do not know the actual numbers. But, it is very surprising that USCIS is moving the dates at this speed and they say, they don't have enough applications to meet the fiscal year quota needs. On an average, there are about 2500 applications each month for EB2 India, after 15 APR 07 (the last date on sept 2011 visa bulletin). The 20 months movement for this Fiscal Year which started from Oct 2011 visa bulletin will give USCIS about 50000 applications. Given that for last few years, USCIS have been giving about 20000 green cards for EB2 India, 50K should be a very good number, unless USCIS wants to keep a very large pipeline of applications. So, retrogression is surely going to happen, but when and how far back it will go is to be seen.

For EB3 India, it is going to move at this pace only till there is a legislative change. The reason being there is no spill over to EB3. Hence only about 2800 green cards are given for this category every year.

To view the January 2012 Visa Bulletin -- Click Here

17 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. this is good news. Couldyou please explain what retrogresion means? I have a Feb 2009 priority date and I want to make sure I dont get affected by it negatively

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  3. I was hearing that in 2008 (peak recession) there were very less labor filings, could that be a reason for this rapid movement contradicting the possibility of a retrogression?

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  4. great job by the blog author. Published info very quickly. Any prediction of how far the PD date goes beyond Jan 09?

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  5. I don't think there were 2500 applications each month for EB2 India, after 15 APR 07. I believe there were applications somewhere around 1250 for each month in 2007. so that mean USCIS might have 25K application from Aug 07 to Dec 08. Hence, I think still they might move couple of more month in Feb 2012 and then retrogression in March 2012. What do you think?

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  6. I use to ready your blog every month. my EB2-I PD is 16 JAN 2009 (Just 15 Days more to reach). My issue is, i switched to new company now (having I-140 Approval). If PD is jumped little bit in the future, Can i apply I-485 to get EAD, or should i need wait to complete PERM? I hope i can file I-140 & i-485 simultaneously. but not sure about PERM

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  7. Can you Please help me to understand in EB3 how many applications are in queue from now till Dec'2003 and how much time do you think it would take to reach the current date of Dec'2003.

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  8. @MSN -- Retrogression means the date will go back in time instead of moving forward.

    @Sam -- I don't think so. Infact, EB2 applications increased in 2008.

    @Transform -- Its very hard to tell, my guess is couple of months.

    @Nitin -- You are right in 2007, avg is about 1250, but in 2008, the average is more, that is why I said the average for both the years is abt 2500. On the other point, I agree with you. I also think it will move couple of months in Feb 2012 bulletin and then retrogress in mar 2012.

    @TechFox -- It is a grey area. It completely depends on how your lawyer wants to handle.

    @EB3India -- Please check this blog -- http://ambals.blogspot.com/2011/10/oct-2011-i-485-inventory-and-eb-india.html

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  9. Folks - What are the chances of for PD- April 9 2009.... will it touch April 2009 before retrogression

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  10. Hello there, my priority date is Jan, 2011. How much time would you think it will take the priority date cut-off to reach Jan, 2011. How much it would be affected by retrogression.

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  11. My PD is Jan 2010 .any idea how much time it will take

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  12. MY PD is in September 2010, how to caluclate the time it takes to be current in EB2 category?

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  13. I am not sure where you got the 2007 and 2008 IC numbers from. Based on the number of LC filings (FLC Data), avg demand from IC cannot be more than 1000/month. I could be wrong though...

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  14. 2009 was the slowest that I have observed when it came to filing LCA (only 4K odd for EB2 India - FLC Data)... so it is possible that the dates might move forward significantly beyond March or Apr of 2009...it is just my hunch. I would not be surprised by another 6+ month movement.

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  15. as expected... EB2 moved by another year

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  16. Friend01, how can you tell from FLC data how many are EB2 only?

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