EB2 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2012

[abcx13]

If the Trackitt stats become unreliable because the ratios change within the same PD year, we are left with the USCIS Inventory.

I only treat that as semi-reliable and IMO it will only be when the Inventory is released in July (the one after next) that it will give the whole picture. I don't think the next one will be totally useful, although hopefully PD2008 should be more or less complete (less those already approved). After the last one, I certainly won't trust either the PD2009 or PD2010 figures in the Inventory due shortly.

It's a little frustrating personally, having put some effort into tracking the numbers. It may all come to nothing.

Hi Spec,

Just wondering why you treat the USCIS inventory as unreliable. Is it because of the approvals that have already been processed for 2007-2008? And why do you expect July inventory to be better? I thought most AoS applications are filed by the month after the applicable VB, i.e. May. More so in this case because of retrogression.

[Spectator]

Hi Spec,

Just wondering why you treat the USCIS inventory as unreliable. Is it because of the approvals that have already been processed for 2007-2008? And why do you expect July inventory to be better? I thought most AoS applications are filed by the month after the applicable VB, i.e. May. More so in this case because of retrogression.

Eventually, the numbers may be OK, but the last Inventory showed that it takes weeks, if not a couple of months for new applications to be properly included in the Inventory.

So, for a long standing backlog, the figures might be representative, but not when it is in the process of building up. By July, hopefully, even the cases submitted in April, before retrogression starts, will also be included. For the April Inventory, there will be doubt about both February and March submission figures in my mind.

[qesehmk]

Spec - the way I deal with this is by trying to avoid or delay inferring actual numbers from such data. I like using relative numbers e.g. X% of 2007 are approved. So at least that fact is reasonable to begin with. Then you say what would be factor for 2007? May be 16. And that 16 needs to come from another source.

Another thing I try to do is - to try to arrive (or NOT!) at teh forecast from 2-3 different angles. If all of them converge then I get some comfort. If there are not many independent data sources available - atleast try to play scenarios with existing data and ask - doesn't this really make sense!!

But overall I agree - it is quite frustrating when you think about it!!

It's a little frustrating personally, having put some effort into tracking the numbers. It may all come to nothing.

[Spectator]

Spec - the way I deal with this is by trying to avoid or delay inferring actual numbers from such data. I like using relative numbers e.g. X% of 2007 are approved. So at least that fact is reasonable to begin with. Then you say what would be factor for 2007? May be 16. And that 16 needs to come from another source.

Another thing I try to do is - to try to arrive (or NOT!) at the forecast from 2-3 different angles. If all of them converge then I get some comfort. If there are not many independent data sources available - at least try to play scenarios with existing data and ask - doesn't this really make sense!!

But overall I agree - it is quite frustrating when you think about it!!

Q,

Thanks for the comforting reply.

It was for the reasons you specify that I said I was hesitant to reply to suninphx in the first place. Although I might have a figure in mind internally, I try not to be prescriptive about it and delay putting a hard figure to it. I prefer to publish the underlying data so that people can make their own analysis and mind up.

The approach you outline is exactly what I do, particularly the multi-angle approach. The ratios affect not only application numbers, but approvals as well, so this interplay is quite revealing. The USCIS reports have been useful in narrowing down the range as well. I too play with different scenarios to see if they fit what I call the "Reasonableness Test".

The historical Trackitt ratio clearly changed appreciably with the rapid forward movement of Cut Off Dates. I would surmise that it both energized people and they had hopes of being approved fairly quickly.

I have been able to deal with having a historical ratio pre backlog and a new ratio post backlog. The multi-angle approach helps in raising the confidence level in that new number.

The potential problem is the introduction of a new post backlog ratio. Since it has happened part way through the build up of the new backlog, there is no evidence as to what it might be. Possibly, with time, it will become apparent as the real numbers can be confirmed or deduced from other sources. In the meantime, it is an annoying inconvenience.

Thanks again Q.

[redsox2009]

Note from May Visa Bulletin

"Every effort will be made to return the China and India Employment Second preference cut-off date to the previously announced April date of May 1, 2010. This will be done as quickly as possible under the FY-2013 annual limits, which take effect October 1, 2012. It will not be possible to speculate on the cut-off date which may apply at that time until late summer."

Looks like VO May predictions will hold good till June/July and they are not sure how much movement will happen in late summer of this year.

[suninphx]

Spec, its enormous amount of effort in our perspective, as imdeng says its worth an army. People would say nobody bothers numbers but it is not true for all, many of us have our own mind game and for that your presentation plays a vital role . Thank you.

Agree with Kanmani.

Thanks again Spectator.

[kd2008]

Spec,

Just sharing my perspective. Since the July 2007 fiasco, USCIS was repeatedly accused of tardy processing and backlogs. So it made an effort to document its progress through the processing times and the dashboard.uscis.gov.

But the last couple of months have shown how good they have become at processing. So they are not bothering to update their data.

This makes the prediction effort that much more difficult.

Earlier we could triangulate from USCIS inventory, demand data and trackitt trends. Now we are just relying on trackitt trends.

[imdeng]

Regarding Spec's GC situation - my take is that Spec is doing all of this just for the love of the work/analysis he is doing. He has no skin in the game. It will not surprise me one bit to know that Spec is first, a citizen or even a resident of another country altogether; and second - is not from India despite the EB2I focus of this forum.

I do not want to speculate much on Spec's identity and affiliation since he/she clearly does not wish us to do so. I do hope to one day buy him/her a beer (or a case of beer, lifetime supply of beer... even that will not be enough) for a heartfelt Thank You.

Spec, its enormous amount of effort in our perspective, as imdeng says its worth an army. People would say nobody bothers numbers but it is not true for all, many of us have our own mind game and for that your presentation plays a vital role . Thank you. ( My mind voice says you are yet to grab a GC . )

[qesehmk]

No worries. Trust you are doing well!!

What you say about refraining from being prescriptive is understandable. I like to provide some dates since it helps people put some stake in the ground. But most of us on this blog are similar in the sense that we don't try to be overoptimistic or over pessimistic. We try to err slightly on the side of being conservative.

p.s. - Sorry for my late response ... just upto my eyeballs in allegators.

Q,

Thanks for the comforting reply.

It was for the reasons you specify that I said I was hesitant to reply to suninphx in the first place. Although I might have a figure in mind internally, I try not to be prescriptive about it and delay putting a hard figure to it. I prefer to publish the underlying data so that people can make their own analysis and mind up.

The approach you outline is exactly what I do, particularly the multi-angle approach. The ratios affect not only application numbers, but approvals as well, so this interplay is quite revealing. The USCIS reports have been useful in narrowing down the range as well. I too play with different scenarios to see if they fit what I call the "Reasonableness Test".

The historical Trackitt ratio clearly changed appreciably with the rapid forward movement of Cut Off Dates. I would surmise that it both energized people and they had hopes of being approved fairly quickly.

I have been able to deal with having a historical ratio pre backlog and a new ratio post backlog. The multi-angle approach helps in raising the confidence level in that new number.

The potential problem is the introduction of a new post backlog ratio. Since it has happened part way through the build up of the new backlog, there is no evidence as to what it might be. Possibly, with time, it will become apparent as the real numbers can be confirmed or deduced from other sources. In the meantime, it is an annoying inconvenience.

Thanks again Q.

[TheTexan]

Hello friends,

Just wanted to get your thoughts - Every day I check my case status on USCIS website and find it hard to believe that the last updated date for 485 is the same as the received date. My wife and I have our EADs but I was expecting what's known as soft LUD (not sure of the correct term) by now. Is this a cause of worry? Please advise as this site is my only source other than my lawyer.

Thanks,

[Pundit Arjun]

Hello friends,

Just wanted to get your thoughts - Every day I check my case status on USCIS website and find it hard to believe that the last updated date for 485 is the same as the received date. My wife and I have our EADs but I was expecting what's known as soft LUD (not sure of the correct term) by now. Is this a cause of worry? Please advise as this site is my only source other than my lawyer.

Thanks,

Texan,
Its the same for me too. This should not be a cause for concern. You would have noticed that the online system updates are sometimes delayed or for some the cases are not available online.
I believe your service center is TSC, do check the processing times and if your application has been pending past the processing time, you can call them up and talk to them.
If your intention was to check with others who have RD's in and around your RD, I would ask you to please update your signature with your AOS application information.

[TheTexan]

Thankx Pundit,

When I select processing times for TSC - I 485 - Employment based....it shows June 2, 2011. What does that mean?

[vizcard]

Thankx Pundit,

When I select processing times for TSC - I 485 - Employment based....it shows June 2, 2011. What does that mean?

those processing times are outdated. there is usually an "as of:" date. But what June 2, 2011 means is that they are operating above target processing times (4 months) and are processing cases with RD around June 2, 2011 (which we know its not true). Wait till mid-May before you call them.

Im a Jan filer too albeit much later in the month and i dont have any changes to the LUD either. No cause to worry.

[idiotic]

Unfortunately, the slow down has hit the very period (2008-2010 PD) where there was the greatest uncertainty and where there was the greatest need of good data. That might have gone some way towards answering the question of Demand Destruction during that period. If the figures don't recover, it will essentially be a guessing game.

Spec,

Anyway you can use H1B filing data to account for your demand destruction figures.

H-1B Applications Approved by USCIS [79], [80], [81], [82], [83], [84], [85]
Year Initial Renewals+Extensions Total
1999 134,411 na na
2000 136,787 120,853 257,640
2001 201,079 130,127 331,206
2002 103,584 93,953 197,537
2003 105,314 112,026 217,340
2004 130,497 156,921 287,418
2005 116,927 150,204 267,131
2006 109,614 161,367 270,981
2007 120,031 161,413 281,444
2008 109,335 166,917 276,252
2009 86,300 127,971 214,271
2010 76,627 116,363 192,990

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_vi...nges_in_quotas

[krishnav]

Hello Gurus,

I have a query. This is kind of an urgent situation...so I had t post it here. I will move this to another thread once I receive an answer.

My question is if a person is currently working for Firm A and applied for GC through Firm B (a consulting firm), when he recieves his EAD, if he went back to Firm B (on H1) and works as contractor with Firm A (his employer before he received EAD), would it be an issue as far as H1 Transfer or GC is concerned.

Please advise.
Thanks.

[vizcard]

45 hrs without a post... incredible.. .i suppose everyone had a great weekend.

[imdeng]

This is interesting data - clearly shows the decline in number of H1Bs approved. Although it does seem like that the H1B market has improved for FY2013 quota. USCIS has released H1B Cap Count numbers and the numbers this year so far are running ahead of last couple years. Of course, it is not even close to the frenzy of the lottery years.

Some badly made graphs and simplistic analysis on the new H1B Cap Count numbers: http://redbus2us.com/h1b-visa-2013-c...ates-by-uscis/

Spec,

Anyway you can use H1B filing data to account for your demand destruction figures.

H-1B Applications Approved by USCIS [79], [80], [81], [82], [83], [84], [85]
Year Initial Renewals+Extensions Total
1999 134,411 na na
2000 136,787 120,853 257,640
2001 201,079 130,127 331,206
2002 103,584 93,953 197,537
2003 105,314 112,026 217,340
2004 130,497 156,921 287,418
2005 116,927 150,204 267,131
2006 109,614 161,367 270,981
2007 120,031 161,413 281,444
2008 109,335 166,917 276,252
2009 86,300 127,971 214,271
2010 76,627 116,363 192,990

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H-1B_vi...nges_in_quotas

[tatikonda]

May be it is fading bill.. but still having on hopes on HR 3012 Bill, which eliminates per country Quota.

[kd2008]

Spec, Q, Teddy,

The trackitt trends till Dec. 2008 seems to be maturing i.e. fewer cases being added to trackitt. Given this fact, would it be a good time to calculate the demand destruction from Jan 2008 to Dec 2008. Just glancing at the the numbers, and assuming trackitt count represents 8 to 10% of the total filings, demand destruction seems to be inline with what Spec had estimated earlier, giving an OR of 0.7 or so.

Other members, please share your thoughts.

Spec's data can be found here: http://www.qesehmk.org/forums/showth...2277#post22277

[Jonty Rhodes]

A trackitt member with a profile name "sneijder" posted this message.

Approx 80,000 EB2 I/C applications filed in the last 4 months

These are I485 numbers (including dependents). This is as per my lawyer who is with a very big reputed firm. She did mention it is an unofficial estimate though but said that her sources in USCIS and the State department confirmed it. This is just for your information.


http://www.trackitt.com/usa-discussi...-last-4-months

I am not saying this is true but just found it and thus posting it. These many applications really feel unreal to me and I am not ready to believe that 80,000 applications from EB2IC have been filed in last 4 months. If Gurus feel that this post should not be entertained further, please feel free to remove it.

[Mavrick]

I have to agree with sportsfan33. By start of next FY, we should have some where 30K-35K pending I-485's.

[abcx13]

I have imported PERM data from http://www.flcdatacenter.com/ and applied the below filters to get these numbers

CASE_STATUS = "CERTIFIED" OR "CERTIFIED-EXPIRED"
and
CATEGORY = Level II
and
COUNTRY_OF_CITIZENSHIP = "INDIA' OR 'CHINA"

This is a post from a trackitt user in response to sportsfan33's question in this thread - http://www.trackitt.com/usa-discussi...-last-4-months

I'm pretty sure the level filter he used is wrong as I think there are four wage levels and I think that's what this refers to. And none of these correspond to EB2/3 classification anyway which is only determined at I140 stage. But while doing my PERM my attorney mentioned that for EB2, ONet Zone Level >= 4 is required. I belive this also corresponds to some sort of SVP Level. I haven't downloaded the data from the fldc and I don't have MS Access anyway, but I'm wondering if one of you guys can filter by ONet Zone Level or SVP level to nail down the EB2 to EB3 ratio in PERM applications more precisely. Will cut down one more variable. We might need to scrape and create a cross-referenced list of ONet Job codes with the Zone Level if the ONet Job code is available in the fldc data dump.

Thoughts?

[abcx13]

This is a post from a trackitt user in response to sportsfan33's question in this thread - http://www.trackitt.com/usa-discussi...-last-4-months

I'm pretty sure the level filter he used is wrong as I think there are four wage levels and I think that's what this refers to. And none of these correspond to EB2/3 classification anyway which is only determined at I140 stage. But while doing my PERM my attorney mentioned that for EB2, ONet Zone Level >= 4 is required. I belive this also corresponds to some sort of SVP Level. I haven't downloaded the data from the fldc and I don't have MS Access anyway, but I'm wondering if one of you guys can filter by ONet Zone Level or SVP level to nail down the EB2 to EB3 ratio in PERM applications more precisely. Will cut down one more variable. We might need to scrape and create a cross-referenced list of ONet Job codes with the Zone Level if the ONet Job code is available in the fldc data dump.

Thoughts?

Ok, this page indicates that the SOC Job Code is indeed mentioned. So if we can create a cross-reference of this to the Zone level, import that into access from a text file and look for SOC job codes with Zone >= 4, I think we should have a better estimate of EB2 PERMs. Not all Zone 4s necessarily correspond to EB2 I think but we'll still have a better estimate. Does somebody else know for sure how to connect the SOC job zone to EB2/EB3 better than me? Our attorney was quite clear that one needs to be in Job Zone >= 4 to require a min of Masters degree otherwise they will get audited that the position exceeds typical job requirements and likely be denied. So that's where I'm coming from...

[kd2008]

Ok, this page indicates that the SOC Job Code is indeed mentioned. So if we can create a cross-reference of this to the Zone level, import that into access from a text file and look for SOC job codes with Zone >= 4, I think we should have a better estimate of EB2 PERMs. Not all Zone 4s necessarily correspond to EB2 I think but we'll still have a better estimate. Does somebody else know for sure how to connect the SOC job zone to EB2/EB3 better than me? Our attorney was quite clear that one needs to be in Job Zone >= 4 to require a min of Masters degree otherwise they will get audited that the position exceeds typical job requirements and likely be denied. So that's where I'm coming from...

Please read http://www.qesehmk.org/forums/showth...=5620#post5620

Spec has explained the process very well.

Moreover look at http://www.qesehmk.org/forums/showth...-Data-Analysis

This explains the EB3/EB2 split.

Job requirement alone decides if it applies to EB2 or EB3. The beneficiary has to meet this requirement. The EB2/EB3 category is determined by USCIS.

[Spectator]

I am sure many of you will already have seen this.

From Ron Gotcher http://www.immigration-information.c...1571#post71571

AILA just reported the following:

China-Mainland Born and India EB-2 FY2012 Annual Limit Reached

Cite as "AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 12042360 (posted Apr. 23, 2012)"

AILA has confirmed with the State Department that the annual limit in the EB-2 category for China-mainland born and India has been reached. The State Department notified USCIS on April 11, 2012, that no further visas for those categories would be authorized. This is the “additional corrective action” that was forecast as a possibility in Section D of the May 2012 Visa Bulletin (AILA Doc. No. 12040652). USCIS will continue to accept adjustment applications based upon cut-off dates published in the April and May Visa Bulletins. However, requests from USCIS service centers and field offices for visas in the EB-2 category aliens chargeable to China-mainland born or India will be retained by DOS for authorization in FY2013, beginning on October 1, 2012.

This means that the EB1 and Worldwide EB2 demand are sufficient to use up all remaining EB2 visas. India and China are only guaranteed 2,800 EB2 visas per year. The balance of the 30,000 or so EB2 visas that are issued to applicants from India and China each year are those that are left over from Worldwide EB2 (after receiving a falldown of EB1 numbers). With the visas already issued to applicants chargeable to India and China well above the statutory guarantees, the unavailability of further "left over" numbers from Worldwide EB2 means that no additional visas will be issued to China and India EB2 applicants this year.

I assume this means that the June VB will show EB2-IC as Unavailable.

The fact DOS has announced this so early probably means there are more than enough EB1 and EB2-WW cases to use up the remaining visas, so the imposition of a Cut Off Date for EB2-WW looks far more likely at some point towards the end of the FY.