Likely Visa Bulletin cutoff date movement

[mhwa]

likely visa bulletin cutoff date movement

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information provided at the 2009 aila annual conference gives us some insight into likely visa bulletin cutoff date movement over the next year. historically, the ins/cis have treated filing backlog information as a matter of national security - refusing to release any information. recently, however, cracks have started to appear in that wall.

we know that the 2007 filing surge resulted in an enormous number of cases submitted to the cis. the actual number of new i-485s filed is unknown, but estimates range from 350,000 to 500,000. we also know that the cis, having the fear of god put into them by the state department in 2007, finally increased their level of production and began adjudicating cases at a pace sufficient to use up each year's quota and not waste any allocated visa numbers through non-use.

at this year's conference, the cis representatives made several statements which, if true, give us hope for a return to sanity soon. they alleged that they have completed enough eb i-485 cases this year to exhaust the eb quota (140,000). they also alleged that they will soon have completed the "pre-adjudication" of another "110,000 to 120,000" cases to be used against the quota for the next fiscal year (oct. 1, 2009 - sept. 30, 2010). finally, they represented that these adjudication would "pretty much exhaust" the inventory of pending eb i-485 cases at the tsc and nsc.

if these statements are true, then the end of the current mess is in sight.

if the cis really has wiped out its processing backlog, then when the "pre-adjudicated" cases are given visa numbers in the next fiscal year, cutoff dates should advance rapidly. at a minimum, we should see them return to february 2007 levels, if not closer.

implicit in this recital of statistics by the cis personnel is the likelihood that they denied a truly massive number of pending i-485 applications. before anyone panics, those denials should have been sent out already and are not out there just waiting to ruin someone's day. only by assuming a very large number of denials does the math make any sense. without them, you cannot reconcile the large volume of filings with the volume of approvals.

once these pending cases are closed out, the known "demand" for eb visas will be much smaller and the visa office will be able to move priority dates up quickly; in some cases by years.

another factor to be taken into account is the number of people who have lost their jobs between august 17, 2007 and whenever the cutoff dates cross that chronological line again. in years past, if there were 100,000 applicants with priority dates between august, 2007 and today, we could expect to see at least 90,000 applications. today, with the economy being what it is, i think the figure is probably closer to 50,000. these are all people who were not eligible for ac21 because they had not filed for adjustment of status. if true, this means that cutoff dates will advance more rapidly than normal after the "2007 deluge" cases are resolved.

of course, all of this becomes academic if cir is passed. in that case, all priority dates will become "current" overnight and remain that way for years.

the state department official at the aila conference said that we can likely expect to see the following cutoff dates in the october, 2009 visa bulletin:

eb2 worldwide: current

eb2 china and india: outlook is "grim" and there may be further retrogressions until later in the fiscal year.

eb3 worldwide: june 1, 2005

eb3 china: march 1, 2003

eb3 india: november 1, 2001

eb3 mexico: march 1, 2003

these estimates are just that - estimates. they are, however, estimates from the department of state.

where numbers move after october 1st will depend entirely upon the demand presented by the cis. if, in fact, they have pre-adjudicated as many as 120,000 eb aos cases, then it is unlikely that we will see much additional forward movement until the fourth quarter of the fiscal year (july - sept., 2010). as discussed previously, however, once we get over this large bump in the road next year, we can expect to see a rapid advance in cutoff date movement.

http://imminfo.com/newsletter/2009-aila/likely_visa_bulletin_cutoff_date_movement.html:monkeydance:

[ghillbert, MSN, NP]

I just read a post by an AILA member immigration lawyer on another site stating that they expect the backlog to INCREASE soon, and the date will retrogress to 2003 for EB3 worldwide. Guess we'll see soon!