EB2-3 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2014

[sdesh005]

Looks like Mumbai Consulate has posted the Nov 2013 cut-off-dates on their website already:

http://mumbai.usconsulate.gov/cut_off_dates.html

EB2-I: 15-JUN-08 (no change)
EB3-1: 22-SEP-03 (no change)

[fun4dddd]

On #1 - yes indeed. But that doesn't preclude the possibility that the act of adjusting the residence spills over into October.
On #2 - It is otherwise somewhat likely (that they would allocate 3 times monthly quota in first week of october). Given the shutdown thought I would call it absolutely impossible.

As I have been predicting in trackitt for few months that the eb2i dates would either remain same or move forward few months. this came out to be true
The CO made the deliberate decision t keep the dates for first year of new FY where the visa availability is minimal. This means that he does not see large demand as previously thought because of porting.
Unless and until porting becomes very large ( which is unlikely ), the dates won't retrogress...

USCIS is definitely using quarterly SPO which is a good thing for eb2i because instead of applying the SPO in the last month of a FY, it is being applied through out the year. The bad thing may be: eb2i may not see big forward movement in the last quarter of FY-14.

[fun4dddd]

Didn't they explicitly tell us (also indicated in the DD) that 2013 numbers ran out in mid September?

It's likely they have used 700-800 in October and no new demand has shown up due to processing times being crawled to a halt (I think the Gov shutdown plays a part here). If that's the case, we can expect retrogression in December...in any case though, I find this kind of "precision engineering" very surprising. That the DOS precisely found a date, managed to consume all visas and didn't leave a substantial backlog is very surprising. I think there must be some other explanation.

I don't see any retrogression coming in Dec as well..

[helooo]

I don't see any retrogression coming in Dec as well..

When do you see the forward movement?

[tackle]

When do you see the forward movement?

If I were to take a guess, I'd say it'll be in 4th Q of current fiscal year (Jul-Sep, 2014).

[titanian]

I think NO. Its not clear how they can approve many cases in October, first month of the year. But any visas, that are not used

before Oct 1st will be considered as wasted visas. To me 100% this is from 2014 quota. I think CO has to come forward and give a hint on the date movement for 2014.

May be that's a wrong assumption. May be they used 2013 numbers and the act of sending out notices happened in October.

[titanian]

If it is repeat of 2011, then dates should move well to 2009 or early 2009 before Feb/March bulletin. But I see a remote possibility for that. Their approach of retro and bring it back in Aug/Sep will be a good approach in my view.

[titanian]

If thats the case, what restricted to approve case between Sep 17th -Sep 30 ? When the case is all good, requested for visa number, it can go into Decision-->CPO immediately. I dont see any valid reason that made them to wait for 2 weeks. To me this is 2014 quota, and they are exceeding the monthly allocation and giving the entire annual quota in the first month.

Viz, you are correct.

Some months back I came across with the case details of a law suit filed by EB3C Vs DoS related to annual limitation crisis, eb3c was less located in 2009 than that of their original allocation, the DoS clearly stated that they have never released additional visas over the quarterly quota in 2009 or in any of the Fiscal years.

EB3C's challenge was to get back the lost numbers from the following year's spillover, but as per DoS's defense EB3C was less allocated because of the applicants' fault, so that the lost numbers cannot be retrieved in the following FY.

PS: I miss Spec here as I am not 100% sure whether the less allocated year was 2009 or 2010. Spec come back man!

[primus]

Visa Bulletin is out. EB2 India is 15JUN2008 .. what a relief

[Jagan01]

Q,

Did you factor in the EB1 approval rate in determining the spillover prediction for FY2014?

I see the below for EB1C from trackit data
FY2011 --> 73 --> ~ 1095
FY2012 --> 262 --> ~ 3930
FY2013 --> 193 --> ~ 2895

Does anyone know the reason behind low EB1C numbers for FY2013? Will this continue as we run into FY2014?

[Jagan01]

As I have been predicting in trackitt for few months that the eb2i dates would either remain same or move forward few months. this came out to be true
The CO made the deliberate decision t keep the dates for first year of new FY where the visa availability is minimal. This means that he does not see large demand as previously thought because of porting.
Unless and until porting becomes very large ( which is unlikely ), the dates won't retrogress...

USCIS is definitely using quarterly SPO which is a good thing for eb2i because instead of applying the SPO in the last month of a FY, it is being applied through out the year. The bad thing may be: eb2i may not see big forward movement in the last quarter of FY-14.

I have said before and would reiterate my opinion that visa numbers are coming out from FY2014 allocations.

However, whether Quaterly Spillover is being applied or not is not yet clear.
1. CO might be using the complete annual limit available to EB2I and allocating visas in Oct.
This limit is 2963. Trackitt has 126 approvals so far (~1890). If this is the case the approvals will stop coming around the time when trackitt will have 200 aprovals. Then dates would retrogress in Dec if porting can sustain 300+ applicants a month.
2. CO might be using Quaterly spillover.
This would mean a lot more approvals. If Quarterly spillovers are in place then date might not retrogress.

Both the cases are bad for EB2I PDs Oct 2008 to Feb 2009. This reduces their chances of big movements at end of year. That is the worst thing to happen. IT would be better if it retrogressed and then came back in Aug 2014.

I strongly feel that scenario 1 above is happening today.

[willywonka]

I agree that FY2014 numbers are being used. If the numbers were allocated before Sep21st and it is just the post processing by uscis that caused the approvals to be pushed into October, then how do we explain the lack of any approval in the last week of September ?

I think that CO is betting that there will be sufficient spillover this FY to accommodate the demand coming from keeping the date at 06152008. I don't think he is looking at this as a quarterly spillover. Given the dol delays, he is just betting that he is not going to run into a similar problem he had in 2012 of having to retrogress EB2Row.

Or he is just using the technicality that the demand from new 485s hasn't shown up yet. If this is the case, there will be sharp retrogression in December.

Either way, I am not happy that the dates stayed at 06152008. To me this only means that the final cutoff date at the end of this FY will not be as good as it could have been if the dates had been retrogressed already.

Anyhow, good for people who are current and still waiting because they have a cushion of one more month.

[justvisiting]

I have said before and would reiterate my opinion that visa numbers are coming out from FY2014 allocations.

However, whether Quaterly Spillover is being applied or not is not yet clear.
1. CO might be using the complete annual limit available to EB2I and allocating visas in Oct.
This limit is 2963. Trackitt has 126 approvals so far (~1890). If this is the case the approvals will stop coming around the time when trackitt will have 200 aprovals. Then dates would retrogress in Dec if porting can sustain 300+ applicants a month.
2. CO might be using Quaterly spillover.
This would mean a lot more approvals. If Quarterly spillovers are in place then date might not retrogress.

Both the cases are bad for EB2I PDs Oct 2008 to Feb 2009. This reduces their chances of big movements at end of year. That is the worst thing to happen. IT would be better if it retrogressed and then came back in Aug 2014.

I strongly feel that scenario 1 above is happening today.

Even before the government shutdown turning off the light at the OFLC in Atlanta, PERMs were taking longer and longer. There really will be a dry pipeline in EB2-ROW/M/P in Oct/Nov/Dec. The only cases that are "ready to go" are EB2-I/C. I expect a lot of "horizontal" spill over this year. There is jsut no way for EB2-ROW to consume as much as they usually do, if PERMs as back as February are not being approved.

[fun4dddd]

I have said before and would reiterate my opinion that visa numbers are coming out from FY2014 allocations.

However, whether Quaterly Spillover is being applied or not is not yet clear.
1. CO might be using the complete annual limit available to EB2I and allocating visas in Oct.
This limit is 2963. Trackitt has 126 approvals so far (~1890). If this is the case the approvals will stop coming around the time when trackitt will have 200 aprovals. Then dates would retrogress in Dec if porting can sustain 300+ applicants a month.
2. CO might be using Quaterly spillover.
This would mean a lot more approvals. If Quarterly spillovers are in place then date might not retrogress.

Both the cases are bad for EB2I PDs Oct 2008 to Feb 2009. This reduces their chances of big movements at end of year. That is the worst thing to happen. IT would be better if it retrogressed and then came back in Aug 2014.

I strongly feel that scenario 1 above is happening today.

My take:

2013 is a history now, all visas are coming form 2014 quota now

Quarterly spo is happening now

big movement is not possible, only expect small moves forward

dates stay same for few more months

[titanian]

I doubt the 9K numbers in Demand that is before Dec, 21 2008.

If this 9k has been arrived after excluding the pending visas number that were requested after Sep 17th, all those excluded numbers will be granted from 2014 quota. If that happens, EB2-I will go for retrogression until the end of Sep-2014.

Retrogression in november bulletin would have made me happy (:--.

Now only hope is delayed PERM processing.

I agree that FY2014 numbers are being used. If the numbers were allocated before Sep21st and it is just the post processing by uscis that caused the approvals to be pushed into October, then how do we explain the lack of any approval in the last week of September ?

I think that CO is betting that there will be sufficient spillover this FY to accommodate the demand coming from keeping the date at 06152008. I don't think he is looking at this as a quarterly spillover. Given the dol delays, he is just betting that he is not going to run into a similar problem he had in 2012 of having to retrogress EB2Row.

Or he is just using the technicality that the demand from new 485s hasn't shown up yet. If this is the case, there will be sharp retrogression in December.

Either way, I am not happy that the dates stayed at 06152008. To me this only means that the final cutoff date at the end of this FY will not be as good as it could have been if the dates had been retrogressed already.

Anyhow, good for people who are current and still waiting because they have a cushion of one more month.

[willywonka]

My take:

2013 is a history now, all visas are coming form 2014 quota now

Quarterly spo is happening now

big movement is not possible, only expect small moves forward

dates stay same for few more months

Can you guys explain why you are calling this quarterly spillover ? I thought Qtrly spillover can only happen at the end of the quarter or beginning of next quarter if 27k visas weren't used up by that point.

[willywonka]

I doubt the 9K numbers in Demand that is before Dec, 21 2008.

If this 9k has been arrived after excluding the pending visas number that were requested after Sep 17th, all those excluded numbers will be granted from 2014 quota. If that happens, EB2-I will go for retrogression until the end of Sep-2014.

Retrogression in november bulletin would have made me happy (:--.

Now only hope is delayed PERM processing.

Totally agree with you on the 9k. Real demand doesn't add up to a perfectly rounded number like 9000. It's just a fabricated number they came up with to justify keeping the date at 06152008. We have to wait till the inventory data comes out in January. Right? I don't know if they will release one this month because they did release one off-cycle in July. Even if they release one this month, it will probably have a lag of 4weeks or so and won't reflect correct current pending numbers I think.

[Kanmani]

If thats the case, what restricted to approve case between Sep 17th -Sep 30 ? When the case is all good, requested for visa number, it can go into Decision-->CPO immediately. I dont see any valid reason that made them to wait for 2 weeks. To me this is 2014 quota, and they are exceeding the monthly allocation and giving the entire annual quota in the first month.

Titanian,

Spillover visas are not distributed as described by you . You may have to read one of my earlier posts.........http://www.qesehmk.org/forums/showth...6097#post36097

2011 repetition I referred to, was in the context of distributing the Spillover, not on date movements.

[Kanmani]

QSP is just a fancy term derived on the immigration boards. In reality, there is no such law that QSP should be applied the end of the quarter.

"the total number of visas available under both subsections (a) and (b) of section 203 for a calendar quarter exceeds the number of qualified immigrants who otherwise may be issued such a visa, paragraph (2) shall not apply to visas made available to such states or areas during the remainder of such calendar quarter"

Paragraph(2)- Per country levels for family-sponsored and employment-based immigrants

[gcq]

I have a suspicion that dates are kept steady for the last few bulletins as USCIS is inefficient/overloaded to use up Visas from 2013. I had one of my friends whose PD was EB2 Mid 2007 chasing USCIS for around 3 months to get his GC approved. He had been current all this time. He was current around 1 year back too. However USCIS didn't approve his case. In the last 3 months he have been following up USCIS with service requests, info pass and congressional request. Finally he was approved last week.

If USCIS is this inefficient, CO could give enough time to USCIS to approve all the cases that have been assigned a visa number. One of the reasons USCIS may be overwhelmed may be the recent action taken by Obama administration to provide relief to illegal kids in the country.

[tackle]

[QUOTE=gcq;44221I had one of my friends whose PD was EB2 Mid 2007 chasing USCIS for around 3 months to get his GC approved. He had been current all this time. He was current around 1 year back too. However USCIS didn't approve his case. In the last 3 months he have been following up USCIS with service requests, info pass and congressional request. Finally he was approved last week.[/QUOTE]

hey.. were you talking about me? .

Based on information included in the latest demand data, they did run out of visas towards the 3rd week of September which was the reason why there was no activity towards the end of last fiscal year. In addition to what is mentioned in demand data, some Trackitt users also got a response for SR saying that quota has been exhausted. So, I do not think the approvals we see this year are from visas allocated in 2013.

I think your friend was just unlucky like me to not have his applications processed for close to 2 years. I do not think the reason is that USCIS was overloaded/inefficient. I feel that USCIS is quite efficient in doing its job. I believe they used up all the visas available in 2013 (and did not waste them). I feel that the problem is with the process they seem to be following. Everyone that is current is considered to be at the same priority. So, once you are current, your PD does not make a difference. All you can do is pray that your application is picked by an officer who actively works on it. I think the reason why it took so long for your friend & I to get our approvals was that it was either not picked by any officer or it was picked by an officer who was inept at doing their job.

I wonder if there is anything we could do to make USCIS change its processes to be more fair & open.

[isantem]

One of the reasons USCIS may be overwhelmed may be the recent action taken by Obama administration to provide relief to illegal kids in the country.

USCIS is not overwhelmed at all, they exhausted all the visas 15 days before the end of fiscal year. What happened to your friend is just bad luck and USCIS not following the PD and approving randomly.

[titanian]

I was explaining the high level flow. I read your posting. To me this looks like a system glitch.

Situation:
request's for a visa #. An approval email for the request is not received, the reason is non-availability of visa number. Requester does not request to delete the request. DOS have the request pending until Oct 1st. They are approving the request after October 1st and sending it to central address.Is it the job of DOS to make sure they are not exceeding the monthly/quarterly/annual allocation ? I guess no. All they do is, just approve it when they have visa number in hand.
I doubt if the periodical limitations are verified when the approval is coming back after Oct 1st. May be key thing here is, not placing a deletion request.

This could be a system glitch, but I am sure all visas are from 2014. Until they clearly say, they do not exceed periodical limitation, we can have our own thoughts.

Titanian,

Spillover visas are not distributed as described by you . You may have to read one of my earlier posts.........http://www.qesehmk.org/forums/showth...6097#post36097

2011 repetition I referred to, was in the context of distributing the Spillover, not on date movements.

[Jagan01]

Oct 2013 Approvals:
total = 142 (~2130)
first time filers = 30 (~450)

I firmly believe the approvals will freeze once we see around 200 (~3000) approvals in trackitt. That would mean that annual limit available to EB2I is used up. If we see approvals even after that then it would mean that spillover are being applied. I hope spillover wont be applied so early in the year.

On a side note: If spillovers will be applied and dates stay at June 08, then the biggest losers will be people with PD July 08 - Feb 09. There are approximately 3000 first time files in Aug and 2000 fisrt time filers in Sep. Together these are 5000 new filers and if dates stay where they are for a longer period then these 5000 would consume a lot of the FY2014 numbers.

[PD2008AUG25]

"the total number of visas available under both subsections (a) and (b) of section 203 for a calendar quarter exceeds the number of qualified immigrants who otherwise may be issued such a visa, paragraph (2) shall not apply to visas made available to such states or areas during the remainder of such calendar quarter"

Paragraph(2)- Per country levels for family-sponsored and employment-based immigrants

I think it is the best explanation of what could be happening right now. EB2 has 10582 visas for this quarter. This quarter is sort of unique because of PERM slowdown + shutdown. CO is counting on possibility that ROW demand is not going to exceed 9100 (10582-EB2IC allocation of 14%) this quarter, he can keep allocating visa to EB2I. It is going to fine as long as ROW doesn't pick up pace during November and December. This is purely EB2 ROW play, no SO involved.

If this theory is right, things would go back to normal from Q2 as DOL would've opened up by then. Other theories like using up entire year's allocation don't make sense. I don't he could do that legally or has any reason to do so.