Originally Posted by
Spectator
Jagan,
I'll preface this post by saying that speculation about EB3 is likely to make me look very foolish over the passage of time.
Even trying to predict EB3-I is massively hampered by the lack of clarity beyond 2006, compounded by the effect porting / abandonment has had on the numbers.
Remainder of FY2017
If a further 2k SO is made available in September, the Cut Off Date might move to the end of 2006.
2007
For 2007, it's worth noting that only around 75% of cases with a PD of Jan-July 2007 had the PERM certified by the end of July 2007.
For 2007 as a whole, slightly under 40% of PERM cases had been certified by the end of July 2007.
The above can never have filed an I-485 under EB3, since the dates have never been current since July 2007.
Another factor is that there may be a significant number of spouses yet to file I-485 for those cases that have survived and are still in EB3. Most children are likely to be US citizens.
The current USCIS Inventory shows about 2k for Jan-July 2007. Taking the above into account, maybe the total for EB3-I for all of 2007 is nearer 6k.
2008
2008 has similar PERM numbers to 2007.
2009 to mid 2010
There is a dip in PERM certifications for this period. After July 2010 the numbers ramp up considerably.
With very good SOFAD (9k), EB3-I might be able to move as much as 18 months in a FY. That would mean mid 2008 by the end of FY2018 and somewhere in 2010 by the end of FY2019.
However, that sort of movement is likely to trigger reverse porting to EB3 by EB2-I. That is going to be far more messy than the situation seen with China, both because the disparity between EB2/EB3 demand is much greater and also due to the much larger overall demand. Once reverse porting starts, it will halt decent movement in EB3-I completely.
That assumes good SO within EB3. There's still something of a disparity between EB3-ROW Inventory numbers and the number of actual approvals which remains a concern.
The other factor that occurs to me is one of timing of forward movement of Cut Off Dates.
Currently, it seems to be taking 7-8 months for a new I-485 to be approved from submission. The majority of EB3-I movement generally occurs in the last quarter of the FY when the amount of SO can be assessed.
To ensure that sufficient cases are available to be approved, I think CO is going to have to be fairly aggressive in setting the EB3-I Filing Date at the beginning of FY2018 AND USCIS need to accept it.
Otherwise, there is the risk that visas could be available at the end of the FY without a sufficient number of cases in a position to use them. If USCIS don't accept Filing Dates, CO would be a brave man to advance the Final Action Date sufficiently early (the only other alternative) to have sufficient cases ready for approval. That would probably lead to situation of more demand than available visas at that point of time. I'm not convinced he would follow this course of action, particularly if he sees any uptick in EB3-ROW demand.
I accept the above might be a complete load of ill thought out rubbish, but perhaps it can be a starting point for those that wish to discuss the issue.
