EB2 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2011

Agreee w Spec. That's exactly how i see it.

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Originally Posted by Spectator

That is an extremely astute question.

I can only speak personally.

I am allowing 4k TOTAL EB3-EB2 Porting cases from all nationalities.

I think they will be almost entirely Indian cases.

The reason I say that is:

a) EB3-India Cut Off Date is far earlier than EB3-ROW.

EB3-ROW will probably clear the backlog to August 2007 in 2 years, as long as there is not too much "invisible demand", so the pressure to Port is much less. If EB3-ROW Cut Off date moves forward more slowly than expected this year, then maybe the pressure will increase, but it won't affect this year.

b) EB3-ROW is not so heavily concentrated in the Consulting business model as India.

I get the impression that it harder for EB3-ROW to find either existing or new Employers willing to start the process for an EB2 PERM and I-140. Almost all the talk about Porting on other forums such as Trackitt is by EB3-I.

China. as always, remains a complete unknown.

I'm sure Q and Teddy will also give their views when they return.

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Parsvanath welcome and thanks for a great observations!

The only thing I can think of when I look at this is that probably USCIS is that the decrease may be because of 3 things:

1) Denials (good probability )
2) Withdrawals (some probability)
3) Upgrade to EB1 (low probability)

Others pls comment as appropriate. Thanks again Parsvanath.

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Originally Posted by parsvnath

Hi Q, Spec and Teddy

I am a big fan (to be honest) for this thread for facilitating meaningful discussion and keeping people's hope alive wrt GC. I am a new member and have been following this thread from Immigration Voice days. Keep up the good spirit and discussions.

Coming to my question....Is there a meaningful explanation for the below discrepancy for EB2 India 485 report. As you can see below (exlcuing May 2006 where there is a huge difference between may and oct reports which is due to partial approvals from start of the year), the oct report is consistently less in number during Oct report compared to May report except May 2007 and June 2007 where Oct Report is higher than May Report. Excluding May 2006, in net there are 470 fewer cases in oct report compared to May report for EB2 India. if porting is happening, this should be otherway around. Unless i am missing something fundamentally wrong (which i don;t think i am), this seems pretty weird for me.

Oct report May Report
1-May 1058 1398 340
1-Jun 1629 1677 48
1-Jul 1494 1538 44
1-Aug 1644 1662 18
1-Sep 1683 1702 19
1-Oct 1703 1729 26
1-Nov 1691 1746 55
1-Dec 1865 1887 22
Jan-07 1505 1528 23
Feb-07 1431 1447 16
Mar-07 1353 1377 24
Apr-07 1370 1394 24
May-07 1123 1043 -80
Jun-07 1307 1296 -11
Jul-07 1518 1747 229
Aug-07 202 215 13

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Thanks for your reply. When someone upgrades, my understanding is that they keep the old petition. In that case, it should be mostly denials and withdrawals. Also during pre-adjudication, can USCIS deny a petition? don;t they have to technically wait till 485 approval/denial when dates become current. also i am not sure if companies withdraw 485 petition since they might incur a fee doing so.....

Also do you guys think, we should factor this 5% reduction in the model and forecast the new date movement?

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Originally Posted by qesehmk

Parsvanath welcome and thanks for a great observations!

The only thing I can think of when I look at this is that probably USCIS is that the decrease may be because of 3 things:

1) Denials (good probability )
2) Withdrawals (some probability)
3) Upgrade to EB1 (low probability)

Others pls comment as appropriate. Thanks again Parsvanath.

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They may be folks who abandoned the GC process and moved back to home country. I personally know at least 4 families who did that. They wrote a letter to USCIS about abandoning their application and they got a letter back saying that their application was withdrawn.

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Originally Posted by Spectator

Q,

Teddy seems to be away as well.

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You are right I was away for a week on vacation, back now, will go through all posts and answer one by one. Thanks for your very detailed analysis posts they are a pleasure to read.

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Originally Posted by Spectator

kd2008,

It also suggests it will be a very long time before EB2-I becomes Current in the true sense of the word. That matters to EB3.

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Spec I filly agree with the statement EB2-I being current is probably several years away if ever. Another thing is that few month’s difference in PD for EB2 India may actually mean a year for getting actual GC because as you say practically half the demand comes from India itself.

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Originally Posted by Spectator

That is an extremely astute question.

I can only speak personally.

I am allowing 4k TOTAL EB3-EB2 Porting cases from all nationalities.

I think they will be almost entirely Indian cases.

The reason I say that is:

a) EB3-India Cut Off Date is far earlier than EB3-ROW.

EB3-ROW will probably clear the backlog to August 2007 in 2 years, as long as there is not too much "invisible demand", so the pressure to Port is much less. If EB3-ROW Cut Off date moves forward more slowly than expected this year, then maybe the pressure will increase, but it won't affect this year.

b) EB3-ROW is not so heavily concentrated in the Consulting business model as India.

I get the impression that it harder for EB3-ROW to find either existing or new Employers willing to start the process for an EB2 PERM and I-140. Almost all the talk about Porting on other forums such as Trackitt is by EB3-I.

China. as always, remains a complete unknown.

I'm sure Q and Teddy will also give their views when they return.

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Originally Posted by qesehmk

Agreee w Spec. That's exactly how i see it.

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Spec thanks for the details Iam in complete agreement with you. In my model I have budgeted 6K of porting to be safe and conservative. Now the inventory and demand data should actually update for all these transitions. Reading the demand data I notice that the EB2 India demand is exactly for Jan 2011 bulletin the same as it was for Oct 2010 bulletin while China is down by 750. If we extrapolate this it would mean ~ 3K porting from EB3 - EB2 India. I agree with you that ROW porting is smaller, the likelihood of porting happening for India is much higher because the disparirity between EB2 and EB3 is way too much and unlike EB3 ROW which is atleast moving EB3-I is in a hopeless situation with 2.8K annual cap. Coming to consulting companies I do agree that they are more likely to file in EB2 (I agree with that as I work for one) however these days the situation is so bad that most of them are finding it hard even to file for h1 extensions in the yester years you are right about your observation. However be it any kind of company the objective of any business is to make money unfortunately for retrogressed countries it seems that keeping a person for the longest possible time is a good way for all companies / employers.

Q / Parsvanath & KD2008, I believe that you have listed all the factors for the inventory difference. I believe that rather than having any factors it would be best just to rewrite or amend the posts with the latest inventory and then intersect with the SOFAD.

Teddy - I am lost. If what I am saying is correct and withdrawals and denials are happening, then porting is immaterial. What do you think?

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Originally Posted by TeddyKoochu

Spec thanks for the details Iam in complete agreement with you. In my model I have budgeted 6K of porting to be safe and conservative. Now the inventory and demand data should actually update for all these transitions. Reading the demand data I notice that the EB2 India demand is exactly for Jan 2011 bulletin the same as it was for Oct 2010 bulletin while China is down by 750. If we extrapolate this it would mean ~ 3K porting from EB3 - EB2 India. I agree with you that ROW porting is smaller, the likelihood of porting happening for India is much higher because the disparirity between EB2 and EB3 is way too much and unlike EB3 ROW which is atleast moving EB3-I is in a hopeless situation with 2.8K annual cap. Coming to consulting companies I do agree that they are more likely to file in EB2 (I agree with that as I work for one) however these days the situation is so bad that most of them are finding it hard even to file for h1 extensions in the yester years you are right about your observation. However be it any kind of company the objective of any business is to make money unfortunately for retrogressed countries it seems that keeping a person for the longest possible time is a good way for all companies / employers.

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Originally Posted by parsvnath

Teddy - I am lost. If what I am saying is correct and withdrawals and denials are happening, then porting is immaterial. What do you think?

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Many thanks, I think your observation is significant. I do agree with you that with your observations on denials and withdrawals. There could be some other aspects like multiple applications within a family and one being approved and the other could be cross chargeability. Now all these factors should cause inventory reduction as you correctly mention it should be significant the numbers are also suggesting the same. However my interpretation that since EB2-I demand is constant and only 750 PD porting happened is incorrect it means PD porting is more than, probably after all 6k of porting will happen but good to know its being partly offset.

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Originally Posted by TeddyKoochu

In my model I have budgeted 6K of porting to be safe and conservative.

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Teddy,

Welcome back.

I remembered that you used 6k Porting, or 500 per month.

By a quirk in the numbers, IF SOFAD was 26k and that cleared December 2006, then that would be 8 months movement and Porting under your assumptions would be 8 * 500 = 4,000.

A strange coincidence. I realize you believe SOFAD will be greater than that, so Porting would represent a greater number for you.

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Originally Posted by Spectator

Teddy,

Welcome back.

I remembered that you used 6k Porting, or 500 per month.

By a quirk in the numbers, IF SOFAD was 26k and that cleared December 2006, then that would be 8 months movement and Porting under your assumptions would be 8 * 500 = 4,000.

A strange coincidence. I realize you believe SOFAD will be greater than that, so Porting would represent a greater number for you.

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Spec, Thanks. I believe that I have placed PD porting at a wrong level in my spreadsheet rather than having it as a column and saying it should be 500 per month it should be an offset at the top level saying 6000. However Parvsanath brings out a very good point about the denials / withdrawals which seem to be offsetting porting. We should call porting as effective porting which would mean that someone who ports is current and can be approved. I believe Future porting i.e. somebody with a PD of 2008 porting is not very relevant. Based on all the factors looks like we will be porting at 6K and it will be offset partly by the denials / withdrawals.

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Originally Posted by TeddyKoochu

Spec, Thanks. I believe that I have placed PD porting at a wrong level in my spreadsheet rather than having it as a column and saying it should be 500 per month it should be an offset at the top level saying 6000. However Parvsanath brings out a very good point about the denials / withdrawals which seem to be offsetting porting. We should call porting as effective porting which would mean that someone who ports is current and can be approved. I believe Future porting i.e. somebody with a PD of 2008 porting is not very relevant. Based on all the factors looks like we will be porting at 6K and it will be offset partly by the denials / withdrawals.

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Teddy,

Glad that helped.

I also offset the Porting at the very top level, since, as you realized, any Porting numbers beyond where the Cut Off date is going to move to are not not counted otherwise.

Having said that, the concept of x number per month is equally valid and becomes self adjusting depending on the forecast IF Porting was coming equally from all PDs.

On the assumption that most Porting cases will be immediately Current, the top level approach is probably the better one IMO.

Would I be correct in assuming that your previous figures would therefore become:

Month-Year India China PD_Porting PWMB CP+Local_Office Total_Monthly Cumulative_Sum
Offset 1,800 200 6,000 0 0 8,000 8,000
May-06 1,058 445 0 100 100 1,703 9,703
Jun-06 1,629 733 0 100 100 2,562 12,265
Jul-06 1,494 620 0 100 100 2,314 14,579
Aug-06 1,644 694 0 100 100 2,538 17,117
Sep-06 1,683 764 0 100 100 2,647 19,764
Oct-06 1,703 745 0 100 100 2,648 22,412
Nov-06 1,691 673 0 100 100 2,564 24,976
Dec-06 1,865 768 0 200 100 2,933 27,909
Jan-07 1,505 666 0 200 100 2,471 30,380
Feb-07 1,431 594 0 200 100 2,325 32,705
Mar-07 1,353 684 0 200 100 2,337 35,042
Apr-07 1,370 624 0 200 100 2,294 37,336
May-07 1,123 524 0 500 100 2,247 39,583
Jun-07 1,307 574 0 1,500 100 3,481 43,064
Jul-07 1,518 1,754 0 1,500 100 4,872 47,936
Aug-07 202 294 0 1,500 100 2,096 50,032

If I understand your table correctly, you would now be saying that it needs 27,909 SOFAD to clear Dec 2006, 32,705 SOFAD to clear Feb 2007, whilst to clear Apr 2007 would still need 37,336 SOFAD.

My own humble model predicts figures of 28,381, 32,798 & 37,041 with Porting at 6,000. We almost exactly match in our predictions.

I find that very encouraging.

I now need to understand why Q's predictions are different, but that must wait until Q has taken a well deserved vacation.

Spectator and Parvsnath thanks for your inputs. Spec many thanks for your drawing out the table again. This does not change the final outcome of my humble prediction as I still believe that we may get 37K SOFAD and cross Apr 2007. However the real situation is that the VB will move for EB2 only in the last quarter and whatever maybe the final resting point the porting will be in the 6K range. Correction from my previous post that porting was 3K I am back to 6K on porting which was initially factored in initial prediction. For a better and more refined prediction & calculation we should observe for a few more months. One thing the revised table indicates that without any spillover it is almost hopeless for EB2-I to cross May and as spillover may start only in July the next few VB's for EB2-I will keep showing the same date.

Month-Year India China PWMB "CP +
Local Office" "Total
Monthly" "Cumlative
Sum
"
Offset(Includes 6k porting) 7800 200 0 0 8000 8000
May-06 1058 445 100 100 1703 9703
Jun-06 1629 733 100 100 2562 12265
Jul-06 1494 620 100 100 2314 14579
Aug-06 1644 694 100 100 2538 17117
Sep-06 1683 764 100 100 2647 19764
Oct-06 1703 745 100 100 2648 22412
Nov-06 1691 673 100 100 2564 24976
Dec-06 1865 768 200 100 2933 27909
Jan-07 1505 666 200 100 2471 30380
Feb-07 1431 594 200 100 2325 32705
Mar-07 1353 684 200 100 2337 35042
Apr-07 1370 624 200 100 2294 37336
May-07 1123 524 500 100 2247 39583
Jun-07 1307 574 1500 100 3481 43064
Jul-07 1518 1754 1500 100 4872 47936
Aug-07 202 294 1500 100 2096 50032

Teddy and Others,
I like your predictions and i am almost like addicted to see your postings. I appreciate your effort and the hope you provide.

With your experience what is your prediction (percentage-wise) on my PD Apr 6 2007 getting current in Jul-Sep 2011 visa bulletin's ?


thanks

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Originally Posted by kaella

Teddy and Others,
I like your predictions and i am almost like addicted to see your postings. I appreciate your effort and the hope you provide.

With your experience what is your prediction (percentage-wise) on my PD Apr 6 2007 getting current in Jul-Sep 2011 visa bulletin's ?


thanks

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I believe that there is a 75% chance of it happening based on the current trends. However we need more time to watch and be sure. All the best.

Guys,
I am back again this time with some trackitt data.

From Oct 2010 till today Dec 15th, there are 80 EB2-I approvals on trackitt .
From the trackitt data its clear that 49 of these approvals are EB3-EB2 porting.

Even if some of these cases were assigned the Visa from FY2010 to be approved in FY2011. Porting number is quite high.

I believe our assumptions of 6k towards porting is not enough, we need to revise that number.

Please do not raise your predictions beyond Feb 2007. PERM approvals are coming in left-right and center. Some are as fast as 8 days (my friend got it, he was PWMB and now applied I140).

Good Luck. Sometimes even I am scared now even though my PD is Last week of Aug 2006 and I Can not be current before Jul-Aug 2011.

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Originally Posted by GlimmerOfHope

Guys,
I am back again this time with some trackitt data.

From Oct 2010 till today Dec 15th, there are 80 EB2-I approvals on trackitt .
From the trackitt data its clear that 49 of these approvals are EB3-EB2 porting.

Even if some of these cases were assigned the Visa from FY2010 to be approved in FY2011. Porting number is quite high.

I believe our assumptions of 6k towards porting is not enough, we need to revise that number.

Please do not raise your predictions beyond Feb 2007. PERM approvals are coming in left-right and center. Some are as fast as 8 days (my friend got it, he was PWMB and now applied I140).

Good Luck. Sometimes even I am scared now even though my PD is Last week of Aug 2006 and I Can not be current before Jul-Aug 2011.

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GlimmerOfHope,

As a result of your post, I have looked at the Trackitt data and analyzed the cases with recent filing dates and/or short approval times.

I have found 8 confirmed EB3-EB2 Porting cases. Beyond that there is one almost certain Porting case and another 2 that might be.

That gives a maximum of 11 cases, which would translate to 5.5k cases based on 37k SOFAD or 3.9k based on 26k SOFAD.

The other cases that I looked at appear to be PWMB, mainly due to PERM delays and audits.

After that, people had been waiting a long time and who failed to get approval on previous occasions when their PD was Current.

At the moment, I can't agree with your conlusion

Teddy, Q and Spec,

In terms of PERM processing times, I agree with GlimmerofHope. In the below site, you can find the PERM processing times. Analyst are currently reviewing NOV 2010 PERM cases (Holy Cow!!!). But what I am not sure is if it already factored into your model or not. What is your assumption (in each of your model), in terms of PERM leftover for the current fiscal. I am thinking probably less than 15 days to be on the conservative side.

http://icert.doleta.gov/index.cfm

I am not quite sure on porting. I need to do some analysis.

Spectator,
I guess you know how to go to the tracker, just in case others want to see the data for themselves, the instructions are,
http://www.trackitt.com/usa-immigrat...i485-eb/filter

change the filters as

i. Country of Chargeability to India
ii. Category to EB2.
iii. I-485 Approval/Denial Date: From Oct 2010, leave the to field as it is.

In the result set displayed (80 records), sort by the Priority Date in ascending order

Records 1,2,3 are clear cases of porting as the users profile suggests.

Now view every user's profile and look for.
a. Recently approved PERM tracker information.
b. I140 approved in 2009 or 2010 with a I485 tracker showing priority date in 2002-2006.
c. Some profiles clearly mention its a EB3-EB2 porting case.
d. Some other attributes like dependent profiles mention EB3-EB2 porting case, I485 approved in short times etc. even with PD in 2005 or 2006.

I have the trackitt profile ids that have ported that I can send you if you want in an email or IM, that can be verified.

Do the same thing all-over again, this time with I485 status as pending and clear the I-485 Approval/Denial Date: to default.

I am scared &*^% now to see the volume of pending I485's that are pending and have already ported.

I don't have the patience and time to count those as there are more than 1200 pending cases and some are old profiles/stale data.

You need to exclude cases after the current priority of may 2006 as for those cases its immaterial if it is a porting case. That gives a subset of ~450 cases. If you arrange them by I-140 approval then there were less than 70 cases with I-140 approved in 2009-2010

My EB2-I PD is 06/2008. Is there any hope of getting EAD by Sep 2011 or 2012.

Spectator,
Another observation on trackitt. There are 80 EB2-I approvals with 49 being EB3-EB2. I searched again today and some of the users have left their category as EB3.
There are 33 EB3-I approvals since Oct 1st. Guess what? 14 of them are porting cases but listed in EB3 as their PD is not current in EB3 but in EB2, some mention porting, some have recently approved I-140.

So total of 80(Listed as EB2) + 14 (Listed as EB3) = 94 EB2-I cases approved since Oct 2010 and 63 of them are porting.

God bless us all who are very near yet so far.

Teddy/Q what are your thots?

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Originally Posted by GlimmerOfHope

Spectator,
Another observation on trackitt. There are 80 EB2-I approvals with 49 being EB3-EB2. I searched again today and some of the users have left their category as EB3.
There are 33 EB3-I approvals since Oct 1st. Guess what? 14 of them are porting cases but listed in EB3 as their PD is not current in EB3 but in EB2, some mention porting, some have recently approved I-140.

So total of 80(Listed as EB2) + 14 (Listed as EB3) = 94 EB2-I cases approved since Oct 2010 and 63 of them are porting.

God bless us all who are very near yet so far.

Teddy/Q what are your thots?

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GlimmerOfHope,

Thanks for your post.

I agree that there are 14 EB3 approvals on Trackitt that are EB3-EB2 Porting cases.

I don't agree that the number of Porting cases is as high in the Trackitt EB2 approvals. I found around 11 rather than 49.

In addition, there looked to be just over 20 in the pending EB2 cases on Trackitt.

I think we are just approaching what we consider to be a Porting case with different eyes and criteria. I am happy to accept that my figure is the most conservative. I think yours are very pessimistic.

With all that said, I agree that the Porting rate, as expressed by Trackitt, is quite high (around 30% of primary cases approved) even by my calculations. If it continued at that rate, we would be looking at c. 7.5k Porting cases based on 26k SOFAD and 10.5k based on 37k SOFAD.

If we took your figures, then Porting would represent 70% of cases approved to date.

I can actually see a logic flaw in my argument above.

Since we are in the first few months of the Fiscal Year, only about 250 visas a month are available. That will only change when Spillover is released.

At this point in the year, it would not be surprising to see most approvals being due to Porting, since they will have the earliest Priority Dates.

However, when Spillover is released, they will represent a much lower % of the total.

Even using your figures, Porting only represents 939 approved cases in 78 days. Over a year, this converts to 4.4k My figures give a figure of just 1.8k (which even I think is too low).

However, because of the limited supply of Visas at present, there are probably more Porting cases than can be approved immediately - hence no movement in EB2-I.


I think you raise an extremely important point. Nobody knows how much Porting is going on, and there is very little information available to make an educated guess.

I do think it is worthwhile to continue to monitor Trackitt to see how the trend develops. It is important to note that Trackitt doesn't necessarily represent a balanced view of the total picture and that, as the "EB3 approvals" demonstrate, the information entered is not always entirely accurate.

I certainly am not dismissing the idea that Porting may be higher than anybody has factored into the calculations - you may be correct. I do urge caution in leaping to any conclusion that it is taking place at a crazy rate, at least until there is more tangible proof of it. At the end of the day, I am guessing at the Porting rate and my guess is as good as yours.

As a PS, thanks for drawing my attention to the data. I noticed that PWMB was higher than I had accounted for and enabled me to make a correction.

Parsvnath and others

Don't be scared at teh cycle time for PERM approval. Shorter cycle time could very well be an indicator of lower volume.

p.s. - I am still traveling. But thought I could quickly chip in.

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Originally Posted by parsvnath

Teddy, Q and Spec,

In terms of PERM processing times, I agree with GlimmerofHope. In the below site, you can find the PERM processing times. Analyst are currently reviewing NOV 2010 PERM cases (Holy Cow!!!). But what I am not sure is if it already factored into your model or not. What is your assumption (in each of your model), in terms of PERM leftover for the current fiscal. I am thinking probably less than 15 days to be on the conservative side.

http://icert.doleta.gov/index.cfm

I am not quite sure on porting. I need to do some analysis.

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