Hate to freak people out. But for those who think their priority dates are before Jan. 1, 2002 may not be safe. Check out item in blue. This is from Murthy's website; Newsflash
Employment Visa Numbers Retrogress!
Dec 09, 2004
As predicted, the Department of State (DOS) has announced that the Employment Based, 3rd Preference (EB3) visa numbers for India, mainland China, and the Philippines will retrogress on January 1, 2005. The EB3 numbers for nationals of the listed countries will retrogress to January 1, 2002. This means that, as of January 1, 2005, anyone who is the beneficiary of a labor certification (or I-140 if a labor certification was not required) in the EB3 category filed on or after January 1, 2002, will not be permitted to file the I-485 or have a consular interview for an immigrant visa until the numbers move beyond this date. The DOS has indicated that further retrogression may be possible in future months. For a detailed analysis of the implications of retrogression, see our Sep 24, 2004 article, Priority Dates May Retrogress <murthy.com/news/n_pridat.html>, available on MurthyDotCom. The DOS Visa Dates <murthy.com/visadate.html> are also available on MurthyDotCom.