Spec
Agree on DoS using their own numbers to set the dates. And historically that has been the cause of retrogression. But as can be seen the discrepancy has reduced a lot over last few years with the concept of preadjudication.
Regarding "NEWS" ... only admins can post news. Other users can always post a normal post in EB2 thread. And that's not my choice, that's how vbulletin works. So sorry folks ... you simply need to add a normal post and then an admin can always post it as a news. I would request admin to break the news and give credit to folks which is what SPEC already did.
Now about date movement
I think all of us understand that moving a date to a certain point and having all teh visas to clear all the demand upto that date are not exactly the same thing!! Otherwise there would never ever be retrogression!!! Right.
So from that standpoint, what I had posted earlier is only incremental analysis to teh dates. The reason I am not using Jul/aug 2006 is because teh date is already moved to Oct based on the expected spillover that is going to be available in June. If you do not use that assumption then increase EB1 range to 9-15K + 4-8K from ROW + 6-8K from EB5 = 19-31K total.
Now mind you these numbers 19-31K are free from portings. They will be applied solely to backlog and PWMBS. But we have already discussed that PWMBs are predominant in the range Jan-Jul 2007. And they can't be processed this fast. So that means 19-31K will be applied to the inventory post Jul-06. Do the math. That gives us a range of first week of Mar to all the way Aug 2007. It seems too good to be true. However consider this, when we started teh year, our fears were portings and PWMBs impacting current backlog. Both turned out mild impacts so far. (by the way I do not call anybody with post Jul07 as PWMB because for them the boat left before their labor approved). Then EB1 has shown considerable promise, ROW inventory in Jun is showing considerable promise. If they have 4K to be processed from 2010 and 2K from 2009 that tells you that USCIS is not in a hurry to process those over EB2IC from 2006-07. As I always keep saying this indicates policy taking precedence over processing.
EB5 is a bit of a dark horse. But not much since even if USCIS accelerates a number of things ... the demand inherently is not there. Thus there is reasonable SOFAD and all SOFAD is exclusively going to be used for clearing the backlog which is now becoming apparent.
Again my numbers may be off by 1-2K here and there. But what I have tried to lay out is a thought process. Mar-Aug 2007. Take your pick!!
Good luck skpanda! Mine was supposed to be Apr 2003, pushed to Mar 2005, company F'd the date and now its Mar 2007. Welcome to GC land aka screw-the-career-card.
Sorry for the fowl language. Other admins I wouldn't mind if YOU delete this one. Sometimes I can't help myself.