October 2012 Visa Bulletin

The U.S. Department of State has released the October 2012 Visa Bulletin.  This is the first Visa Bulletin for the 2013 fiscal year (FY2013).    Major headlines in this month’s bulletin are the availability in several categories, including EB-2 India and China, as well as a significant retrogression in the EB-2 India category to September 2004.

Summary of the October 2012 Visa Bulletin – Employment-Based (EB)

  • EB-1 remains current.
  • EB-2 for Rest of World (ROW), Mexico and Philippines all move forward by three years to January 1, 2012.    EB-2 India is now available but with a severely retrogressed cutoff date of September 1, 2004.  EB-2 China is also available but with a cutoff date of July 15, 2007.
  • EB-3 ROW and EB-3 Mexico move forward by three weeks to October 22, 2006.  EB-3 Philippines remains unchanged at August 1, 2006, EB-3 China  moves forward by seven weeks to February 8, 2006, and EB-3 India  moves forward by one week to October 15, 2002.
  • The “other worker” category moves forward by three weeks for ROW and Mexico to October 22, 2006.  The Philippines and China remain unchanged at August 1, 2006 and June 22, 2003 respectively.  India moves forward by one week to October 15, 2002.

Summary of the October 2012 Visa Bulletin – Family-Based (FB)

  • FB-1 Rest of World (ROW), China and India all move forward by one week  to October 8, 2005.   FB-1 Mexico moves forward by one week  to June 15, 1993, and the Philippines moves forward by eighteen months to April 1, 1996.
  • FB-2A moves forward by three weeks to June 1, 2010 for ROW, China, India, and Philippines.  FB-2A Mexico moves forward by one month to May 15, 2010.
  • FB-2B ROW, China and India remain unchanged at September 15, 2004.  FB-2B Mexico moves forward by five weeks to October 1, 1992, and FB-2B Philippines moves forward by three weeks to January 22, 2002.

Recently, there has been much speculation and anticipation of the October 2012 Visa Bulletin, the first of Fiscal Year 2013 – specifically in regard to the EB-2 India and China.  Indications were that the EB-2 India cutoff date would be set to somewhere in 2007.   It seems that in the October 2012 Visa Bulletin, The Department of State decided to retrogress significantly EB-2 India to September 1, 2004 in an effort to slow the number of new I-485 filings and to allow The United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) to work on  filed and pending I-485 applications in this category.

Slow movement in the category is expected over the next few months.

Contact The Law Offices of Dayna Kelly if you’d like to speak with an attorney about your immigration matters.  We will continue to update our readers on Department of State updates, including the release of the November 2012 Visa Bulletin.

 

 |  Post by in Department of State Updates, Visa Bulletins

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