EB2-3 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2013

[Spectator]

Spec, According to http://www.travel.state.gov/pdf/WaitingListItem.pdf there are about 220,000 people in waiting list for F2A. The annual quota was 88,000. CO thought that to use the annual quota he has to make dates current and so he did. Does this imply that 88,000 of the 220,000 follow through with a visa request? May be a little more depending on where the cutoff date lands in October bulletin. To me it is a curious case.

Why create a cutoff date in October? Why not wait till the exhaustion of Q1 quota and see where the usage lands. Or does CO think, the additional demand from making dates current is enough to use up Q1 quota? Your insight are very helpful in building an analytical picture. Thanks for all the wonderful work you do on the forum.

kd,

I assume that when CO saw the reports from the Consulates in the first week of July, he concluded that insufficient applicants were following through with NVC to reach the interview stage to use up the available visas for the year. We can probably ignore AOS because it won't form a large part of F2A approvals (<5% last year). To do so, applicants need to submit what was called packet 4 and NVC need to process it.

Since 95%+ of approvals will come from within the DOS system, I imagine CO is receiving pretty good information from NVC on the number of people who are now processing packet 4.

I would guess he already knows that there will be more applicants documentarily qualified in October than can be sustained by the allocation for F2A in October 2013.

There's some previous history that such movements generate significant Demand.

When the dates for F2A were last moved forward in a similar manner from June 2010 to December 2010, the dates reached 01AUG10 in the December VB, having started at 01DEC06 in the May VB. Following that, over a 3 month period, the dates retrogressed to 01JAN07 in the March 2011 VB.

In the July 2010 VB he used fairly similar language to that used recently.

D. VISA AVAILABILITY IN THE FAMILY-SPONSORED CATEGORIES

There continues to be extremely rapid forward movement of most Family preference cut-off dates. This is a direct result of the lack of demand by potential applicants who have chosen not to pursue final action on their cases, or who may no longer be eligible for status. The rapid movement provides the best opportunity to maximize number use under the FY-2010 annual numerical limitations. Should applicants eventually decide to pursue action on their cases it will have a significant impact on the cut-off dates.

He then warned of retrogression in the December VB. He then retrogressed in the January VB and warned of further retrogression, which followed in both the February and March VBs.

That's my best guess anyway.

[helooo]

Hi Q,Gurus,
If the dates retrogress in next VB,then what scenario can move the dates forward at the end of first quarter?

[Spectator]

Hi Q,Gurus,
If the dates retrogress in next VB,then what scenario can move the dates forward at the end of first quarter?

None that I can realistically think of.

Even if there were some spare FB visas, I don't think CO would release them that early in the year.

The only scenario I could see would be if retrogression was extremely harsh and then the actual distribution of the PD for the cases allowed some forward movement to use the allocation. Even in that scenario, it would still be a net retrogression from where we are today.

Hopefully, CO will realize that leaving movement to August is just too late and move slightly earlier next year. I still wouldn't expect any real movement until late Q3, and only then if a large amount of SO is expected.

When he had a large number and moved from May, it worked reasonably well in FY2011.

[infoseek]

Spec predicted very accurately in Nov 2012 that.... "Assuming no porting, EB2-C should reach around mid 2008 by the end of FY2013"... however I did not anticipate a complete lack of movement once it hits the mid 2008(which it did in June 2013). Gurus, can you explain the reasoning behind the lack of movement for EB2 China? any predictions for FY2014? As always, thanks for the excellent analysis and information.

[Spectator]

Spec predicted very accurately in Nov 2012 that.... "Assuming no porting, EB2-C should reach around mid 2008 by the end of FY2013"... however I did not anticipate a complete lack of movement once it hits the mid 2008(which it did in June 2013). Gurus, can you explain the reasoning behind the lack of movement for EB2 China? any predictions for FY2014? As always, thanks for the excellent analysis and information.

infoseek,

Ultimately EB2-C moved slightly further because the 7% figure increased from 2,803 to 3,172.

Personally, I still believe the law says EB2-C should receive 7% of any Fall Down, but the lack of movement suggests that is not the interpretation used. Either that or there were quite a lot of Porting/New Applications that were approved.

Why the date movement stopped so early is a mystery to me. I can only guess that CO accelerated it a bit early, then hit the limit.

Assuming all cases before 08AUG08 were approved, no porting and 2,803 visa being available, EB2-C would reach a Cut Off Date of 01JUN09 by the end of FY2014.

So I think we're looking at anywhere in the 01MAR09 to 01JUN09 range.

That also assumes no extra FB visas are available. Clearly the dates could move a little further if there were extra visas from FB.

[infoseek]

infoseek,

Ultimately EB2-C moved slightly further because the 7% figure increased from 2,803 to 3,172.

Personally, I still believe the law says EB2-C should receive 7% of any Fall Down, but the lack of movement suggests that is not the interpretation used. Either that or there were quite a lot of Porting/New Applications that were approved.

Why the date movement stopped so early is a mystery to me. I can only guess that CO accelerated it a bit early, then hit the limit.

Assuming all cases before 08AUG08 were approved, no porting and 2,803 visa being available, EB2-C would reach a Cut Off Date of 01JUN09 by the end of FY2014.

So I think we're looking at anywhere in the 01MAR09 to 01JUN09 range.

That also assumes no extra FB visas are available. Clearly the dates could move a little further if there were extra visas from FB.

Thanks Spec. What was also interesting was that June 2013 also happens to be the month when EB3C went ahead of EB2C and continued to do so while EB2C stood still... points more to EB2 not receiving the 7% Fall Down as you suggested rather than porting related demand. I think I also saw few posts where there were discussions about reverse porting (EB2C to EB3C)

[helooo]

Any idea when can we see the inventory/demand data?

[fun4dddd]

Any idea when can we see the inventory/demand data?

In October, the EB2I would move to Aug-28-2008.

[helooo]

In October, the EB2I would move to Aug-28-2008.

Are you serious?

[qesehmk]

Unfortunately but absolutely none heloo.

Hi Q,Gurus,
If the dates retrogress in next VB,then what scenario can move the dates forward at the end of first quarter?

[vizcard]

Are you serious?

Ofcourse he's not.

[fun4dddd]

Ofcourse he's not.

Sorry, I made a mistake about the exact date, it should be August-29-2008 not August-28-2008

[GhostWriter]

A new thread with the poll (Do you favor HR 2131 over status quo) along with relevant information about the bill has been created at the link below. Please review the information and vote. This can give us an idea about our opinion in aggregate. The poll is at the top of the page and there are details in the posts on the same page.

http://www.qesehmk.org/forums/showth...-quo-(no-bill)

Thanks

PS: Since this is the most visited page, and many people might not have seen the discussion on the other page, I thought I will post the link to the poll here, so that more people can vote.

[Guest123]

All approvals per trackitt seems to be for RDs in Jan 2012 and later.

Are there any approvals for Dec 2011 RDs with PDs before Apr 2008?

[rka_72]

Hello Gurus
I have a concern arising out of my friend's case just yesterday.
His I-140 that was approved earlier this year was revoked as some officer 'reviewing or working' his labor application decided to have the supervisory recruitment (that means at every stage that officer has to be informed including video/recording of the interviews of the candidates that respond to the advt that the company does for labor again.

6 similar cases happened in my company (4 last week and 2 yesterday)

I have labor / I -140 approved in 2011 (PD 26NOV2008) and I filed my I-1485 in Jan 2012 and had received EAD in FEB 2012. I read somewhere that similar cases (to mine) have also had their I-140 revoked.

Another complexity is that my H1 is expiring end of this month and waiting for its extension based on approved I-140. Can the above situation affect my H1 approval process? I am very anxious to get some suggestions that can help me mitigate my risk.

FYI...My friend is going to file an appeal in some court as I know.

[qesehmk]

rka - sorry to hear this. unfortunately the officer is within his rights / discretion - so all the candidates and employers can and should do is cooperate and have it approved with concurrence from the agency.

However I do think H1 approval shouldn't be an issue because the candidates can say that 140 was approved and revoked and the revocation is under review. so there is some ground there for H1 to be approved without problems. But definitely need lawyer on this one.

Hello Gurus
I have a concern arising out of my friend's case just yesterday.
His I-140 that was approved earlier this year was revoked as some officer 'reviewing or working' his labor application decided to have the supervisory recruitment (that means at every stage that officer has to be informed including video/recording of the interviews of the candidates that respond to the advt that the company does for labor again.

6 similar cases happened in my company (4 last week and 2 yesterday)

I have labor / I -140 approved in 2011 (PD 26NOV2008) and I filed my I-1485 in Jan 2012 and had received EAD in FEB 2012. I read somewhere that similar cases (to mine) have also had their I-140 revoked.

Another complexity is that my H1 is expiring end of this month and waiting for its extension based on approved I-140. Can the above situation affect my H1 approval process? I am very anxious to get some suggestions that can help me mitigate my risk.

FYI...My friend is going to file an appeal in some court as I know.

[vizcard]

Sorry, I made a mistake about the exact date, it should be August-29-2008 not August-28-2008

I really don't know if you are joking or not... but either way you are wrong

[shreyasai2004]

Hi,

Why it was showing like this in current visa bulliten.


http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulletin/bulleti...

Upcoming month's visa bulletin: September 2013

This month's visa bulletin: August 2013

Archived visa bulletins: July 2013 and before

[Maksimus]

It's fine now. Must have been a temporary browser cache issue

http://travel.state.gov/visa/bulleti...etin_1360.html

[willywonka]

Do you think there is any chance they will advance the cutoff date for Sep 2013 by 15-30 days if they think visas will be wasted ? Has that ever happened before?...where they advanced the dates after publishing an original cutoff date for a month ?

[vizcard]

Do you think there is any chance they will advance the cutoff date for Sep 2013 by 15-30 days if they think visas will be wasted ? Has that ever happened before?...where they advanced the dates after publishing an original cutoff date for a month ?

I dont think its ever happened in the last 5 yrs (I don't know about before that). That being said I don't see any visas getting wasted. There's a lot of demand especially with dates being moved to June. In fact there will be 3-5k ppl that are current but won't be approved.

[PLASTIC]

I see GC approvals from all service centers from Jan 2008 to June 2008 PDs with RD varying from Jan 2012. But there are people (including me) with RD/PD less then many approved cases this week. No RFE in many cases. Is there any official information how the I485 are processed.

[indiani]

I see GC approvals from all service centers from Jan 2008 to June 2008 PDs with RD varying from Jan 2012. But there are people (including me) with RD/PD less then many approved cases this week. No RFE in many cases. Is there any official information how the I485 are processed.

NO pattern

[gcq]

rka - sorry to hear this. unfortunately the officer is within his rights / discretion - so all the candidates and employers can and should do is cooperate and have it approved with concurrence from the agency.

However I do think H1 approval shouldn't be an issue because the candidates can say that 140 was approved and revoked and the revocation is under review. so there is some ground there for H1 to be approved without problems. But definitely need lawyer on this one.

DOL officer has a right to do a supervisory recruitment during the labor certification process. However picking up that case after it has been approved and I-140 has been approved is not right.

OP,

Is your company in some sort of trouble with USCIS/DOL ? That is the only reason I think they would go back and look at already approved cases.

[qesehmk]

gcq - I agree - it is not right. In fact this can be challenged in courts if the applicant wants to go to the courts and fight with USCIS. However, USCIS DOS are all government agencies and government retains the right to revoke all kinds of things. I-140 is a small thing - even GC as well as citizenship can be revoked. Unfortunate ... but true.

DOL officer has a right to do a supervisory recruitment during the labor certification process. However picking up that case after it has been approved and I-140 has been approved is not right.