Earlier this week, the DOS released the March visa bulletin. The EB2 category for persons born in India or China saw another significant advancement of 4 months whereas all other categories continue to see slow but steady movement forward.
The DOS released the Feb Visa Bulletin and the priority dates for EB2 India and China moved forward by a full year to Jan 2010. The rapid movement over the past several months is due to reports from the USCIS of fewer than expected 485 filings. Future retrogression remains likely if the number of I-485 filings increases. All EB3 categories saw snail like movement forward and the predictions are for more of the same.
In the January Visa Bulletin released by the DOS, EB2 numbers for India and China moved ahead over nine months making priority dates current for all of 2008 and before. It is interesting to note the Bulletin’s comments on the relatively few new I-485′s that have been filed in recent months in spite of the rapid forward movement of dates. I bet if they go ask anyone who had a vacation planned but then cancelled in the summer of 2007, they could explain it to them.
Last night, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act by an overwhelming vote of 389-15. This bill would change the way employment-based (EB) green cards are allocated by eliminating the per country quotas. If the bill becomes law, it will equalize the waiting times for employment based permanent residence, which would result in significant advancement in EB green card availability for India and China. Unfortunately, it would also create retrogression for persons from other countries, specifically those in the EB2 category, who now enjoy a “current” status. The seven percent limit per country would be eliminated by 2015. Instead of separate queues for each country in each employment based green card category, there would be eventually be a single queue for each employment-based green card category.
Until 2015, per-country limits on green cards would still exist, but a certain number of immigrant visas would be immediately allocated to India and China and away from other countries. As a result, priority dates for India and China would quickly advance in the EB-2 and EB-3 categories. However, for other countries EB-2 could retrogress and EB-3 could see further retrogression. By 2015, the EB-2 and EB-3 categories would all be backlogged, but there would be a single priority date for all countries in each category.
Although, certainly not a perfect solution, this bill is a step in the right direction and corrects one glaring defect in the employment based green card system. It is hoped that the positive reaction that this bill received in the House would motivate other immigration bills including: special treatment for STEM and Schedule A occupations, an overall increase in the level of employment based immigration, the elimination of counting dependents toward the overall EB quota, a re-capture of unused immigrant visa numbers from prior fiscal years, and/or a market based approach to the H-1b quota. As this bill is considered by the Senate, it is hoped that further positive amendments could be added.
The bill will not become law until it passes the Senate and is signed by the President. We expect the Senate to take up this bill soon however, no time table has been set. We will keep you updated as developments occur.
The Department of State has released the December visa bulletin and EB2 India and PRC dates have surged ahead to March 15, 2008. This is a movement of over 4 months from the November bulletin and an almost 2 year improvement over the December 2010 bulletin. In spite of dire warnings from the DOS that a slowdown of movement and even possible retrogression is in store for the EB2 category, at least for now, there are smiles all around.
This week, Mike Hammond will be attending the TechServe Alliance Annual conference in Az. He will be a speaker on a panel entitled, ”At Your Own Peril: A Panel Discussion on the Key Legal Issues Confronting the IT Staffing & Services Industry” moderated by the CEO of TechServe, Mark Roberts. If you are going to be in attendance, please attend this session.
This week, the DOS released the November Visa Bulletin and the dates jumped once again for EB2 India and Chinese nationals but, remained painstakingly slow for all others. The National Foundation for American Policy recently released a study in which it calculated that the wait in the EB3 category had reached 70 years for Indian and Chinese nationals. Yes, that says 70 !
Slowly but surely, the DOL has once again resumed isusing PWD’s submitted to support H-1b or PERM applications. The DOL is currently procesisng PWD requests received in late June. They have released data that shows a backlog of approx. 15,000 for the months of July and Aug. The DOL has also advised that it plans to dedicate additional resources from its other product lines to deal with these backlogs. Although the curent procesisng time of approx. 90 days is 45-60 days longer than we had previously enjoyed, it is a far cry from the dire delays predicted by many in the bar. Sometimes I get the impression that attorneys like to exaggerate things to create a crisis where none exists and in doing so, we often overlook a real crisis but, maybe that’s just me.
The DOS has released the October Visa Bulletin and it shows a 3 month jump for EB2 India and China but, the movement for EB3 was less than a month and the pace remains discouraging for employers and beneficiaries alike. Included in the Visa bulletin was the DOS’s look into its crystal ball and for the EB3 category, they are predicting movement of approximately 1 month each month for the foreseeable future. More troubling was the prediction that EB2 for India and China would either stagnate or even retrogress in the future. A political solution is needed to address this ever-worsening problem of retrogression.
As we advised you in our Aug 2nd post, the DOL suspended issuing PWD’s and to date there has been no official announcement regarding a return to full service. There have been multiple reports of attorneys receiving a scattering of PWD’s last week but, it does nto appear that a full scale return to operations as normal occurred. At HLG, attorney Sherry Neal received 2 but, none of the other attys. received any. (I attribute that to her good living). Obviously, this delay has created a variety of problems for many clients which include ads expiring and having to be placed again, internal postings expiring in the Sch A context, and employees not being able to file to preserve 7th year extensions, among others. We will keep you updated as developments occur.