Department of State Visa Office Anticipates "Significant Movement" in Visa Bulletin for China EB-2 and EB-3

Our attorneys just returned from the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Annual Conference and have good news to share with our clients. At the conference, officials from the Department of State Visa Office stated that they anticipate “significant movement” in the Visa Bulletin cut-off dates for the China employment-based second and third preference categories (EB-2 and EB-3) in the upcoming months. Visa Office representatives indicated two reasons for this optimistic outlook: 1) excessive levels of demand in both EB-2 and EB-3 categories have subsided, and 2) there are several hundred unused visas in the family-based preference categories. To ensure that all immigrant visa numbers available to China in this fiscal year are used, the Visa Office plans to rollover the unused visas allocated to the family-based preference categories and to make them available to the employment-based preference categories. This is a routine procedure that the Visa Office applies to ensure that visa numbers are not wasted before this current fiscal year ends in September.

We do caution that the above is only a prediction from the Visa Office. Experience has shown that numerous factors, such as unexpected surge in demand or faster I-485 processing by the USCIS, may arise that can affect anticipated movements in the Visa Bulletin. Our firm will continue to monitor the Visa Bulletin each month and will notify clients when their priority dates become current.

We will provide a more comprehensive update of news from the AILA Annual Conference later this week.