Last Updated (Sep 15th 2013)
Friends,
Obtaining American Green Card is a crucial thing in every immigrant's life. However the journey is fraught with USCIS delays, apathetic employers and conniving managers that exploit the situation. To top it off the pain arising out of this, a GC applicant has to deal with the uncertainty of when s/he might get GC. This uncertainty keeps his/her life on hold in many situations. This blog aims to provide better clarity to immigrants so that they can make better decisions about life and career.
This blog is active for over 3 years now. People loved it for its objectivity, civility, transparency and collaborative and cooperative culture of participants.
Going forward.. we will use the same thread. This way people's bookmarks won't be messed up. We will archive and copy this entire thread into a new thread for 2013. We will use this thread for 2014. I will continue to update very first post of this thread and others can use this thread or create their own threads for predictions. I will provide directional prediction and continue to moderate the thread. My paid service at www.whereismygc.com will provide much more accurate and numbers based forecasting.
2013 Summary
In 2013 we saw "artificial" retrogression for EB2I. The reason I call it artificial is because the DOS could've chosen not to have retrogression by applying quarterly spillovers. However generally they choose to apply any spillovers at the end of year, thus EB2I happens to retrogress during entire year. However come Q4 i.e. Jul-Sep, it shows movement. We have called out this game every year and we have done it with flying colors. So EB2I folks need to understand that their retrogression is artificial during most of the year and then it catches up with a level where retrogression makes sense.
Anyway .. second key thing to remember from 2013 is FB spillover. EB received 18K extra visas from FB this year. This certainly helped EB2I tremendously and the dates moved into mid 2008. Without this spillover, the year was going to be tough for a multiple reasons. 1) We think EB2ROW not only didn't provide any extra visas to EB2IC, but rather it consumed almost 3K extra visas. 2) EB5 too may not have provided any visas this year to EB1 and consequently to EB2. Thus FB spillover and about 4-5K extra spillover from EB1 is what saved the day for EB2I for 2013.
The third interesting thing we observed this year is the divergence of EB2I and EB2C. Looks like that divergence is going to stay here because EB2C indeed has quite less demand. However funnily EB3C has advanced further than EB2C which is quite baffling. I think that clearly talks volumes about disillusioned EB3C folks who seems to have opted to go back to china or upgrade to EB2 to the level where almost nobody is left in EB3C which made the dates move fast. We saw the same phenomenon play out in EB3I where dates moved much quicker than anticipated. This movement is most likely sustainable. The underlying cause being portings, cancellations and abandonment of GC applications. Finally again the same phenomenon played out in EB3ROW where the dates moved quite faster than expected. What is more interesting and somewhat alarming in EB3ROW trend is that for a couple of years EB2ROW may continue to see the effect of porting and may have unusual demand which will reduce any extra spillover to EB2I.
2014 Outlook
The fact that Oct shows no retrogression for EB2I is a good sign. It means that DOS made a calibrated movement for EB2I and most of the backlog through Jun 2008 will be cleared using FY 2013 quota.
In 2014 there may not be any FB spillover and if so, that is going to be a bad news for EB2I which may not see movement beyond Dec 2008. Here are some directional things about each category.
EB1 - Will stay current and might provide 3-5K spillover to EB2.
EB2ROW - might consumer 3-4K more than its allocation.
EB3ROW - will likely continue its forward march.
EB5 - will likely provide 4-5K spillover.
EB4 - will provide 3-4K spillover.
Thus EB2I might land up with 8K spillover + 3K allocation which should be sufficient to move the dates around end of 2008 or beginning of 2009.
Of course right now we do not have good data to back this up. So take this for what it's worth only as a directional commentary.
Good luck to everybody.
p.s. I will continue to update this thread and provide critical / directional commentary once a month.
Regards
Q
For more general information and 2013 old forecast please read below:
General Prediction - anybody in EB2IC category who is interested in understanding time to get GC - should keep in mind 2 things:
1. Time to GC is generally 4-5 years since your PD.
2. Time to GC is a step function. i.e. generally more % of approvals come between Jun-Sep every years. Oct-May is generally uneventful for most people. The reason being - that generally USCIS/DOS do NOT do quarterly spillover and hence for EB2IC the monthly quota is paltry and very few people can get their GC in that quota. The major dates movement happens at the end of USCIS year i.e. between Jun-Sep every year.
2013 Prediction (Updated based on DOS data) - Updated 11 Jul 03
Summary Prediction - EB2IC backlog will be cleared between Feb-July 2008 by Sep 2013 based on my personal calculations.
Reasoning
Headwinds to EB2IC
1. EB5 - Looks like EB5 will yield little to none SOFAD. There is strong demand in EB5 both in 485 as well as CP cases. (9k YTD usage already confirmed)
2. EB2ROW - EB2ROW most likely is not going to yield any extra visas to EB2IC. EB2ROW has quite strong demand (50% more compared to last year). Its possible that ROW will consume between 1-5K more than its usual quota. (assuming 5K porting)
3. EB4 - Has strong demand and will probably yield 3K to EB1.
4. EB1 - Has strong demand and will yield about 5K to EB1.
Tailwinds to EB2IC
1. The only thing working for EB2IC is the 18K extra family visas. Of them EB2IC will receive 9K since EB3 and EB5 are going to require all the extra visas they get.
Thus EB2IC should expect to receive overall 9K (FB) +3K (EB4) +5K (EB1) +6K (Quota) - 5K (ROW overage) = 18K visas.
That should be sufficient to clear EB2IC backlog upto May 2008.
The upside to the May 2008 forecast could be upto Jul 2008 and the downside is Feb 2008. The risk or opportunity both lie in EB2ROW this year. The other categories don't have much variables. Any hopes of dates moving into 2009 in a sustainable manner this year are zero if any. The dates could still move into 2009 if CO wants to build any inventory. But I wouldn't bet on it.
Those interested in playing these scenarios themselves can use the paid service at www.whereismygc.com especially if you want to build your own forecast etc. Good luck.