http://imminfo.com/News/Newsletter/2009-10-15/Nov_visa_bulletin.html
November Visa Bulletin: Does it tell us anything?
The November Visa Bulletin is out. While it does not contain a great deal of explicit information, there is a lot that can be inferred from what it does tell us. First, as for what it tells us explicitly. Paragraph E informs us that:
'The receipt of demand from Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices has far exceeded their earlier indications of cases eligible for immediate processing. As a result, it has been necessary to hold most of the Employment cut-off dates for November. At this time, it is not possible to provide any estimates regarding future cut-off date movements.'
This likely refers to the approximately 155,000 employment based adjustment of status cases the CIS claims to have pre-approved. This number far exceeds this year’s employment based quota of approximately 148,000 visas. Of course, it is not possible to simply apply one number against the other. We know that applicants from China and India, both of which are limited to 7% of the overall quota, make up the majority of this backlog. While unused visa numbers from the 'worldwide' category may 'fall across' for use by Chinese and Indian applicants, there must actually be unused numbers for this to happen.
(In another article in the Newsletter, we discuss the fiscal year 2010 quota. That article presents the available supply of visa numbers.)
The movement of the single state (with the exception of India) limited EB3 cutoff dates is significant. It tells us that only India has EB3 cases with priority dates older than the worldwide cutoff date.
The advance in the China EB2 cutoff date is also significant. China EB2 is not presently receiving any 'fall across' numbers from worldwide EB2. This would only be possible if China and India EB2 cutoff dates were the same, or India’s were more recent. As long as India’s EB2 cutoff date is older than China’s, only India has access to the leftover worldwide EB2 numbers.
The fact that China’s EB2 cutoff date advanced, even if only one week, means that the single state limited EB2 quota for China (806 visas this quarter, plus any numbers left over from China EB1 for this quarter), is sufficient to actually start the cutoff date moving forward.
Finally, the EB3 'other worker' category cutoff date is the same across the board, again with the exception of India. It also shows absolutely no movement from last month. This is evidence of a very strong EB3 'other worker' backlog. Most of these applicants are not shown on the CIS backlog sheets because they are not eligible for adjustment of status due to entry and status problems.
Trying to decipher what the Visa Bulletin means is made more difficult by the unavailability of accurate 'demand' information from the USCIS.
The USCIS has posted a partial accounting of their pending inventory of employment based (EB) adjustment of status (AOS) cases. There is a discrepancy between the CIS listing of pending EB AOS cases in their spreadsheets and their accounting of pending EB AOS cases on their web site. The difference is 78,875 cases (312,691 shown on the USCIS website as EB AOS backlog, verses about 233,816 shown on the USCIS spreadsheets).
While this inventory gives us an idea of the distribution of priority dates, preference classifications, and countries of charge for the two-thirds of the inventory reported, it tells us nothing about the remaining one-third. We have no idea how the priority dates of those cases are distributed.
More importantly, we don’t even know how the priority dates of the pre-approved cases are distributed. The CIS reports 155,000 cases as pre-approved (and thus part of the demand made on the quota), but they do not explain where these cases are within the 233,816 that they have identified by priority date, preference, and country.
November Visa Bulletin: Does it tell us anything?
The November Visa Bulletin is out. While it does not contain a great deal of explicit information, there is a lot that can be inferred from what it does tell us. First, as for what it tells us explicitly. Paragraph E informs us that:
'The receipt of demand from Citizenship and Immigration Services Offices has far exceeded their earlier indications of cases eligible for immediate processing. As a result, it has been necessary to hold most of the Employment cut-off dates for November. At this time, it is not possible to provide any estimates regarding future cut-off date movements.'
This likely refers to the approximately 155,000 employment based adjustment of status cases the CIS claims to have pre-approved. This number far exceeds this year’s employment based quota of approximately 148,000 visas. Of course, it is not possible to simply apply one number against the other. We know that applicants from China and India, both of which are limited to 7% of the overall quota, make up the majority of this backlog. While unused visa numbers from the 'worldwide' category may 'fall across' for use by Chinese and Indian applicants, there must actually be unused numbers for this to happen.
(In another article in the Newsletter, we discuss the fiscal year 2010 quota. That article presents the available supply of visa numbers.)
The movement of the single state (with the exception of India) limited EB3 cutoff dates is significant. It tells us that only India has EB3 cases with priority dates older than the worldwide cutoff date.
The advance in the China EB2 cutoff date is also significant. China EB2 is not presently receiving any 'fall across' numbers from worldwide EB2. This would only be possible if China and India EB2 cutoff dates were the same, or India’s were more recent. As long as India’s EB2 cutoff date is older than China’s, only India has access to the leftover worldwide EB2 numbers.
The fact that China’s EB2 cutoff date advanced, even if only one week, means that the single state limited EB2 quota for China (806 visas this quarter, plus any numbers left over from China EB1 for this quarter), is sufficient to actually start the cutoff date moving forward.
Finally, the EB3 'other worker' category cutoff date is the same across the board, again with the exception of India. It also shows absolutely no movement from last month. This is evidence of a very strong EB3 'other worker' backlog. Most of these applicants are not shown on the CIS backlog sheets because they are not eligible for adjustment of status due to entry and status problems.
Trying to decipher what the Visa Bulletin means is made more difficult by the unavailability of accurate 'demand' information from the USCIS.
The USCIS has posted a partial accounting of their pending inventory of employment based (EB) adjustment of status (AOS) cases. There is a discrepancy between the CIS listing of pending EB AOS cases in their spreadsheets and their accounting of pending EB AOS cases on their web site. The difference is 78,875 cases (312,691 shown on the USCIS website as EB AOS backlog, verses about 233,816 shown on the USCIS spreadsheets).
While this inventory gives us an idea of the distribution of priority dates, preference classifications, and countries of charge for the two-thirds of the inventory reported, it tells us nothing about the remaining one-third. We have no idea how the priority dates of those cases are distributed.
More importantly, we don’t even know how the priority dates of the pre-approved cases are distributed. The CIS reports 155,000 cases as pre-approved (and thus part of the demand made on the quota), but they do not explain where these cases are within the 233,816 that they have identified by priority date, preference, and country.
