Originally Posted by
Spectator
veni,
That is a very good question, which i don't think anyone knows the answer to. I suspect everybody has different views.
The best I can do is throw open some discussion points, withhout giving a real answer.
The first thing that occurs to me is that this acceleration might catch the VO off guard.
Prior to the announcement about EB1 numbers, I suspect they thought they had another year to plan for this eventuality. As part of that, I think they were probably (or should have been) pushing USCIS for some breakdown of approved I-140s by Country and PD. That would have allowed the VO to plan forward movement of the Cut Off Dates beyond August 2007.
Assuming that doesn't exist yet, then the VO may be shooting in the dark to a certain extent.
The VO mandate is not to waste Visas, but, at the same time, it is also to set the Cut Off Dates at a level that just achieves that aim.
If the VO has any thoughts that they will run out of available cases to allocate visas to in FY2011, they may decide to push the Cut Off Dates beyond August 2007 in FY2011 itself.
I think we all realize timing is the issue. Any movement can't be made at the last moment, otherwise there is no time to close out the cases. Moving the dates to the end of 2007 would give a sizable buffer.
Whether the VO feels the need to do that or not, moving into FY2012 is a different ball game. The VO then have the luxury of time on their side. Porting cases alone might be enough to utilize the 250 / month early in FY2012. If not, the numbers can be caught up later in the year.
At some point next year, the Cut Off Dates need to move forward enough to account for Spillover in FY2012. Possibly they will wait until around the end of March 2012 to gauge Demand in other categories, as they did this year.
I feel the VO don't want to see the return of cycles of forward movement followed by retrogression, as we saw recently with many of the Family Based Categories.
The case against that is the fact that the VO did that for FB at all. The situation may be different for EB, due to the vastly different split between USCIS / Consular Processing.
Of course, they may just say "Oh, the heck to it!" and move the Cut Off Dates way forward and then retrogress the Dates back again.
The other option would be to set the EB2 Cut Off Dates where the VO think it will reach (e.g. June 2007). If they get it slightly wrong and USCIS don't provide sufficient EB2 cases, the Visas could Fall Down to EB3-ROW. The mandate not to waste Visas would still be fulfilled.
A one line answer would be "Who knows!" although discussing it is fun and thought provoking.
I would be interested in your own thoughts and the reasons why it might happen.