Originally Posted by
Spectator
Update on June 12, 2013
There is a fairly strong indication that "the priority date cut-off for EB-2 India could advance as far as February 2008 in the August or September Visa Bulletin".
That can be interpreted to mean a Cut Off Date between 01FEB08 and 01MAR08 depending how you parse the statement.
Without any porting, progress to those dates would take between 9-10k.
With porting of anywhere between 4-7k, that would be 13-17k total approvals to EB2-I if every case was approved. In reality, some people will be "left behind", so the likely number of approvals will be towards the lower end of that range.
The bright spot might be if EB2-WW approvals continue to slow. That would allow slightly further movement. The "elephant in the room" is the level of EB1 approvals, which no-one has a good handle on.
Update on April 04, 2013
Only because people seem to want one. The information available isn't very clear.
EB2-I might receive anything between 8k and 17k approvals, depending on how EB1 and EB2-WW perform. A mid point would be about 13 - 15k approvals i.e. towards the upper end.
Assuming not all cases are approved, that might move the Cut Off dates to the end of February/March 2008, using that mid point. At the upper end, June 2008 might be possible.
If a significant number of porting cases are delayed (due to RFE or processing time when they become Current), then the Cut Off Dates could move a bit further than mentioned above.
More time is needed to see what EB1 and EB2-WW will do in the coming months. Assumed Porting numbers have to be a guess and may be wrong.
Update on March 10, 2013 to make things clearer
The FY2012 DOS Visa statistics provided some very nice surprises.
FB underused their allocation and may provide as many as 13.2k extra visas to EB2.
EB4 did not use their full allocation again and I now feel confident to allow some spillover from EB4.
EB1 had high usage in FY2012, but this may be a rebound effect from Kazarian in FY2011. Nonetheless, for prediction purposes I am going to use a lower figure for FY2013.
EB2-ROW and EB2-Philippines were on target to use or exceed their allocation, while EB2-Mexico would still have provided spare numbers had retrogression not been imposed.
Currently, I am using the following spillover numbers for FY2013 based on 158k being available to EB:
EB1 ------ 10.2
EB2-M --- }
EB2-P --- } 0.0
EB2-ROW - }
EB3 ------- 0.0
EB4 ------- 3.3
EB5 ------- 1.3
Total ---- 14.8 k spillover.
At that level EB2-China would receive 1k as 7% of Fall Down, giving 4.2k with the initial allocation of 3.2k.
EB2-India would have around 17k visas available including the 3.2k initial allocation.
That might be sufficient to clear all cases to about April 2008.
The above is probably a mid point. There are still big doubts about the performance of EB1 and EB2-ROW/P. For instance, if EB1 were use 40k again in FY2013, then dates might struggle to even be in early 2008.
Also, as mentioned above, it assumes that all cases will be cleared. We know that is never the case, so Cut Off Dates will probably move slightly further than that.
Movement into 2009 now seems impossible.
Where the dates move to is going to depend on the performance of EB1, EB2-ROW and just how many porting applications there are / are approved.
Posted January 01, 2013
Q1 is now history.
I am relatively less optimistic based on the Trackitt figures to date, although I would like to see the actual FY2012 numbers.
Any hope of spillover from EB5 must now be discounted.
EB4 was artificially low in FY2011 due the withdrawal of concurrent filing for Religious Workers cases part way through the year. Unless there is specific evidence to the contrary, EB4 can be expected to return to full usage. The FY2012 figures from DOS will confirm this theory (or not).
EB2-WW has used approaching 40% of their yearly allocation in 3 months. Barring extremely slow adjudication times, EB2-WW looks like it will use its entire allocation and there is some risk of EB2-WW also using spillover available from EB1.
Judging from CO comments on August 30, 2012:
EB1 usage in FY2012 approached 40k. Again, the official Visa Statistics will tell the truth of this.
The USCIS Inventory does not suggest backlog reduction, since the October 2011 and October 2012 EB1 figures are almost identical.
Relatively high EB1 usage in FY2013 must also be expected.
The signs are that there will be very little spillover available in FY2013. In fact, adjusted for various factors, the underlying spillover in FY2012 wasn't very high either, but a combination of the extra visas available from FB and the use by EB2-IC of EB2-WW visas only made it look so.
All this tends to point to EB2-I only having 6k or less total visas available to them in FY2013. The majority of these will be consumed by porting cases, leaving very few to clear existing cases.
An ending Cut Off Date in mid 2007 will be a good result, but that is not guaranteed. I do not think there is any chance of the Cut Off date reaching 2008. The actual number of porting cases approved will determine the final Cut Off Date.
Added January 04, 2013 to be consistent with other posts
Spillover -- Min ----- Max --- Avge.
EB1 ---------- 0 --- 5,000 --- 2,500
EB2-WW -- (5,000) ------ 0 -- (2,500)
EB4 ---------- 0 --- 2,000 --- 1,000
EB5 ---------- 0 ------- 0 ------- 0
Total --- (5,000) -- 7,000 --- 1,000
Approvals Available to EB2-India
EB2-I ---- 2,803 --- 9,803 --- 6,303
Posted September 25, 2012
At this moment, a prediction for FY2013 is a fools errand because of so many unknowns.
With the scant information available, here goes anyway.
A mid-point scenario might see EB2-I receive 9.8k visas in FY2013 (7k extra).
That would move Cut Off Dates to the very beginning of 2008, if 4.5k porting was assumed.
Numbers are much less in the period Jan 1, 2008 to March 14, 2008 than the remainder of 2008 due the extra month they had for approval in FY2012. Only a further 2.5k are required to hit this mark. Since not all cases will be closed out, even 9.8k visas for EB2-I can move the Cut Off date into this territory. After that 1.1 - 1.3k per month are required in 2008.
Personally, I think EB1 will hit at least 35k in FY2013.
Big unknowns are whether EB2-WW either uses spillover, uses none, or give some fall across. Increased usage by Philippines is not a good indicator.
EB5 will give little to no spillover (maybe 2k at most).
EB4 is an unknown quantity. In FY2011, it gave significant spillover. It remains to be seen whether this was a once off event, or whether it will be repeated. A better idea will become apparent when the FY2012 DOS Statistics are published. Hopefully, we will see a return to them being published in January, rather than August.
I differ with some and think porting numbers may be higher than I have indicated above. If USCIS have followed their own AFM, then none of the cases submitted since dates became Unavailable will yet appear in the DOS Demand Data, since the final conversion (and thus visa request under EB2) cannot take place until the PD is Current.
The very best I think is possible (but less likely) with all favorable possibilities is mid 2008.
If some assumptions don't pan out, then the dates will end in 2007.
The (very, very unlikely) worst scenario really is too dire to contemplate.
China will move completely independently of India and end at some point in 2008.
The information available at the moment is poor. The prediction can be refined when that situation improves with time.
Don't take it too seriously at the moment.
