EB2-3 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2013

[waitinglong]

I have been following this forum silently for a long time. I am thankful to the gurus like Spectator, Q, Teddy, vizcard, Matt, Indiani and many others for the clarity that they provide.
My priority date is 2-July-2008, EB-2 India. I missed the boat this time by 18 days. So, when do you all think I would get the green card? Any inputs would be appreciated. I had applied for 485 in Jan 2012, but did not get gc in 2012 like some extremely lucky guys. I already have EAD and AP. I came to USA in mid-2003, so it is already more than 10 years working here for me. I am quite frustrated by all this wait. So, just wanted to know when I would get gc and get some peace of mind.

[qesehmk]

Unfortunately it could be as long as next August. But I am confident it won't be longer than 31st August. Best case is end of Q1 i.e. 31st Dec.

I have been following this forum silently for a long time. I am thankful to the gurus like Spectator, Q, Teddy, vizcard, Matt, Indiani and many others for the clarity that they provide.
My priority date is 2-July-2008, EB-2 India. I missed the boat this time by 18 days. So, when do you all think I would get the green card? Any inputs would be appreciated. I had applied for 485 in Jan 2012, but did not get gc in 2012 like some extremely lucky guys. I already have EAD and AP. I came to USA in mid-2003, so it is already more than 10 years working here for me. I am quite frustrated by all this wait. So, just wanted to know when I would get gc and get some peace of mind.

[yawali58]

Unfortunately it could be as long as next August. But I am confident it won't be longer than 31st August. Best case is end of Q1 i.e. 31st Dec.

How much Eb3 to Eb2 porting will occur next year, since chances of getting any other spillover ( Like FB this Year) are very less, will porting take up all EB2 quota?

[indiani]

How much Eb3 to Eb2 porting will occur next year, since chances of getting any other spillover ( Like FB this Year) are very less, will porting take up all EB2 quota?

possible, too early to say especially considering few thousands will be in demand prior to COD of sept bulletin

[Spectator]

How much Eb3 to Eb2 porting will occur next year, since chances of getting any other spillover ( Like FB this Year) are very less, will porting take up all EB2 quota?

I think as indiani has said, it is too early to have a good idea.

We should remember that porting was at an artificially high level this year due to EB2-I retrogressing so early last year. Numbers should return to a normal level next year.

Will porting be in sufficient numbers to consume the initial 2.8k available to EB2-I? Almost certainly.

Yes, SO will probably be less, but it won't be non existent. The signs are that EB1 is receiving less approvals. In FY2014, EB2-WW will also return to normal demand and should provide some Fall Across.

It's not entirely doom and gloom.

I am constantly amazed that, one way or another, something always happens to keep SO to EB2-I high. I have no idea what it will be next year, but I've learnt the unexpected cannot be ruled out.

[Pedro Gonzales]

I think as indiani has said, it is too early to have a good idea.

We should remember that porting was at an artificially high level this year due to EB2-I retrogressing so early last year. Numbers should return to a normal level next year.

Will porting be in sufficient numbers to consume the initial 2.8k available to EB2-I? Almost certainly.

Yes, SO will probably be less, but it won't be non existent. The signs are that EB1 is receiving less approvals. In FY2014, EB2-WW will also return to normal demand and should provide some Fall Across.

It's not entirely doom and gloom.

I am constantly amazed that, one way or another, something always happens to keep SO to EB2-I high. I have no idea what it will be next year, but I've learnt the unexpected cannot be ruled out.

To summarize,

1) Lower EB3I to EB2I porting due to fewer months of EB2I retrogression
2) Fewer EB1 approvals
3) Lower EB2ROW demand (return to normal from exaggerated 2012 levels),
4) Potential decrease in EB2ROW demand below normal levels due to sequester, and
5) lower EB3ROW to EB2ROW porting, as a result of EB3ROW progression (temporary though it may be).

Will it provide as much spillover as 2013, I think not, but it's too early to tell.

[indiani]

I have been following this forum silently for a long time. I am thankful to the gurus like Spectator, Q, Teddy, vizcard, Matt, Indiani and many others for the clarity that they provide.
My priority date is 2-July-2008, EB-2 India. I missed the boat this time by 18 days. So, when do you all think I would get the green card? Any inputs would be appreciated. I had applied for 485 in Jan 2012, but did not get gc in 2012 like some extremely lucky guys. I already have EAD and AP. I came to USA in mid-2003, so it is already more than 10 years working here for me. I am quite frustrated by all this wait. So, just wanted to know when I would get gc and get some peace of mind.

average realistic expectation for forward COD movement than sept bulletin is may 2013 ( mine are very conservative estimates)

[suninphx]

How much Eb3 to Eb2 porting will occur next year, since chances of getting any other spillover ( Like FB this Year) are very less, will porting take up all EB2 quota?

I guess we will need to wait to get some concrete visa usage/catagory data for this FY before starting predictions for next year. For example there is a quite a wide range of EB2-ROW usage prediction on this forum with one gentleman predicting as high as 43-44K (and quite few on this forum in agreement with him). So it would be interesting to know what actual number was. Also, as this FY was first normal year after Kazarian memo hopefully we will get some baseline numbers for EB1 usage too. Those 2 numbers are primarily going to determine SO. We should treat any FB numbers as bonus (if we get any)

[suninphx]

I guess we will need to wait to get some concrete visa usage/catagory data ta for this FY before starting predictions for next year. For example there is a quite a wide range of EB2-ROW usage prediction on this forum with one gentleman predicting as high as 43-44K (and quite few on this forum in agreement with him). So it would be interesting to know what actual number was. Also, as this FY was first normal year after Kazarian memo hopefully we will get some baseline numbers for EB1 usage too. Those 2 numbers are primarily going to determine SO. We should treat any FB numbers as bonus (if we get any)

BTW- the gentleman who was predicting 44k EB2ROW usage and hence no movement beyond 2005 - I hope he already got his GC. God bless him.

[MATT2012]

I have been following this forum silently for a long time. I am thankful to the gurus like Spectator, Q, Teddy, vizcard, Matt, Indiani and many others for the clarity that they provide.
My priority date is 2-July-2008, EB-2 India. I missed the boat this time by 18 days. So, when do you all think I would get the green card? Any inputs would be appreciated. I had applied for 485 in Jan 2012, but did not get gc in 2012 like some extremely lucky guys. I already have EAD and AP. I came to USA in mid-2003, so it is already more than 10 years working here for me. I am quite frustrated by all this wait. So, just wanted to know when I would get gc and get some peace of mind.

it is too early to guess any date movement patterns for FY2014. Most, if not all here don't expect any forward movement in the first quarter of FY2014. To base any calculation for next FY, we need to get the official number of left overs from this fiscal(including the new I-485 applications). Porting will continue to happen throughout next FY, the numbers will be lower, but it will be higher than EB2I quota(2800). Regarding spillovers from other categories to reach to EB2I, it would at least take two quarters, if not three. It is unfortunately the scenario, we EB2I face. As we get more and more data in the upcoming months, we would be able to make early projections on how far dates could move through next FY.

[Spectator]

To show I am an equal opportunity moaner, I have to say that I remain baffled by CO's decision to postpone movement for EB2-I until August - particularly this year.

CO knew from at least March 2013 about the 18k extra FB visas.

Since that gave EB1 45k, I believe there could have been no conceivable risk associated with releasing 5-7k to EB2-I in July. That was late enough to see the pattern for other Categories and the first month free of any concerns about 27% per quarter.

That would have spread SO allocation over 3 months and would have been quite manageable for USCIS. Instead, a very large number of visas now need to be allocated over 2 months and this appears to be stretching USCIS processing capacity.

If less visas had ultimately been available, the numbers allocated in September could have been less, so I don't think there was any downside to moving earlier.

[mstanfield]

So Spec, since USCIS seems to process painfully slow and CO waited really late, do you believe there will be wastage of SO visa numbers at the end of this FY?

[Pedro Gonzales]

Spec and Kanmani (and perhaps others too) discussed the actual processing work involved earlier, but I couldn't find those posts.

For preadjudicated applications (assuming the vast majority are preadjudicated), wouldn't there be no real processing work involved for the USCIS other than
a) reviewing responses to the mass TSC RFEs from June.
b) rerunning the IBIS check.

Apart from these two steps, the allocation of a visa number, sending of the approval emails and printing and mailing of the card should all be fairly quick, straightforward and perhaps automated, no? If so, the only time consuming steps should be the ones above. Depending on when people responded to the RFEs, the USCIS have likely had 1 to 2 months to review them, and they've had 18 to 20 days before the start of the month to redo the IBIS check.

I doubt if RFE response processing is the hold up, because if so, we wouldn't see slow NSC approvals too. And in any case, if the time for this was insufficient pre August 1st, surely, by Sep 1st they'll have had enough time, so even if this was the reason in August, it shouldn't continue through September.

Given that, is the IBIS check the bottleneck?

[Spectator]

So Spec, since USCIS seems to process painfully slow and CO waited really late, do you believe there will be wastage of SO visa numbers at the end of this FY?

mstanfield,

I'm not going to go that far yet, since it's so difficult to judge what the real number of approvals are, but I do think the possibility could have been avoided.

[qesehmk]

mstanfield,

I'm not going to go that far yet, since it's so difficult to judge what the real number of approvals are, but I do think the possibility could have been avoided.

Spec - the visas are definitely not going to get wasted. Assigning the visas is a one click operation. The process of conveying the decisions to applicants can continue beyond september into October. So I wouldn't worry about visas getting wasted.

[indiani]

Spec - the visas are definitely not going to get wasted. Assigning the visas is a one click operation. The process of conveying the decisions to applicants can continue beyond september into October. So I wouldn't worry about visas getting wasted.

Q,

I don't think they can register us as PR when dates aren't current, the email needs to go out when dates remain current, in this case if dates retrogress and somehow a case is pre-adj but actually approval not made , then they might have to wait until PD becomes current again.

They can't technically approve even one day before or after when dates aren't current

[Spectator]

Spec - the visas are definitely not going to get wasted. Assigning the visas is a one click operation. The process of conveying the decisions to applicants can continue beyond september into October. So I wouldn't worry about visas getting wasted.

Q,

I almost certainly agree with you, but I am not going to make as definitive a statement as you have.

It's a few click operation once it gets in front of the ISO.

Apart from higher numbers, there is also more competition for that time than in previous years, since all of EB3 has moved forward substantially in September. Excepting the new forward movement for EB3-ROW/C/M, all the cases are either due adjudication or have been pre-adjudicated for some time.

[indiani]

mstanfield,

I'm not going to go that far yet, since it's so difficult to judge what the real number of approvals are, but I do think the possibility could have been avoided.

Spec,

when most of us didn't see any movement in august we knew one of the 2 scenarios will happen ; either there isn't enough SO or else there is enough SO but rapid movement will lead to chaos as uscis works on cases randomly and rather non-sensically and without enough processing capability.
the latter thing happened

[indiani]

http://www.uscis.gov/ilink/docView/A...html#0-0-0-276

the way adjudication works at uscis

[qesehmk]

Fair enough Spec.

Q,

I almost certainly agree with you, but I am not going to make as definitive a statement as you have.

It's a few click operation once it gets in front of the ISO.

Q,

I don't think they can register us as PR when dates aren't current, the email needs to go out when dates remain current,

We have seen october approvals in the past. I have never been sure what those are. But my best guess is that it is because of the very thing I earlier mentioned with spec above.

[Spectator]

Fair enough Spec.


We have seen october approvals in the past. I have never been sure what those are. But my best guess is that it is because of the very thing I earlier mentioned with spec above.

Q,

I agree we have seen approval patterns in October that suggest that happens.

I guess I am just feeling slightly pessimistic because, until very recently, I hadn't considered wastage of visas in EB2 as even a distant possibility. I would describe my present mood as "hope for the best, yet fear (or at least consider) the worst".

I think it, at least, a subject worthy of discussion, although I also realize that it might further fray some already very ragged nerves. Because of that, I think I have said my last on the subject for some time.

It doesn't seem likely that we will hear an announcement that visas have run out part way through September this year.

[Jagan01]

Q,

I agree we have seen approval patterns in October that suggest that happens.

I guess I am just feeling slightly pessimistic because, until very recently, I hadn't considered wastage of visas in EB2 as even a distant possibility. I would describe my present mood as "hope for the best, yet fear (or at least consider) the worst".

I think it, at least, a subject worthy of discussion, although I also realize that it might further fray some already very ragged nerves. Because of that, I think I have said my last on the subject for some time.

It doesn't seem likely that we will hear an announcement that visas have run out part way through September this year.

Just a thought...

May be they did not move the date sufficiently enough for the month of August and hence lower approvals per day because lesser low hanging fruits (cases which can be assigned visas with minimal checks etc). The very fact that they have moved it 6 months ahead in September, indicates that they want a larger set and pick the easier ones and allot them the visas. May be they do not have sufficient pre-adj cases that are ready to be assigned visas in August and they are working on cases that are taking more time.

I personally think there wont be wastage of visas.

Spec,
How do we figure out in Oct whether there was any wastage of visas or not ?

[Pedro Gonzales]

What's the conversion ratio that the gurus have been using for EB3 primary to total conversion? Surely it's higher than the 2.3 that we've used for EB2, right?

Going through one of the receipt thread on trackitt, I just realized that the porters have significantly more dependents than the direct EB2 applicants. So I ran a search and took a random sample of 10 applicants, and found 4 applicants that had 3 dependents, 4 had 2, 1 had 1 and 1 had 0. That's 21 dependents + 10 primaries giving us a ratio of 3.1x. This explains to me why the porting figure is so much higher than I had intuitively expected. For every employee that moves to an EB2 job there are > 3 porters. The 6,000 porters that we expect for this fiscal year only requires 2,000 job changes.

Something that the gurus of course always knew, but the significance had escaped me until now.

[gc_soon]

How much Eb3 to Eb2 porting will occur next year, since chances of getting any other spillover ( Like FB this Year) are very less, will porting take up all EB2 quota?

I think there will be a possibility of some FB spillover next year. I was looking at the interview schedule for F2A at Mumbai consulate and I see only 2 interviews scheduled for this month(which seems too low compared to usual). But many people (based on other forums) are waiting for their I-130 to get approved or their case is still processing at NVC.
CO might have made F2A current little too late. 2 months is not enough time for USCIS to approve I-130 and processing to be done at NVC. Though CO said in the last bulletin that demand is getting built up nicely, I suspect there will be a few thousand visas wasted in FB and turn out as EB spillover for next FY.

[Spectator]

What's the conversion ratio that the gurus have been using for EB3 primary to total conversion? Surely it's higher than the 2.3 that we've used for EB2, right?

Going through one of the receipt thread on trackitt, I just realized that the porters have significantly more dependents than the direct EB2 applicants. So I ran a search and took a random sample of 10 applicants, and found 4 applicants that had 3 dependents, 4 had 2, 1 had 1 and 1 had 0. That's 21 dependents + 10 primaries giving us a ratio of 3.1x. This explains to me why the porting figure is so much higher than I had intuitively expected. For every employee that moves to an EB2 job there are > 3 porters. The 6,000 porters that we expect for this fiscal year only requires 2,000 job changes.

Something that the gurus of course always knew, but the significance had escaped me until now.

Pedro,

I use a factor of I-485 per Primary applicant for EB2 of 2.05 as that is about the figure the DHS statistics give on a consistent basis.

The figures for each of the Categories for the last 3 years are:

------ FY2012 -- FY2011 -- FY2010
EB1 ---- 2.41 ---- 2.37 ---- 2.40
EB2 ---- 2.06 ---- 1.99 ---- 2.06
EB3 ---- 2.22 ---- 2.36 ---- 2.37
EB4 ---- 1.61 ---- 1.72 ---- 1.83
EB5 ---- 2.87 ---- 2.90 ---- 2.85

Previous years are very similar.

While the ratios may be different for particular Countries, there is no data available to split it down further.