Originally Posted by
Spectator
From a technical point of view, CO may not believe he has enough visas left in Q3 against the maximums he is allowed to use for the approval numbers that would generate.
Since he seems to have quite often ignored this in the past when it suited him, I don't think that really holds water. At this stage it also becomes hard to believe that he is still of the opinion that EB3-WW will use vast numbers.
It's impossible to deny what happened in terms of the numbers.
Looking at the usage pattern, it's also hard to imagine that CO was not aware of the situation at the time he set the September 2015 VB (since he retrogressed EB2-I by more than 2 years), or shortly afterwards.
Of course, the correct action would have been to retrogress EB2-WW, either in the September VB, or internally once EB2 reached the maximum. He has always had a certain reticence to do that - perhaps because it is an admission of failure.
Alternatively, because the EB3-I COD was moved forward so late, it's not impossible that USCIS simply could not bring enough cases to a point where they could be approved in the time remaining in the FY.
Rather than waste visas against the overall allocation, CO allowed EB2 to continue approvals (even if that was not allowed). If that was the case, he did EB2-I a double favor - had those EB2-WW cases not been approved in FY2015, they would have been approved in FY2016. In that case, more visas would have been wasted in FY2015 and EB2-WW would likely use all (or a good part of) SO that will be available in FY2016.
I don't think we will ever know what truly happened, or why. Mistakes do happen, but the important thing is to learn from them and not repeat them. I'm not sure the EB3 lesson has been learned, or the dangers associated with allocating SO in EB2 too early.