EB2/EB3 slow forward movement ahead in 2009

[mpadapa]

DOS recently released the visa usage statistics for FY 2008. For once USCIS managed to use up all the visas allocated for the year. Kudos to USCIS But it comes with a price for EB folks. For the past few years, forward movement of PD during the last months of the FY has been propelled due to the spillover of unused FB visa's from prior year. Remember last year almost 23k FB visas got spilled over to the EB limit and caused significant forward movement of PD's for EB2 I/C. Unfortunately in 2008 USCIS used up all of the FB visa's, hence there will be no visa's to spillover I had consolidated the visa usages in the past few years, Here is a link to the document. The document has hyper link to the source for all the data.

If you are EB3 I/C and wondering why dates didn't move in 2008. Here is the answer,
EB3-C and EB3-I got 1,985 and 3,576 visa's respectively. With such kind of visa allocation there is no doubt about why the dates aren't moving.

If you are EB2 I/C and dreaming that somehow the new spillover would take care of things. You might be pleasantly surprised by the usage of EB1 and EB2-ROW in 2008. Last year many were dreaming that all of the 23K FB visa's would directly go to EB2-I/C but the data shows otherwise. EB2-C and EB-I got 6,967 and 14,819 visa's respectively for the entire 2008. If all the 23K visa's were used by EB2-I/C then their respective numbers would have been much higher.

Bottom line: Without significant change in the EB limit through recapture or increase in EB limit. The forward movement of PD will be a trickle atleast for the rest of the year. We can pray and do whatever before every bulletins, but the numbers cannot lie and hence the bulletins would be a disappointment (for many) until we grasp the reality.

Let us get our acts together and start working together towards some constructive actions like a bill or an amendment. Let us have a healthy debate on what needs to be done.

[arnab221]

On one hand we have VLD Rao crunching numbers like CRAY XMP and telling that EB2 will be close to current by End of the Year . On the other hand Mapadpa now says that the movement will be slow . I am a mere mortal and i am confused to the core on what to make of it ,

[pointlesswait]

mapadapa..has numbers..and numbers dont lie...
i think EB movement will be gradual and it will maybe move to first qtr of 2005 by the end of this year(EB2).....no way will it be C..

Originally Posted by arnab221

On one hand we have VLD Rao crunching numbers like CRAY XMP and telling that EB2 will be close to current by End of the Year . On the other hand Mapadpa now says that the movement will be slow . I am a mere mortal and i am confused to the core on what to make of it ,

[syedajmal]

While we work on bills, is there anything that can be done without a bill but from some kind of an order from the President's office or the Head of USCIS. Getting a bill thru congress in this climate seems next to impossible ( If we could just counter the -ve bills/amendments that would be significant).

What I am trying to say is there something somewhere that can be done with just one office making the decision then we can all make a concentrated effort towards that one office as we do have a few Legal immigration friendly people at every office.

Any ideas????

[WaitingForMyGC]

Originally Posted by arnab221

On one hand we have VLD Rao crunching numbers like CRAY XMP and telling that EB2 will be close to current by End of the Year . On the other hand Mapadpa now says that the movement will be slow . I am a mere mortal and i am confused to the core on what to make of it ,

I believe in VLD Rao. He gives me hope. :-)

[sanjay]

Originally Posted by WaitingForMyGC

I believe in VLD Rao. He gives me hope. :-)

But, Mpadapa has some reality. That's what we are seeing in last 3 - 4 bulletins. A slow but steady movement.

Atleast with current movement we can plan in what period we can expect our case will clear.

[reddymjm]

No one can predict USCIS.

[realizeit]

I personally think Mr. MPADAPA's assumption is wrong. Last year (2008), the spillover came from Family quota of 2008. Spillover from Family or Employment quota of a particular year cannot be given to the following year. So the fact that there is nothing left from the family quota of 2008 doesn't change any situation here.

So, this year the spillover that Employment category can get from Family quota will be the unused numbers of 2009 Family quota.
This is just my thought!

Originally Posted by mpadapa

DOS recently released the visa usage statistics for FY 2008. For once USCIS managed to use up all the visas allocated for the year. Kudos to USCIS But it comes with a price for EB folks. For the past few years, forward movement of PD during the last months of the FY has been propelled due to the spillover of unused FB visa's from prior year. Remember last year almost 23k FB visas got spilled over to the EB limit and caused significant forward movement of PD's for EB2 I/C. Unfortunately in 2008 USCIS used up all of the FB visa's, hence there will be no visa's to spillover I had consolidated the visa usages in the past few years, Here is a link to the document. The document has hyper link to the source for all the data.

If you are EB3 I/C and wondering why dates didn't move in 2008. Here is the answer,
EB3-C and EB3-I got 1,985 and 3,576 visa's respectively. With such kind of visa allocation there is no doubt about why the dates aren't moving.

If you are EB2 I/C and dreaming that somehow the new spillover would take care of things. You might be pleasantly surprised by the usage of EB1 and EB2-ROW in 2008. Last year many were dreaming that all of the 23K FB visa's would directly go to EB2-I/C but the data shows otherwise. EB2-C and EB-I got 6,967 and 14,819 visa's respectively for the entire 2008. If all the 23K visa's were used by EB2-I/C then their respective numbers would have been much higher.

Bottom line: Without significant change in the EB limit through recapture or increase in EB limit. The forward movement of PD will be a trickle atleast for the rest of the year. We can pray and do whatever before every bulletins, but the numbers cannot lie and hence the bulletins would be a disappointment (for many) until we grasp the reality.

Let us get our acts together and start working together towards some constructive actions like a bill or an amendment. Let us have a healthy debate on what needs to be done.

[waitforgc1]

Originally Posted by sanjay

But, Mpadapa has some reality. That's what we are seeing in last 3 - 4 bulletins. A slow but steady movement.

Atleast with current movement we can plan in what period we can expect our case will clear.

I totally agree..

[gcdreamer05]

I saw the doc great work and thanks for putting in teh effort.

So in layman terms can you please explain, how many EB3 visas are allocated per month or per year and how many are necessary as per your doc, that will atleast help us understand how slow its gonna move,

are we talking about 15 days in one visa bulletin movement for EB3 or 30 days (1month) movement in one visa bulletin.

If we can do this , then we can predict how long it would take?

[gcdreamer05]

Originally Posted by sanjay

But, Mpadapa has some reality. That's what we are seeing in last 3 - 4 bulletins. A slow but steady movement.

Atleast with current movement we can plan in what period we can expect our case will clear.

But brother, there has been no movement in EB3, so based on what will we predict when our case will be clear...........

[easygoer]

Originally Posted by sachug22

They change this number later in the year, since some of the FB visa allocated are retruned back to the pool (if the person getting GC does not enter the country in specified time).



They allocated a huge chunk of EB2 Visa to South Korea 7125 (currnet all through the year). Same with EB3 SK got 4727 (close to sum of India and China).

So i agree things will move slower this year but still move forward. We will not see an EB2/3 India/China Current any time soon unless they screw-up again like july 07.

sachung22,

Approximately what cut off dates your expect for EB2/3 by Aug'09?

[senthil1]

Eb2 will move gradually but it may move up to 2006 or 2007 as Eb1 spill over and Eb1 and Eb2 spillover from other countries will be transferred to Indian and Chinese Eb2. Again it depends on how many people are waiting in Eb2

Originally Posted by easygoer

sachung22,

Approximately what cut off dates your expect for EB2/3 by Aug'09?

[mpadapa]

arnab221, I greatly respect your opinion. Here is the primary assumption from the famous thread EB2 will be current in a year (EB2 will be current with in year.).

Originally Posted by vdlrao

I presume EB2 India will be current by next October. Till now for EB2 India there are only 1/3 of 7% of 140K visas which are 3,266. Due to the new change of horizontal fall outs EB2 India exclusively getting about 32k visas, very little share to china. So this change making an availability of about 30k aditional visas to EB2 India along with regular 3,266. So total About 32K visas for EB2 India. This includes unused Family Visa Numbers as well. So from now on EB2 India getting almost 10 times more visas.

And due to the change to Horizontal Fall out of Visa Numbers from Vertical Fall outs, Its not the India which loses but its EB3 ROW.

From the DOS data we know EB2-I got only 14,819 instead of 32K assumed in the above quote. We all hope things would be better but reality seems to be different.

Originally Posted by arnab221

On one hand we have VLD Rao crunching numbers like CRAY XMP and telling that EB2 will be close to current by End of the Year . On the other hand Mapadpa now says that the movement will be slow . I am a mere mortal and i am confused to the core on what to make of it ,

[pappu]

Originally Posted by mpadapa

DOS recently released the visa usage statistics for FY 2008. For once USCIS managed to use up all the visas allocated for the year. Kudos to USCIS But it comes with a price for EB folks. For the past few years, forward movement of PD during the last months of the FY has been propelled due to the spillover of unused FB visa's from prior year. Remember last year almost 23k FB visas got spilled over to the EB limit and caused significant forward movement of PD's for EB2 I/C. Unfortunately in 2008 USCIS used up all of the FB visa's, hence there will be no visa's to spillover I had consolidated the visa usages in the past few years, Here is a link to the document. The document has hyper link to the source for all the data.

If you are EB3 I/C and wondering why dates didn't move in 2008. Here is the answer,
EB3-C and EB3-I got 1,985 and 3,576 visa's respectively. With such kind of visa allocation there is no doubt about why the dates aren't moving.

If you are EB2 I/C and dreaming that somehow the new spillover would take care of things. You might be pleasantly surprised by the usage of EB1 and EB2-ROW in 2008. Last year many were dreaming that all of the 23K FB visa's would directly go to EB2-I/C but the data shows otherwise. EB2-C and EB-I got 6,967 and 14,819 visa's respectively for the entire 2008. If all the 23K visa's were used by EB2-I/C then their respective numbers would have been much higher.

Bottom line: Without significant change in the EB limit through recapture or increase in EB limit. The forward movement of PD will be a trickle atleast for the rest of the year. We can pray and do whatever before every bulletins, but the numbers cannot lie and hence the bulletins would be a disappointment (for many) until we grasp the reality.

Let us get our acts together and start working together towards some constructive actions like a bill or an amendment. Let us have a healthy debate on what needs to be done.

Good analysis.
I do however hope for little extra movement than what we have seen this year for EB2 I and C due to horizontal allocation. However Eb2 still has good enough retrogression and we should not see any big jumps in dates. EB3 maybe a different story without any legislation or any fix.