USCIS has released some numbers about the student and exchange visitor visa programs. As of December 31, 2008, there were 1,046,468 active nonimmigrant students, exchange visitors and their dependents. Out of this number, there were a total of 722,272 active F or M students and 94,027 dependents. There were 179,408 J-1 exchange visitors and 50,761 [...]
The February 2009 Visa Bulletin is out. It brings some good forward movement for some employment-based categories. Unfortunately, EB-3 ROW and EB-3 India remain unchanged. EB-2 ROW remains current. EB-2 India and EB-2 China both move forward by approximately 6 months. EB-2 India is now at January 1, 2004 while EB-2 China is at January 1, [...]
The January 2009 Visa Bulletin is out. As expected and unfortunately, the forward movement in the employment-based category is very small. EB-2 India has moved a month forward from June 2001 to July 2001. EB-2 China has moved from June 2004 to July 2003. EB-3 India has moved by only 15 days - from October 1, 2001 [...]
The November 2008 Visa Bulletin is out. There are no surprises, although for many foreign nationals, who have an employment-based petition filed and pending, the update would not bring much joy. If we could sum the results of the November 2008 Visa Bulletin, it would be “slow forward movement.” According to the State Department (which is [...]
The annual green card lottery, DV-2010, opens today at noon eastern time. The deadline for submission is noon, eastern time, on Monday, December 1, 2008. Although early application does not increase the chances of being selected, we have seen in the past years the lottery site overloaded with web traffic in the last days or [...]
The October 2008 Visa Bulletin is out. Unfortunately, it does not bring much, if any, good news. The most important change in October 2008 is the retrogression of EB-2 India and EB-2 China. Based on predictions of the demand of these categories, the cutoff dates have been moved, effective October 1, 2008, as follows: for [...]
The September 2008 Visa Bulletin has been released by the Department of State. It brings a mix of good and bad news. The good news for EB-2 applicants from India and China continues this month as well - the dates for EB-2 India and EB-2 China moved by two months, from June 1, 2006, to August [...]
We wrote on Friday about the anticipated significant forward movement for EB-2 India. The August 2008 Visa Bulletin is out now and it confirms our expectation. In addition, EB-2 China has also moved forward significantly. Both EB-2 India and China have a date of June 1, 2006 (from April 2004 previously). Another important update related to the visa bulletin is the unavailability of visas in the "Other Workers" category - they are now unavailable (from April 2003 previously). The visa bulletin explains that such unavailability is due to the numbers for the "Other Workers" category reaching their annual numerical limit. It is expected that once the FY 2009 begins in October, the dates should return to April 2003. Please read the full article for more details on the August 2008 Visa Bulletin.
The August 2008 Visa Bulletin is about to be released and we have reliable (based on past experience) information that EB-2 India will move forward by more than two years - from April 2004 to June 2006. This is excellent news for applicants in the EB-2 India category. Stay tuned as we wil update this post with more information as the official State Department Visa Bulletin is distributed.
The Department of Labor's Office of Foreign Labor Certification has released its October 2007 - May 2008 statistics on PERM processing. It is interesting to note that 44% of the active (pending) PERM cases were in "Audit" stage, most likely in connection with the recent decision to audit all PERM applications filed by a major immigration law firm. Please read the full post for more details on DOL's PERM processing statistics.