Breaking News: EB-2 India Unavailable for Rest of September; Major Retrogression in EB-2 India Coming in the Fall

Mr. Charles Oppenheim, the Chief of the Visa Control and Reporting Division at the U.S. Department of State, just announced in a meeting in which our office participated that due to extraordinarily high volume of EB-2 India cases, the Department of State will make the EB-2 India category unavailable until the end of the fiscal year (September 30, 2014) effective immediately as of today, September 10, 2014.  It is important to note that this announcement does not affect the October 2014 Visa Bulletin, which has EB-2 India with a cutoff date of May 1, 2009 and which will be effective as of October 1, 2014.

Making a category unavailable is an emergency measure and is caused, in this instance, by the high volume of EB-2 India filings (and approvals), combined with the fact that the available visa numbers for the fiscal year have been or will be reached immediately.   While it is not unusual for the available visa numbers for a fiscal year to be reached at some time in September (because the fiscal year ends at the end of September and because the Department of State is trying to make sure that all visa numbers are used before the end of the fiscal year or be lost),  making a visa category unavailable with an immediate effect is a rare move.

No or Few EB-2 India Approvals Expected for the Rest of September

The fact that the EB-2 India has been made “unavailable” and that there are no more visa numbers available in this category means that we should not expect any further EB-2 India approvals in September.      There may be few approvals, nonetheless.  The reason is that an immigration officer may have already requested and received an authorization for a visa number for a pending I-485 case and as long as this visa number has been already allocated, an approval of an I-485 application may come even after this announcement.

When the new fiscal year starts on October 1, the annual visa numbers reset and we should continue to see adjudications and approvals for pending I-485 applications with current priority dates.

No EB-2 India Filings for the Remainder of September

The fact that EB-2 India is unavailable for September also means that no new EB-2 India I-485 filings will be accepted and processed during the rest of the month.    This includes I-485 filings for dependents and I-485 interfiling requests (usually after I-140 porting applications).   Cases that are filed are either likely to be held for processing on October 1st or will be returned to the applicant.

Update 9/11/2014.  Based on recent experience when DOS made EB-5 China “unavailable”,  USCIS is likely to continue accepting I-485 filings but those cases will be held in the Visa Office’s “Pending Demand” file until October 1, 2014.   At that time, all eligible cases will be automatically authorized from the “Pending Demand” file under the FY-2015 annual numerical limitation.

EB-2 India Major Retrogression Upcoming

Mr. Oppenheim also confirmed that a major retrogression for EB-2 India is expected in November or December.    According to Mr. Oppenheim, EB-2 India is likely to retrogress possibly all the way back to 2005.   On a longer term note, EB-2 India is likely to move forward extremely slowly and EB-2 India candidates should prepare for a long wait under the current visa allocation system and given the current high levels of demand.

Conclusion

The folks most affected by this breaking announcement will be EB-2 India applicants who were planning to file their (or their family members’) I-485 applications in the month of September.   These candidates may now have to wait until still be able to file their I-485 applications but such applications may be held until October 1st.    Also, EB-2 India applicants with pending I-485 applications and a current priority date will likely have to wait until October 1st, at least, to get some good news.

We will provide updates on this piece of breaking news and related topics.    Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can review your case, answer any questions or schedule a consultation.   We also invite you to subscribe to our free weekly immigration newsletter to receive timely updates on this and related topics.  Finally, if you already haven’t, please consider our Visa Bulletin Predictions tool which provides personalized predictions and charts helping you understand when a particular priority date may become current and what are the movement patterns.