EB2-3 Predictions (Rather Calculations) - 2014

[sairam09]

Hi Kanmani,

Thanks for your brainstorming!. Can you tell us where it to take us during the forward movement?

Regards,

Sai

[Kanmani]

Hi Kanmani,

Thanks for your brainstorming!. Can you tell us where it to take us during the forward movement?

Regards,

Sai

Perm approvals are at least 8 months backlogged, is the only information available now. It is too early to predict at this point.

[Kanmani]

Eb3I received a total of 7816

Is this the effect of Spillover Fall across ?

[qesehmk]

Probably because EB3ROW date movements were not sufficiently aggressive.

p.s. - I also noticed EB3 issued 3K extra visas which resulted in overall visas being issued 3K more than planned limit which was 158K for FY 2013.

So I guess the revised answer is - somehow EB3 lapped 3K more. And EB3I turned out to be the beneficiary because EB3ROW couldn't utilize them all inspite of all rapid dates advancements.

Eb3I received a total of 7816

Is this the effect of Spillover Fall across ?

[rosharma]

Q/Kanmani

So is it safe to conclude that all the moment in FY 2013 was due to extra 18K FB VISA. Other categories (EB-1, EB2-ROW, EB4 & EB5) did not provide significant spillovers.

[qesehmk]

Q/Kanmani

So is it safe to conclude that all the moment in FY 2013 was due to extra 18K FB VISA. Other categories (EB-1, EB2-ROW, EB4 & EB5) did not provide significant spillovers.

At a simplistic level that can be said. But there are obvious nuances to that. But I guess the key message from EB2 category is that - EB2ROW showed extremely strong demand (perhaps the EB3->2 porting is also happening in EB2) and that restricted EB2I. Just as an example S Korea alone received 7K EB2 visas. Overall EB2 received 63K against its quota of 40K. So obviously EB4/5/1 contributed approx 18K. So spillover was there. But ROW EB2 didn't provide any whatsoever. If anything they ate into the spillover received from EB1/4/5.

[Kanmani]

Probably because EB3ROW date movements were not sufficiently aggressive.

p.s. - I also noticed EB3 issued 3K extra visas which resulted in overall visas being issued 3K more than planned limit which was 158K for FY 2013.

So I guess the revised answer is - somehow EB3 lapped 3K more. And EB3I turned out to be the beneficiary because EB3ROW couldn't utilize them all inspite of all rapid dates advancements.

I agree. But to the disappointment, they have utilized a part of it and wasted 1488, the total Worldwide EB3 FY'13 limit was 45,188 , but the total usage under EB3 was 43740.

[sairam09]

Hi Kanmani,

What would be the reasonable Guesstimate, Where we will be traversing this year...

Regards,

Sai

[qesehmk]

I agree. But to the disappointment, they have utilized a part of it and wasted 1488, the total Worldwide EB3 FY'13 limit was 45,188 , but the total usage under EB3 was 43740.

That's right. So including the 2013 increased quota EB3 actually underutilized.

[Kanmani]

Preference Catogory	EB Worldwide limit FY'13	EB Visas Total FY'13
EB1	45,188	39,058
EB2	45,188	63,461
EB3	45,188	43,740
Eb4	11,218	6,446
Eb5	11,218	8,564
Total	158,000	161,269

158K to 161K ??????? How could it even possible ?

[qesehmk]

It's possible Kanmani. If you carefully read the language about annual numerical limits - you can see that the overall limit is worded as "at least". Thus indicating that the law allows DOS to increase the limit at its discretion - although the law intends DOS to stay within limit.

Preference Catogory	EB Worldwide limit FY'13	EB Visas Total FY'13
EB1	45,188	39,058
EB2	45,188	63,461
EB3	45,188	43,740
Eb4	11,218	6,446
Eb5	11,218	8564
Total	158,000	161,269

158K to 161K ??????? How is it even possible ?

[Kanmani]

It's possible Kanmani. If you carefully read the language about annual numerical limits - you can see that the overall limit is worded as "at least". Thus indicating that the law allows DOS to increase the limit at its discretion - although the law intends DOS to stay within limit.

Agree. I think those extras went to South Korea in a way to compensate the war tensions.

[suninphx]

But ROW EB2 didn't provide any whatsoever. If anything they ate into the spillover received from EB1/4/5.

That's no surprise. Given EB2ROW were retro for 3 months in FY 2012. On bright side - EB2ROW may not have consumed as much spillover as initially thought on this forum.

[YTeleven]

Please find the attachment with the estimation of EB visa allocations for India in 2014.
I did a similar estimation last year and surprisingly it was inline with the today's visa stats released by DOS.
This estimation is based on current statistics and some fundamentals around the EB categories for I,C & ROW.

[suninphx]

Please find the attachment with the estimation of EB visa allocations for India in 2014.
I did a similar estimation last year and surprisingly it was inline with the today's visa stats release by USCIS.
This estimation is based on current statistics and some fundamentals around the EB catagories for I,C & ROW.

Thanks!

[sairam09]

Thanks!

Please find the attachment with the estimation of EB visa allocations for India in 2014.
I did a similar estimation last year and surprisingly it was inline with the today's visa stats released by DOS.
This estimation is based on current statistics and some fundamentals around the EB categories for I,C & ROW.

[shreyasai2004]

So you feel that dates will move Until july 2009 for FY 2014.

Please find the attachment with the estimation of EB visa allocations for India in 2014.
I did a similar estimation last year and surprisingly it was inline with the today's visa stats released by DOS.
This estimation is based on current statistics and some fundamentals around the EB categories for I,C & ROW.

[triplet]

I spoke to my lawyer today and he said there's just no way a PD of Oct 2008 can be current this July/August. I guess we'll wait and see what happens, the stats on this site tell a different story.
People on this blog are really well informed about various procedures but for those of us less familiar with rules, if you are issued a green card when you are out of the country both AP and H1B become null and void. I guess the green card will need to be mailed to you to be able to reenter at the US.

[Jagan01]

I spoke to my lawyer today and he said there's just no way a PD of Oct 2008 can be current this July/August. I guess we'll wait and see what happens, the stats on this site tell a different story.
People on this blog are really well informed about various procedures but for those of us less familiar with rules, if you are issued a green card when you are out of the country both AP and H1B become null and void. I guess the green card will need to be mailed to you to be able to reenter at the US.

Most of the times the lawyers want to not listen to you and hence try and put you off. So I would say that his statement is not realistic.

However, I do not agree to many predictions going around indicating that the dates can move to Mar 2009.

Supply:
EB5 will not give much spillover
EB1 will not give any spillover
EB4 might give 5k
Family based GC will give 10k to EB and thus EB2 might get around 6k from there

I believe, EB2I would get 11k spillover and 3k is the annual quota.

Demand:
I believe that most of the 3k annual quota is used up and has cleared most of the backlog until June 2008. However, the I-485 inventory that shall be soon published will give us a better picture.

Below is what I expect from the Jan I-485 inventory:
Demand before Jan 2009 --> 10k
Demand for Jan 2009 --> 1.3k
Demand for Feb 2009 --> 1.3k
Demand for Mar 2009 --> 1.4k

I feel with 1k supply, everything before Jan 2009 should be cleared and dates should move into 2009. However, with the 1k supply remaining, the CO might put dates at mid-end Jan 2009 as he knows that Jan 2009 itself has a demand of 1.3k.

[YTeleven]

So you feel that dates will move Until july 2009 for FY 2014.

Its is possible if we see extremely low porting numbers this year. I'm guessing it will be 5000 this year due to various reasons.
If that is true then original EB2-I applications will get around 15K visas as per above estimation and this will take us into 2009 levels.
Here is the past 3 years porting numbers:
------------------------------------------------------------------
EB3-I Porting Estimation----| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Actual Reduction in Demand| 5950 | 6450 | 15600 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Actual allocation of Visas----| 4002 | 2804 | 7816 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Approx. Porting numbers----| 1948 | 3646 | 7784 |
------------------------------------------------------------------

[suninphx]

Most of the times the lawyers want to not listen to you and hence try and put you off. So I would say that his statement is not realistic.

However, I do not agree to many predictions going around indicating that the dates can move to Mar 2009.

Supply:
EB5 will not give much spillover
EB1 will not give any spillover
EB4 might give 5k
Family based GC will give 10k to EB and thus EB2 might get around 6k from there

I believe, EB2I would get 11k spillover and 3k is the annual quota.

Demand:
I believe that most of the 3k annual quota is used up and has cleared most of the backlog until June 2008. However, the I-485 inventory that shall be soon published will give us a better picture.

Below is what I expect from the Jan I-485 inventory:
Demand before Jan 2009 --> 10k
Demand for Jan 2009 --> 1.3k
Demand for Feb 2009 --> 1.3k
Demand for Mar 2009 --> 1.4k

I feel with 1k supply, everything before Jan 2009 should be cleared and dates should move into 2009. However, with the 1k supply remaining, the CO might put dates at mid-end Jan 2009 as he knows that Jan 2009 itself has a demand of 1.3k.

Jagan - why is your EB1 spillover estimate so conservative?

[Kanmani]

Its is possible if we see extremely low porting numbers this year. I'm guessing it will be 5000 this year due to various reasons.
If that is true then original EB2-I applications will get around 15K visas as per above estimation and this will take us into 2009 levels.
Here is the past 3 years porting numbers:
------------------------------------------------------------------
EB3-I Porting Estimation----| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Actual Reduction in Demand| 5950 | 6450 | 15600 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Actual allocation of Visas----| 4002 | 2804 | 7816 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Approx. Porting numbers----| 1948 | 3646 | 7784 |
------------------------------------------------------------------

Do you think 5000 porters fall on the lower end ?

What is your take on splitting the porters from the total of 17k EB2I approvals?(FY13)

[Jagan01]

Jagan - why is your EB1 spillover estimate so conservative?

Sun,

I do not think my estimation of EB1 is conservative. I am thinking EB1 will use 40,500 out of the 42,910 available to them. FY2013 numbers show they used up 39,058.

Family based 10k extra visas will be distributed as follows:
EB1 --> 2910
EB2 --> 2910
EB3 --> 2910
EB4 --> 635
EB5 --> 635

EB1 will be having approximately 42,910 available visas. Remember that 2,910 is coming from Family based. I feel they will completely use up the original 40,000 available to them. There might be around 2500 that they do not use. However, I have already accounted those 2500 in the total spillover that I gave to EB2I from FB.

EB2I will get 6k spillover from FB.
2.5k from EB1
3k of its own
1k from EB4 and EB5.

[Jagan01]

Its is possible if we see extremely low porting numbers this year. I'm guessing it will be 5000 this year due to various reasons.
If that is true then original EB2-I applications will get around 15K visas as per above estimation and this will take us into 2009 levels.
Here is the past 3 years porting numbers:
------------------------------------------------------------------
EB3-I Porting Estimation----| 2011 | 2012 | 2013 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Actual Reduction in Demand| 5950 | 6450 | 15600 |
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Actual allocation of Visas----| 4002 | 2804 | 7816 |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Approx. Porting numbers----| 1948 | 3646 | 7784 |
------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi YTeleven,

Thanks for the data.

The data you provided only considers the people porting from EB3 to EB2 that had earlier filed I-485 in EB3.

Did you consider the fact that post Aug 2007 there are many many EB3s with approved I-140 that have already ported to EB2. These candidates do not show up in the demand data. Technically, the porting number was more than 7784 in FY2013.

[qesehmk]

A few more interesting observations from the 2013 visa allocations: (In the order of importance and implications)

1. Overall consumption was 3K more than initial visa allocation of 158K
2. EB2 consumption was 63K i.e. approx 18K more than quota. Thus 18K came from other categories.
3. EB2ROW consumption was 36K. That is huge. Plus EB2P received 4.4K and EB2-SKorea received 7K. This doesn't bode well for 2014
4. EB3 overall consumption was 41K which was 3K less than its quota. However EB3I received 7K and inventory reduced by 12K. Thus 5K of EB3->2 porting for India was confirmed.
5. EB1 India ate up almost 10K while EB1 china consumed 6K. thus showing healthy demand for EB1 in 2014.
6. EB5 china consumed 6K thus showing healthy future demand for EB5

Overall it is safe to say without the 18K extra visas EB2I would be crushed under all this demand and there would be very little movement. Fundamentally there are several -ve trends going on here.

1. EB1 and 5 has healthy demand.
2. EB2ROW has very strong demand - probably it includes EB3 porting.
3. EB2I has almost 5K of EB3I porting.

All of this means EB2I will move quite slow in future years. If the employment environment improves then EB2ROW will add even more pressure. Sorry for the bad news .... but unfortunately that's the truth.

Any critique or a different perspective is very welcome. I would be glad to be wrong on all of these.

p.s. - Forgot to say but EB3ROW as well as EB3I has solid good trends going on. Basically EB3ROW should become current in couple of years from now - perhaps as soon as next. Whereas EB2I should move at least 6 months this year if the porting is proceeding at 5K/year. For EB2C the situation is ridiculous and they might want to reconsider filing in EB3!!