EB2-3 Predictions (Rather Calculations) 2015-2020

[sportsfan33]

Thanks for your words cancer. WhereismyGC's forecast is not quite different than what Spec has been saying. I haven't quite followed YT's predictions but would be curious to hear his take on 2015.

As far as I am concerned - 2014 shows a picture of high usage coupled of high accumulation. It's a double whammy in 2015 - because in 2015 quite likely the demand may stay the same and then there will be a significant backlog that USCIS has to deal with.

Another thing I would be interested in hearing from others is their take on EB-I portings.

Although the usage for 2014 was 23.5K for EB2I - the inventory of EB2I went down only by ~12K. So the remaining 11.5K visas must go towards portings. But then if you look at EB3I inventory reduction - it only looks like 5K.

A) somebody needs to solve this
B) if this doesn't get solved - I think an immigrant group must raise this with Dept of State and ask an explanation because at a time when thousands are waiting in line - 6.5K visas is a big deal to not have an explanation for.

Answer: Post 2007 porting.

Edit: Just saw YT's answer and realized that we also need to add the NVC approvals. Q, some time back, you had showed that EB2-I had a large pending NVC demand and the number was in the ~5K range up to 2009 itself.

[bikenlalan]

VISA BULLETIN PROJECTIONS FOR 2015...
India EB-2. Mr. Oppenheim suggests that India EB-2 may slightly progress in the first-half of 2015. Historically the Visa Office has waited until the summer to advance the India EB-2 date.
http://blogs.ilw.com/entry.php?8395-...IONS-FOR-2015&

This could also mean June 2015.

[Jonty Rhodes]

VISA BULLETIN PROJECTIONS FOR 2015...
India EB-2. Mr. Oppenheim suggests that India EB-2 may slightly progress in the first-half of 2015. Historically the Visa Office has waited until the summer to advance the India EB-2 date.
http://blogs.ilw.com/entry.php?8395-...IONS-FOR-2015&

This could also mean June 2015.

Read the last paragraph from the link.

"President Obama’s Recent Executive Action. The Visa Office reminds users that the President’s Executive Action is not expected to have any impact on the Visa Bulletin. While the Executive Action suggests that Adjustment of Status applications will be able to be filed much earlier in the green card process, these “pre-filings” will not impact the priority dates."

I think everybody knew and expected from this EO that people will be allowed to file for I-485 even when dates are not current. But bigger question is when will it be implemented? If this is going to take more than a year, than it would be not much helpful for people between May, 2010 to early 2011 since they will most likely be able to file for EAD next year anyways if dates advance.

In reality, they don't even need an executive action for letting people who are not current, file for I-485. All that USCIS needs to do is to make PD current for retrogressed countries for 1-2 months and people will be able to file I-485 and get EAD/AP . After that, they can retrogress it or make it unavailable.

Anyways, some relief is better than no relief. But I still wish that President should have given at least some specific timeline in the EO for legals as well. Instead of that, all we got was some feel good text and a tall promise asking the USCIS and DHS to streamline the legal immigration system. It will probably happen also, but we just don't know when.

Our only hopes are 1) USCIS/DHS starts implementing these reforms quickly which will not happen for sure as it is going to take a long time. or 2) New Congress with GOP majority in House and Senate passes some kind of commonsense (not Comprehensive) immigration reform early next year that would satisfy politicians on both sides and President as well so he doesn't veto it. The chances of this happening is zilch, zero, none, nil, ille. In fact, GOP is planning to stop further funding of DHS (current funding ends in February) so as to stop DHS from implementing EO on immigration (USCIS is funded by all of us so no issue of funding there). There is no way they are going to pass anything on immigration. Somehow, if they manage to pass something for legal immigration, either Democrats will not support it (so it won't pass) or President will veto it if the bill doesn't include illegals.

So I don't expect any action on immigration at least till 2017 since 2016 is an election year and no one will touch a political hot potato named immigration. And if we get a Republican President in 2017, then we should just say bye bye to CIR although ironically, that may actually increase the chances to have something passed for legal immigrants.

[gten20]

Read the last paragraph from the link.

"President Obama’s Recent Executive Action. The Visa Office reminds users that the President’s Executive Action is not expected to have any impact on the Visa Bulletin. While the Executive Action suggests that Adjustment of Status applications will be able to be filed much earlier in the green card process, these “pre-filings” will not impact the priority dates."

I think everybody knew and expected from this EO that people will be allowed to file for I-485 even when dates are not current. But bigger question is when will it be implemented? If this is going to take more than a year, than it would be not much helpful for people between May, 2010 to early 2011 since they will most likely be able to file for EAD next year anyways if dates advance.

In reality, they don't even need an executive action for letting people who are not current, file for I-485. All that USCIS needs to do is to make PD current for retrogressed countries for 1-2 months and people will be able to file I-485 and get EAD/AP . After that, they can retrogress it or make it unavailable.

Anyways, some relief is better than no relief. But I still wish that President should have given at least some specific timeline in the EO for legals as well. Instead of that, all we got was some feel good text and a tall promise asking the USCIS and DHS to streamline the legal immigration system. It will probably happen also, but we just don't know when.

Our only hopes are 1) USCIS/DHS starts implementing these reforms quickly which will not happen for sure as it is going to take a long time. or 2) New Congress with GOP majority in House and Senate passes some kind of commonsense (not Comprehensive) immigration reform early next year that would satisfy politicians on both sides and President as well so he doesn't veto it. The chances of this happening is zilch, zero, none, nil, ille. In fact, GOP is planning to stop further funding of DHS (current funding ends in February) so as to stop DHS from implementing EO on immigration (USCIS is funded by all of us so no issue of funding there). There is no way they are going to pass anything on immigration. Somehow, if they manage to pass something for legal immigration, either Democrats will not support it (so it won't pass) or President will veto it if the bill doesn't include illegals.

So I don't expect any action on immigration at least till 2017 since 2016 is an election year and no one will touch a political hot potato named immigration. And if we get a Republican President in 2017, then we should just say bye bye to CIR although ironically, that may actually increase the chances to have something passed for legal immigrants.

Yep, I don't expect anything will happen until after 2016 election. Everyday it looks more and more like backlogs will remain till people just get tired and demand drops.

What Obama "did" for addressing legal immigration is that he told DHS and USCIS to look busy.

The new congress doesn't seem interested in tackling immigration. Mitch McConnell has said his first order of business when he heads senate will be Keystone pipeline vote. Obama has said he will veto the bill if it comes to his desk. Under such atmosphere I don't think immigration reform can happen.

[bikenlalan]

Read the last paragraph from the link.

"President Obama’s Recent Executive Action. The Visa Office reminds users that the President’s Executive Action is not expected to have any impact on the Visa Bulletin. While the Executive Action suggests that Adjustment of Status applications will be able to be filed much earlier in the green card process, these “pre-filings” will not impact the priority dates."

I think everybody knew and expected from this EO that people will be allowed to file for I-485 even when dates are not current. But bigger question is when will it be implemented? If this is going to take more than a year, than it would be not much helpful for people between May, 2010 to early 2011 since they will most likely be able to file for EAD next year anyways if dates advance.

In reality, they don't even need an executive action for letting people who are not current, file for I-485. All that USCIS needs to do is to make PD current for retrogressed countries for 1-2 months and people will be able to file I-485 and get EAD/AP . After that, they can retrogress it or make it unavailable.

Anyways, some relief is better than no relief. But I still wish that President should have given at least some specific timeline in the EO for legals as well. Instead of that, all we got was some feel good text and a tall promise asking the USCIS and DHS to streamline the legal immigration system. It will probably happen also, but we just don't know when.

Our only hopes are 1) USCIS/DHS starts implementing these reforms quickly which will not happen for sure as it is going to take a long time. or 2) New Congress with GOP majority in House and Senate passes some kind of commonsense (not Comprehensive) immigration reform early next year that would satisfy politicians on both sides and President as well so he doesn't veto it. The chances of this happening is zilch, zero, none, nil, ille. In fact, GOP is planning to stop further funding of DHS (current funding ends in February) so as to stop DHS from implementing EO on immigration (USCIS is funded by all of us so no issue of funding there). There is no way they are going to pass anything on immigration. Somehow, if they manage to pass something for legal immigration, either Democrats will not support it (so it won't pass) or President will veto it if the bill doesn't include illegals.

So I don't expect any action on immigration at least till 2017 since 2016 is an election year and no one will touch a political hot potato named immigration. And if we get a Republican President in 2017, then we should just say bye bye to CIR although ironically, that may actually increase the chances to have something passed for legal immigrants.

Very well said. There is no chance this is happening anytime in 2015/16.
Thinking about the H-4 EAD rule, there were talks about it since early 2013. And we are already at the end of 2014 (supposed to be published this month) and we are yet waiting. Imagine when this will see the light of day.

Sure, they do not need EO to implement this and make everyone current for at least couple of months. This is how they are going to delay it and Obama does not look bad (atleast he is doing something about the legals)

[Jonty Rhodes]

Very well said. There is no chance this is happening anytime in 2015/16.
Thinking about the H-4 EAD rule, there were talks about it since early 2013. And we are already at the end of 2014 (supposed to be published this month) and we are yet waiting. Imagine when this will see the light of day.

Sure, they do not need EO to implement this and make everyone current for at least couple of months. This is how they are going to delay it and Obama does not look bad (atleast he is doing something about the legals)

You know the worst part for legal immigrants like us is that we have to make a choice between Democrats (bad - in the sense of doing nothing for legals till illegals are included) vs Republicans (worst - perceived as totally anti-immigrants) when it comes to getting something done for legal immigration and we get screwed by both sides. When President Obama got elected in 2008, he had majority (he was one short of a supermajority in reality, but had it on paper) in both House and Senate. His 2008 pre-election promise was to address Immigration issues in his first term and make it a priority. Even after being elected and sworn in as a President, there was lot of talk about Immigration Reform. For some unknown reason, the discussion fell silent over few months and completely deviated towards Affordable Care Act. If Democrats and President really wanted to do immigration reform than they would have known better that immigration reform is way more controversial than Affordable Care Act and will be very difficult to pass without majority. But for some reason, they decided to sideline it, make Affordable Care Act their priority and decided to put all their efforts behind it. Now, we can debate about ACA vs CIR forever but that's not the point.

The point is, Democrats had a choice when they had majority - CIR (extremely controversial as it prevented people who broke the law intentionally or unintentionally from deportation there by bending law of the land) vs ACA (again very controversial but little less than CIR, which forced people to buy insurance and forced insurance to cover people with pre-existing conditions). In my opinion, CIR should had been taken up in first term when they had majority. I am not saying this because I am stuck in backlog. I filed my GC in 2011 so CIR in 2008-09 would not have concerned me.

But who knows, what the reality is. May be the Democrats did not take up CIR because they may have wanted to keep the carrot of immigration dangling to Hispanics and just make superficial changes in policy, so as to keep the Hispanic hope alive in order to get their votes election after elections. While Republicans can keep pandering to their vote base to keep their vote share intact.

Anyways, this is my last one on the topic as this is not an appropriate forum to discuss it. Please feel free to remove the post.

[eb2visa]

see Murthy post. There may be good news soon


EB2 India: Potential for Advancement

The EB2 India cutoff date retrogressed to February 15, 2005 in November 2014, and has remained stagnant since. The DOS previously projected that this cutoff date would not move forward before June or July 2015. However, the DOS is now considering whether to advance the cutoff date earlier in the fiscal year. No information is provided regarding when, exactly, this may occur, nor is there any indication yet regarding how far the dates will advance. MurthyDotCom will closely track this development.

[axecapone]

"President Obama’s Recent Executive Action. The Visa Office reminds users that the President’s Executive Action is not expected to have any impact on the Visa Bulletin. While the Executive Action suggests that Adjustment of Status applications will be able to be filed much earlier in the green card process, these “pre-filings” will not impact the priority dates."

The EO had some language around "issuing all visas allocated by Congress" which gave us hope for re-capture. Given this new statement, does that mean re-capture is out of question?

[qesehmk]

So lets talk about any possible movement in VB dates by DOS.

There are two ways DOS moves dates:
1. Purely to build future demand. (In other words quickly move dates forward - accept as many 485s it can and then move dates backward).
2. To actually allocate visas based on visa availability.

If there are any reports out there - including directly from Dept of State - that say they will move dates forward - they are going to fall in either of these two categories.

If it is going to be #1 - then we should expect the dates to move beyond May 2010 which is where the dates were last for EB2I.

If it is going to be #2 - then we should expect a movement of a couple of years max because #2 movement will meant DOS overshot the retrogression and took it too far back and now want to bring it to a level where it can utilize teh monthly EB2I quota.

If you ask me - my guess would be the movement will be #2 (no pun intended!).

p.s. - I also can't possibly think why EO would have any effect on dates movement unless EO somehow makes extra visas available. So far - I haven't come across anything that indicates to visa availability either through recapture or doing away with dependents being counted towards EB quota.

So for now - people shouldn't stay too hopeful about any possible date movement other than just a correction by DOS for any overshooting.

[vizcard]

Its been a while since I posted here. Started a new job and got a vacation as a perk for taking the offer

I agree with Q - nothing in the EO has anything to do with date movement. I do think that 485 application prior to dates being current will happen. Not sure when but it will happen.

[geterdone]

to be released tomorrow:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-insp...2014-30641.pdf

look at pages 7 & 8

Its been a while since I posted here. Started a new job and got a vacation as a perk for taking the offer

I agree with Q - nothing in the EO has anything to do with date movement. I do think that 485 application prior to dates being current will happen. Not sure when but it will happen.

[CleanSock]

What is that link geterdone? I am unable to open it. It says Webpage Not Available.

to be released tomorrow:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/public-insp...2014-30641.pdf

look at pages 7 & 8

[geterdone]

What is that link geterdone? I am unable to open it. It says Webpage Not Available.

try this:

https://www.federalregister.gov/arti...gration-policy

[Raj0687]

try this:

https://www.federalregister.gov/arti...gration-policy

The 16th point is interesting, talking about recapture.

[CleanSock]

Wishing all the forum members and their families a Very Happy New Year!
For some comedy on New Year's eve, here's a video of Stephen Colbert talking about immigrants in Congress and blasting Sen. King in his own way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewPburLEZyY

[ramaka02]

A Very Happy New Year to all!

[arnab221]

So lets talk about any possible movement in VB dates by DOS.
If it is going to be #1 - then we should expect the dates to move beyond May 2010 which is where the dates were last for EB2I.

If it is going to be #2 - then we should expect a movement of a couple of years max because #2 movement will meant DOS overshot the retrogression and took it too far back and now want to bring it to a level where it can utilize teh monthly EB2I quota.

If you ask me - my guess would be the movement will be #2 (no pun intended!).

.

Q ,

When you say 2 years are you saying 2 years from Feb 2005 to Feb 2007 , OR is it somewhere close to Feb 2009.

[Spectator]

Happy New Year to everybody.

Here are the unofficial PERM figures for Q1 FY2015 compiled from dolstats and permchecker. I have also shown the corresponding Q1 FY2014 figures for reference.

PERM approvals rose from Q2 FY2014 onwards last FY.


Group ------- No. -- Q1 FY2014
China ----- 1,431 -------- 641
India ----- 9,220 ------ 5,076
Mexico ------ 295 -------- 281
Philippines - 316 -------- 210
ROW ------- 4,947 ------ 2,856

Total ---- 16,209 ------ 9,064

[qesehmk]

I meant - if there is any movement this quarter it will be an adjustment and hence should be relative to where dates arectoday ie from feb 2005 to couple years forward - if that.

Q ,

When you say 2 years are you saying 2 years from Feb 2005 to Feb 2007 , OR is it somewhere close to Feb 2009.

[suninphx]

Happy New Year to everybody.

Here are the unofficial PERM figures for Q1 FY2015 compiled from dolstats and permchecker. I have also shown the corresponding Q1 FY2014 figures for reference.

PERM approvals rose from Q2 FY2014 onwards last FY.


Group ------- No. -- Q1 FY2014
China ----- 1,431 -------- 641
India ----- 9,220 ------ 5,076
Mexico ------ 295 -------- 281
Philippines - 316 -------- 210
ROW ------- 4,947 ------ 2,856

Total ---- 16,209 ------ 9,064

Happy new year all!

Spec- thanks for those numbers.

Looking at the rate the PERM numbers are growing, it appears that Spec's worst case scenario may be in play this year.

[tenyearsgone]

Impact of proposed DHS funding cut on EAD/AP renewals:

Gurus,
The Republicans are proposing to cut funding (or not renew) for DHS when it runs out in late Feb. What would the impact be on EAD/AP renewals in the scenario? Will it also impact visa stamping schedules?

Please move this to an appropriate thread if this is out of place.

[suninphx]

Impact of proposed DHS funding cut on EAD/AP renewals:

Gurus,
The Republicans are proposing to cut funding (or not renew) for DHS when it runs out in late Feb. What would the impact be on EAD/AP renewals in the scenario? Will it also impact visa stamping schedules?

Please move this to an appropriate thread if this is out of place.

link please

[vckomara]

I apologize in advance if the answer for this question has been implied or directly answered already but my PD is sept 1st week 2009. if we consider the worst case, do I need to wait until 2016 for a green card or will I get it sometime during 2015? I want to be out of this company asap and would like to take a chance and move on with another job while on EAD (even though its risky considering my job profile) even if there is 10% chance that I wont get greened this year.

[Jonty Rhodes]

Impact of proposed DHS funding cut on EAD/AP renewals:

Gurus,
The Republicans are proposing to cut funding (or not renew) for DHS when it runs out in late Feb. What would the impact be on EAD/AP renewals in the scenario? Will it also impact visa stamping schedules?

Please move this to an appropriate thread if this is out of place.

I don't think EAD or AP renewals should be affected at all because they are done by USCIS. USCIS is user funded, and does not rely on Federal Government to fund it. So even in case of shutdown, USCIS will be working. (only 10% of USCIS workforce was affected during shutdown last year)

I am not sure about visa stamping because that may require involvement of DHS at some level for security clearance.

DHS is funded right now through February but even if DHS funding is frozen by GOP somehow, it would not stop majority of the DHS employees from work because during last year's 16 day shutdown, 85% of DHS employees continued to work because they were funded with mandatory funds or deemed essential to national security and public safety. Only 15% employees were affected during that shut down.

Now, clearance and granting of visa to an individual may come under national security and hence may not be impacted. If it doesn't then it may be impacted but chances are that it won't.

It is also possible that President may announce that all DHS employee are essential to national security and public safety. If that happens, then DHS would be working regularly even with frozen funding and once the funding issue resolves, President may just pay those employee at once. This is what exactly happened with those 85% of employees last time. They continued to work during shutdown without pay and got paid at once after the shutdown was over.

The best way for GOP is to pass small piecemeal immigration bills and take some action. That is the only way to stop what they call "Total Executive Amnesty" and get some rules and regulations that they desire. No action is not a good choice for them. Lets see what they do. Also, watch out for that law suit where 24 states have sued and have gone to court against this Executive Order.

[tenyearsgone]

Thanks Jonty for the answer. One can only hope that legal immigration won't get further hampered by the Executive Order and the reactions to it.

@suninphx: The question was based on this post:
The link in question: http://www.mycentraloregon.com/2015/...e-in-new-year/