Dear Sir/Madam:
I am writing to strongly express my deepest concern regarding the most recent Visa Bulletin (for April 2008) posted on the U.S. Department of State website on March 13, 2008.
According to this Visa Bulletin, all potentially unused Visa numbers from Employment-based category 2 are only made available to Indian applicants rather than the applicants from other countries whose cutoff dates are not current (currently only India and China are affected by these cutoff dates; this unfair relocation of the unused Visa numbers could be seen clearly in Attachment 2).
Apparently, this new Visa Bulletin shows us two messages as followings:
1. Any unused Employment-based visa numbers can be re-used to apply to a country’s visa number in the same category if that country’s per-country limit has been reached.
2. Among more than 180 countries around the world, only one country is the subject to this favorable treatment and this country is India.
This is a serious issue of discrimination and unfairness, even possible unlawfulness, to all the hardworking and legal taxpayers from other countries including myself. Any irresponsible actions taken by the DOS will again put their reputation in jeopardy, which was already ruined by the chaos in last July.
Equality is one of the most important guiding principles in the United States. I sincerely hope that the United States government would follow these principles and show that it is clear of any discriminatory acts by revising bulletin so that it does not contain any element which could become under the scrutiny of justice for favoring one country over others.
I sincerely request an immediate explanation and an immediate correction on this matter.
Thank you very much for your consideration!
Best Regards
Attachment 1: Section D of the April 2008 Visa Bulletin:
D. INDIA EMPLOYMENT SECOND PREFERENCE VISA AVAILABILITY
Section 202(a)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act provides that if total demand will be insufficient to use all available numbers in a particular Employment preference category in a calendar quarter, then the unused numbers may be made available without regard to the annual “per-country” limit. It has been determined that based on the current level of demand being received, primarily by Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices, there would be otherwise unused numbers in the Employment Second preference category. As a result, numbers have once again become available to the India Employment Second preference category. The rate of number use in the Employment Second preference category will continue to be monitored, and it may be necessary to make adjustments should the level of demand increase substantially.
Attachment 2: Comparison of Employment Second Preference Visa Availability between India and China on the recent months’ Visa Bulletin from the DOS:
India China
November 2007 01APR04 01JAN06
December 2007 01JAN02 01JAN03
January 2008 01JAN00 01JAN03
February 2008 U 01JAN03
March 2008 U 01DEC03
April 2008 01DEC03 01DEC03
