my fingers cannot be crossed no more, they are almost broken during this GC roller coaster ride.
Yates' memo made it very clear about handling Pipeline cases. All pending 485 should continue to be processed in order to REJECT as early as possible unqualified cases. If the adjucator finds no reason to reject, the case is qualified for approval, but needs to be held in abeyance for visa number availability. Therefore, there should be no case approval with PD after cutoff date after Oct 1.
Regarding sharon1's friend's case, I can only say it's shit luck, or God really took a day off and let Bruce salvaged her. I certainly wish these cases could happen more often, but we should have all been counting our chances on powerball by then.