Originally Posted by
sportsfan33
Let us recap how EB2I escaped the last 4 years:
2011: Heavy EB2-ROW but amazing spillover from EB1 (almost 16K that year) + almost 7.5K spillover from EB5
2012: Demand cliff. EB2-I received 6K more than it should have.
2013: EB1 and EB2-ROW almost running full, but tremendous FB spillover and some spillover from EB4/5.
2014: EB1 and EB5 almost running full but quite a bit from FB and amazing spillover from EB2-ROW due to PERM slowdowns.
Heading forward:
EB5 is certainly off the table.
EB1 demand seems to be increasing year over year.
EB4 is also off the table.
FB spillover is possibly not there.
EB2-ROW is the only hope. The headwind is heavy PERMs in Q3/4 this year. Tailwind is increased PERM slowdown.
I don't know what to expect this coming year and going forward. It seems a lot of demand from India is shifting to EB1 (I reserve my temptation to use choice words to describe this phenomenon). Other traditionally spillover yielding categories seem to be gobbling up all numbers. However we don't know if it's going to continue in the long or even short term.
Another phenomenon is that with EB3-ROW fast advance, it's possible EB3I may get some spillover numbers and that may reduce porting drastically.
Conclusion: 2015 looks dicey but I won't rule out brighter prospects 2016 onwards.
P.S. The number of approvals in October is alarmingly low. That does not bode well for 2015 as of now.
Edit: EB2I received approximately the following over the last 4 years:
2011: 23K
2012: 17K
2013: 19K
2014: 19-21K (estimated)
So last 4 years, 80K visas have been given out in this category! Minus 12K regular quota, that's a pure spillover of 68K. The spillover is also remarkably similar and it's almost the same in 2 year windows 2011-12 and 2013-14.
Over the last 2 years, pure spillover was almost 34K. 20K of that came from FB and more than 10K came because of PERM slowdowns. You can clearly see that without these two sources, EB2I would be a Titanic by now. EB1/4/5 yielded hardly 5K spillover over the last 2 years by all accounts. These categories are already operating at the edge and are just a small changed dynamic away from retrogression. In EB1, EB1CI will eventually retrogress if left unchecked. EB5 is going to be retrogressed now (confirmed) because of China. I don't know much about EB4 but CO made a specific comment saying that even EB4 was going to see increased demand and possible retrogression.Unfortunately, if all factors converge together, EB2I will remain retrogressed over the entire FY 2015. That's the worst case scenario. This scenario was actually feared back in early 2013 before Spec came up with the FB spillover news. That was followed by Ted Cruz doing us an indirect favor by shutting down the government and affecting the PERMs in a grand fashion. These two sources have driven the EB2I locomotive the last 2 years.
Let's hope and pray that EB2I has at least positive movement in FY 2015.