The VB seems to have been temporarily withdrawn. But it is still available as of this moment at this link:
https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...mber-2020.html
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The VB seems to have been temporarily withdrawn. But it is still available as of this moment at this link:
https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...mber-2020.html
We are glad to announce launch of our NEW mobile friendly website www.whereismygc.com
Now you can stay on top of the GC forecast, news, and updates anywhere.
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Just a reminder to folks that we do not predict VB movements from one month to next. We focus more on when a candidate might be approved for a green card.
We have built a "Fundamental" model of forecasting. Forecasting has 3 types - technical, fundamental and parametric. Ours is a fundamental model that looks at fundamental factors such as demand, supply, processing times, denial rates at various stages etc.
VB date movements can be jerky - simply to build new backlog of cases. They are a poor predictor of when a candidate case might be approved.
Starting this month, every month we will publish our take on Visa Bulletin. This will be accessible to paid members at https://www.whereismygc.com/update.php
We have started this Facebook group for discussing issues of backlogged people.
This is not meant for "Calculations and Predictions" but for usual Q&A between users. We too of course will answer what we can.
EB Green Card Backlog
What
Today Senate passed an amended HR1044 by unanimous consent. This bill removes country caps from EB category and lifts them to 15% in FB categories.
HR1044 was originally sponsored in the house by Rep Zoe Lofgren of California. It passed house in Sep 2019. Since then it came to senate where Sen. Lee proposed a competing bill, S386 which likely is incorporated into an amended HR1044 and now stands passed the senate.
So What
If this bill becomes law, wait times for EB-IC will drastically reduce and those for all other countries will eventually come to parity with EB-IC. (There are some nuances but not worth discussing right now).
Now What
Since an amendment is passed rather than the original house bill, this amended bill heads back to congress that needs to quickly pass this. It is anybody's guess what will happen given the short time left during this congress' term. Let's hope the house passes it and then President Trump signs this into a law within next seven weeks. Congress only has 2 weeks left of its current session.
Link to a copy of the amended HR1044
https://www.qesehmk.org/forums/attac...6&d=1606958983
There are widespread and inaccurate reports that S386 is passed. That's not true.
S386 was a competing senate bill to HR1044. It is where it is. In the judiciary committee.
What was passed in the senate yesterday is an amended HR1044.
It means that the house only needs to approve the amendment. If it were S386 being passed then there would have been a long and painful process of reconciling house bill and senate bill. With amendment there is some (not a whole lot) hope that the house may actually take this up and pass.
It all depends on how complicated and contentious the amendment is or is not.
Forecast updated.
Over the weekend we had an update to ROW data. The model now stands updated.
Removal of country caps is necessary but not sufficient to alleviate the long wait times in EB Green Card backlog.
Here is our estimate of how wait times will look now and in future for people who file for green card today.
https://www.whereismygc.com/Images/2020-wait-times.jpg
Attachment 1767
As you might recall, senate recently approved HR1044 with amendments. These amendments - according to Zoe Lofgren - make the matter worse. With clock running out for the congress, this bill is almost dead on arrival. However right now we see a smokescreen being created where the narrative is that the Chinese are opposed to the bill because of the offensive language. In our judgement this is a sideshow not worth discussing. The reality of the bill is it has very little if any chance of passing during this congress.
However during next administration we do think similar bills can be passed with right level of advocacy.
If you are paid customers of WhereismyGC - do check out our "Stocks" feature.
In just 2 weeks since we launched we are 3 out of 3 on all 3 ideas we pitched. On Friday we pitched one at 8.48 that is trading at 9.9 as of right now.
This feature is included in your WhereismyGC membership as of now.
Thanks @spacetime
We will review this new information (which seems credible) and update our forecast model by tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.
Quote:
Originally Posted by spacetime
The forecast was updated after incorporating some elements of data that Mr. David Brier published on twitter after receiving from USCIS.
Details - The data was overall in line with our projections in terms of magnitude. But the timing of some of the numbers was off. There were some elements that we retained but mostly we chose to ignore the data as we felt more confident in our own data. Later on if our forecast diverges significantly from reality then we will revisit this. But at this time we feel good about our own data and as mentioned earlier did make adjustments to EB1 and some other data.
The forecast can be accessed at https://www.whereismygc.com
Free trial is available for new users.
WhereismyGC.com is down for year end maintenance today. Please bear with us. We will be up tomorrow.
If we finish early we will let you know. Apologies for the inconvenience.
The site is now Up
Trump's visa ban although unfortunate for many will be again useful for the backlogged community. Our estimate is that this will result in EB category getting another 120K visas from EB for year 2022. You can model this in iForecast on WhereismyGC. Once logged in, just adjust the 2022 number to 260,000. And see how that affects your wait time for green card.
As of now we will not implement this change in our forecast. But this has become a good possibility that you can model yourself and see its effect.
How likely is this? And what can prevent this spillover besides congress passing a law forbidding it?Quote:
Originally Posted by whereismygc
The only thing that will reduce the spillover from 120K is if the virus is well controlled worldwide and the US consulates work overtime to reduce CP backlog.Quote:
Originally Posted by Palver
The probability of spillover of 120K is 70% and 160K is 50% (just a gut feel).
I am getting server not found when i am trying to open whereismygc site? Does anyone have same issue??
Hi MesanQuote:
Originally Posted by mesan123
The site is up and running fine. Are you still having issues?
today i was able to login. Thank youQuote:
Originally Posted by whereismygc
If you wish to receive stock alerts, you can update your preference in you profile settings on www.whereismygc.com
Now on, the alerts will go out only to those that expressly opt for it.
After successfully piloting Qs Stocks feature and seeking your feedback, we are introducing Stocks as a separate plan. With this plan you will get access to forecast as well as stock tips and alerts. Accordingly our terms have been changed to reflect this new service and associated terms.
Over last 2 months, if you had invested 1000 dollars each in the 12 stocks we alerted, your money would have doubled and you would have earned roughly $12,000. You can view our performance HERE. The new plan is being introduced at a low introductory price of $24.95. As year goes by and you get more and more value, do expect this price to go up significantly. There is no way you will double money every two months. But we sure hope that you make much much more than what you pay for this plan.
We look forward to providing you great alerts and tips as well as hearing from you any feedback.
We have updated the forecast model to account for potential extra visas EB categories might receive from under usage in Family categories in 2021 due to ongoing COVID situation. As time goes by we will continue to update our estimate.
If you can't view your plan features, just write to us. Please do not purchase a duplicate subscription.
Our payment processor is renewing subscriptions 2 hours later than usual resulting in a 2 hours window when if you log in, you can't view your plan features.
We apologize for this anomaly. We will fix this in 24 hours!
Thank you for your business and attention.
Today in a Youtube live video chat, Charlie Oppenheim, the dept of state official, said that for 2022, he think 275K visas will be available for EB. We will take him on his word and update the 2022 limit to 275K in our model.
At the same time though the 2020 visa usage has showed that DoS and USCIS underutilized 2020 limit by 7K visas. So we are afraid that in 2021, we might see similar wastage. Thus we are lowering 2021 visa limit from 262K to 250K in our model to be realistic how far people may get their GCs.
To view the updated forecast model, please visit us at https://www.whereismygc.com
Thanks all for your understanding. In 15 minutes we got overwhelmed and had to move to Google. The updated link is provided above.
The DoS has published the Jun 2021 Visa Bulletin.
https://travel.state.gov/content/tra...june-2021.html
Our take is that the bulletin while positive still feels very tightly controlled in how the dates are being moved. It makes us wonder if this is because of processing bottlenecks. We are afraid we might be heading towards wastage of visas.
For more details visit: https://www.whereismygc.com/update.php
The lack of sufficient movement in EB2-I dates in Jun-21 VB makes us conclude that during 2021 USCIS is on track to utilize around 210K visas (52K less than available). This is unfortunate for the backlogged candidates. We will be glad to be proven wrong. Our forecast is updated accordingly.
#backlog #visabulletin #uscis #greencard #gcforecast
https://www.whereismygc.com
After we provided 52K estimated visas being wasted, a number of lawyers are also expressing similar views. Some are soliciting participation in a potential lawsuit against USCIS. Visa wastage can have real negative impact on people and thus such lawsuit can have merit. However as a backlogged community we think simply writing to your own congressman as well as senator about this wastage will be much more impactful, realistic, and lasting. Here is a template we are providing. Take it, read it and if you agree shoot it to your congressman and senator.
------ BEGIN --------
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am writing to make you aware of potential wastage of 52,000 Green Card Visas this year. At a time when an estimated 0.7M people born in India are waiting as much as 10 years such wastage is unconscionable. Estimated 1.2M people are waiting in employment based green card category. Of these more than 0.7M are people born in India. While most other applicants can get a Green Card within 1-2 years, people from India in EB2 and EB3 category (0.7M in total) are facing unimaginable wait times. In fact at the current rates many of these people have no realistic hope to ever obtain a green card during their lifetime.
I am once such person affected by this wastage. May I suggest two specific actions that you can do today?
Action 1 - Please write to USCIS and ask them to use all visas by issuing conditional green cards. The applicant should be able to convert to a permanent card after USCIS is able to process the application fully.
Action 2 - Please write to the President expressing your support for the Biden Immigration Plan and ask him for a final vote on this before Oct 2021.
United States is a land of opportunity because it is a land of justice. The impending visa wastage by USCIS can be verified by simply asking them how many visas they have utilized and intend to use this year. Independent websites like WhereismyGC have estimated 52K visa wastage based on data models of visa demand and date movements in visa bulletin. I ask you to hold USCIS responsible and avoid such a wastage as well as move the ball further on Biden Immigration Plan.
Sincerely,
XXXX
------ END --------
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Yes. There will be. We just added our take at www.whereismygc.com
Based on comments by DOS Visa Chief Charlie Oppenheim that 100K EB visas could be wasted during 2021, we have updated our forecast model accordingly.
You can access it at www.whereismygc.com
Earlier about 3 months back we had estimated the wastage to be at least 50K. But our view was that as vaccinations pick up speed and post covid recovery kicks in, DOS and USCIS might get into extra gear, But it was not meant to be.
As of now we think for 2021 the Aug final action dates have some chance of actually getting approved. Not all will though. We do not expect Sep bulletin to bring in any significant dates movement.
For year 2022 though the good news is that the unused 150K on the FB side will rollover to EB and EB quota will be 290K. Whether USCIS will process those many EB applications remains to be seen.
Whether EB2 or EB3 will move faster depends on demand as well as visa utilization within that category. If USCIS is going to waste 100K visas this year and perhaps next year, it completely changes the answer to whether EB2 or EB3 will move faster. That's why we have built a tool that allows YOU to change visa levels and see which category moves faster.
www.whereismygc.com
Starting Oct 1st, new subscriptions will be charged as follows:
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All subscriptions purchased prior to Oct 1st 2021 will continue to be charged at the old rates for one more year through Sep 2022. Then they will be converted to the new rates.
We are pleasantly surprised to see the speed picked up by USCIS.
We have revised our visa utilization forecast by a whopping 45,000.
https://www.whereismygc.com
Our latest forecast is that during 2021 210K visa will be utilized and thus 52.3K visas will be wasted.
Brief history of our visa wastage forecast.
Oct 2020 - Assumption no visa wastage
May 2021 - Estimated 55K visa wastage based on our demand model and dates movement.
July 2021 - Revised 100K visa wastage based on comments by Charlie Oppenheim.
Aug 2021 - Revised 52K visa wastage based on our demand model and dates movement.
Why did Forecast change?
So why these quick frog jumps between May and Aug? A forecast should be stable. Isn't it?
The short answer is Dept of State Visa Control Office (headed by Charlie) has very limited visibility into the operations of USCIS. So in hindsight we should have trusted our own model and dates movements rather than his remarks (which now seem were more conservative than necessary).
The long answer involves the opacity of USCIS operations and the deliberate step approval process they engage in.
1) USCIS doesn't provide a complete or even partial visibility of their case backlog - let alone provide a visibility to the maturity of those cases. So it is a huge guesswork to figure out potential rate of approval.
2) Even worse than #1 is USCIS' deliberate withholding of extra visas right until Aug Sep timeframe. A decade earlier USCIS used to give away unused visas from other categories to backlogged categories on a quarterly basis. But without any explanation they stopped doing that and now they process all or majority of extra visas in August and September. This creates huge potential for visas wastage because it puts extra ordinary burden on their own visa processing capacity. Just think about it they could easily have given away the 52K potential wastage if they had acted earlier. But they CHOSE not to. This is a policy decision that is very difficult to model in our forecast. That's why we have to wait until May 24th to figure out that the visa wastage level.
Is there a value in forecasting
It is natural and fair to ask if this whole forecasting business is useful?
Our view is that forecasting despite the uncertainty involved is useful. It's a way to manage risk and be prepared. Forecasting gives backlogged candidates an excellent ballpark of their wait times. We continue to update the forecast according to the ebbs and flow of the USCIS/DOS operations and news so that when your time nears you get as best picture as possible. We wish you use this information to make your immigration journey as easy as possible and make good decisions about life and career as you wait for your Green Card approval.
All the best.
Hi Q - Do you have any plan to launch a "Stocks only" subscription?Quote:
Originally Posted by whereismygc
Thanks.
Thank you for your question. Yes, today complimentary access to GC Forecast is included in Qs Stocks. This is primarily because most of our current Qs Stocks members are waiting for GC as well. We can potentially decouple them but given that majority of customers are also waiting for GC it is more convenient to keep GC forecast access in Stocks membership.Quote:
Originally Posted by sudebusa
But since you asked, we will consider doing so but right now we can't say how soon. Thank you.
so this whereismygc pessimistic model also predicted my priority date wrong. my pd is july 30,2015 - per charlie it may not become current in FY 2022.
FY 2022 hasn't even begun. It is too premature to call the predictions wrong.Quote:
Originally Posted by giveittome