I-485 Country Quota clarification?

D

darisma

Registered Users (C)
I see most of people on this borad are either indians or chinese? Anyway, I just send in an application for I-485 and I know that there is quota by country.

I am a Thai national, so I wonder is the quota like ok let'e see 100 for Thais. If the total backlog of all people are 50000 and only 80 of those are Thais. Does that mean I will just get it without waiting for years? How does this quota actually work? Because I know lots of people from Indian and China have sent the application like years ago will they get the approval before me? How does USCIS uses this quota system? First the date of the application then the country?

Like if they can approve 50000 cases this year. There are 80 total of Thai nationals. Will we all get approvals eventhough we just sent in the application this year? Or they will instead approve somebody else from other countries that sent application way long time ago?
 
short answer

Darisma,
Which application is approved depends first on whether the particular PD is current or not, and secondly on whether the per-country quota has been reached.
Given that you are from Thailand, you will fall in the Rest-of-the-world (ROW) category.
It also depends on what EB category you fall into.

No one (not even USCIS) can predict when the PDs would be current for ROW.

If, and when PDs are current, you will be approved.

Unlike most people on this forum, you will not have to wait years to get your green card inspite of the fact that you applied years later than most people here. So, enjoy your time, and count your blessings (wrt GC) of being born in a country other than India / China / Phillipines / Mexico.

Hope this answers some of your questions.
 
Darisma, there are quotas (limits) for each country.

Thai citizens are under "Rest of World" (ROW) category, and if you're in EB1 and EB2, you are unlikely to face any severe retrogression. (Usually only applicants from India, China, and Mexico face the severe retrogression, given the high number of applications from these countries).

So, to answer your question: Your application's PD will be competing with applications from the ROW.


darisma said:
I see most of people on this borad are either indians or chinese? Anyway, I just send in an application for I-485 and I know that there is quota by country.

I am a Thai national, so I wonder is the quota like ok let'e see 100 for Thais. If the total backlog of all people are 50000 and only 80 of those are Thais. Does that mean I will just get it without waiting for years? How does this quota actually work? Because I know lots of people from Indian and China have sent the application like years ago will they get the approval before me? How does USCIS uses this quota system? First the date of the application then the country?

Like if they can approve 50000 cases this year. There are 80 total of Thai nationals. Will we all get approvals eventhough we just sent in the application this year? Or they will instead approve somebody else from other countries that sent application way long time ago?
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the replies. So I have to compete will all of the countries in the ROW. Or they basically have another list for each country in the row lists? Like if the quota for ROW is 1000, does it mean all the countries in ROWS have to share this 1000 so in this case they will consider who sent the application in first right?

Or 100 for Thailand, 100 for Malaysia, 100 for Singapore, and so on thus those countries comprise to 1000? In this case then you only compete with people from your own country only.

Also when they say EB3 now is C, which is current. You did say that

"No one (not even USCIS) can predict when the PDs would be current for ROW. "

What do you mean by this? Should not they know what was the last application that got approved, which there should be a date on it??? And if the number is now current then the next application from this date should be approved????

This is so confusing!
 
From any visa bulletin you can get the following information.

Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) sets an annual minimum family-sponsored preference limit of 226,000. The worldwide level for annual employment-based preference immigrants is at least 140,000. Section 202 prescribes that the per-country limit for preference immigrants is set at 7% of the total annual family-sponsored and employment-based preference limits, i.e., 25,620. The dependent area limit is set at 2%, or 7,320.


In short each country can take upto 7% of total visa. In other words it is quite possible that in any year one country may take x number of visa but another country take y, but x and y should not increase the 7% of total visa number.

From the AC21 (S2045: AMERICAN COMPETITIVENESS IN THE 21st CENTURY ACT)

Section 104 a:

Provides that if, in a calendar quarter, there are more visas available in all the employment-based preferences than the number of qualified immigrants who may be issued such visas, then the visas may be made available without regard to country of origin or the per-country ceilings.

and remember there are few visa that do not have numerical limits, like parents and spouse of US citizens.

Hope it clears now.
 
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