Retrogression: Doing the Math

Great source of info ... starved. Thanks!

So it looks like the cut-off dates can actually change quite fast - if USCIS is able to clear the remaining 98-99 cases quickly enough. For rest of the world, not sure how many EB3 cases are there in early 2001 ... hope it moves soon.

PD 07/03/2001
RD 05/16/2003
EB3 RIR VSC BD
 
Infostarved,

This is what this bulletin say about how the cut-off date is established:

"The cut-off date is the priority date of the first documentarily qualified applicant who could not be accommodated for a visa number."

Then how is it possible that in June 2005, the EB3 cut-off date for India and Philippines was Aug 2002 (or around that) and now it is Jan 1998. Does it mean that USCIS overlooked the pending applications from 1998 when it first established the cut-off dates for EB3 last December?

We are also very curious to know about the real status of the 101K recaptured visas - are you able to find any information about that?

Regards.

infostarved said:
Interesting stuff in the visa bulletin for July 2000.

http://dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/visa_bulletin/2000-07bulletin.html

====================================
E. THE OPERATION OF THE IMMIGRANT NUMERICAL CONTROL SYSTEM

The Department of State is responsible for administering the provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) relating to the numerical limitations on immigrant visa issuances. The following information provides a brief explanation of the operation of the immigrant number allotment and control system.

DEFINITION OF SOME TERMS

Allotment

The allocation of an immigrant number to a consular office or to INS. This number may be used for visa issuance or adjustment of status, or may be returned unused to the Visa Office (VO) for reincorporating into the pool of numbers available for later allocation during the fiscal year.

Foreign State Chargeability

Ordinarily an immigrant is chargeable for visa purposes to the numerical limitation for the foreign state or dependent area in which the immigrant's place of birth is located. Exceptions are provided for a child (unmarried and under 21 years of age) or spouse accompanying or following to join a principal to prevent the separation of family members, as well as for an applicant born in the U.S. or in a foreign state of which neither parent was a native or resident. Alternate chargeability is desirable when the visa cut-off date for the foreign state of a parent or spouse is more advantageous than that of the applicant's foreign state.

Priority Date

The priority date of a preference visa applicant is the filing date of the petition that accorded preference status.

Documentarily Qualified

The applicant has informed the consular processing office that they have obtained (after being requested to do so) all of the documents which are required to meet the formal visa application requirements.

HOW THE SYSTEM OPERATES

At the beginning of each month, the Visa Office receives a report from each immigrant visa processing post listing totals of documentarily qualified immigrant visa applicants in categories subject to numerical limitation.

Cases are grouped by foreign state chargeability/preference/priority date. No names are reported. During the first week of each month, this documentarily qualified demand is tabulated.

VO subdivides the annual preference and foreign state limitations which are specified by the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) into twelve monthly allotments. The totals of documentarily qualified applicants reported to VO, and the expected INS demand for numbers, are compared each month with the numbers available for the next regular allotment. This allows for the determination of the monthly cut-off dates, and the allotment of numbers for reported applicants who have priority dates within the newly established cut-off dates.

If there are sufficient numbers in a particular category to satisfy all reported documentarily qualified demand, the category is considered "current."

Whenever the total of documentarily qualified applicants in a category exceeds the supply of numbers available for allotment for the particular month, the category is considered to be "oversubscribed" and a visa availability cut-off date is established. The cut-off date is the priority date of the first documentarily qualified applicant who could not be accommodated for a visa number. Only persons with a priority date earlier than a cut-off date are entitled to allotment of a visa number. The cut-off dates are ordinarily the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd of a month, since VO groups demand for numbers under these dates. (Priority dates of the first through seventh of a month are grouped under the 1st, the eighth through the fourteenth under the 8th, etc.)

VO attempts to establish the cut-off dates for the following month on or about the 8th of each month. The dates, along with visa allotments for use during that month, are immediately transmitted to consular posts, and also published in the Visa Bulletin.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE SYSTEM AND CLARIFICATION OF SOME FREQUENTLY MISUNDERSTOOD POINTS

Applicants entitled to immigrant status become documentarily qualified at their own initiative and convenience. By no means has every applicant with a priority date earlier than a prevailing cut-off date been processed for final visa action. On the contrary, visa allotments are made only on the basis of the total applicants reported documentarily qualified each month, and the expected INS number use. Demand for visa numbers can fluctuate from one month to another, with the inevitable impact on cut-off dates.

If an applicant is reported documentarily qualified but allocation of a visa number is not possible because of a visa availability cut-off date, the demand is recorded at VO and an allocation is made as soon as the applicable cut-off date advances beyond the applicant's priority date. Visa numbers are always allotted for all documentarily qualified applicants with a priority date before the relevant cut-off date, as long as the case had been reported to VO in time to be included in the monthly calculation of visa availability. There is no exception to this principle.

Allocations outside the regular monthly cycle are possible only in emergency or exceptional cases, and only at the request of the office processing the case. Note that should retrogression of a cut-off date be announced, VO can honor extraordinary requests for additional numbers only if the applicant's priority date is earlier than the retrogressed cut-off date.

Not all numbers allocated are actually used for visa issuance; some are returned to VO and are reincorporated into the pool of numbers available for later allocation during the fiscal year. The rate of return of unused numbers may fluctuate from month to month, just as demand may fluctuate. Lower returns mean fewer numbers available for subsequent reallocation. Fluctuations can cause cut-off date movement to slow, stop, or even retrogress. Retrogression is particularly possible near the end of the fiscal year as visa issuance approaches the annual limitations.

The annual per-country limitation is a cap which visa issuances to any single country may not exceed. Applicants compete for visas primarily on a worldwide basis. The country limitation serves to avoid monopolization of virtually all the annual limitation by applicants from only a few countries. This limitation is not a quota to which any particular country is entitled, however. Clearly all countries could not receive up to their numerical limit since the worldwide annual limitation would not permit visa issuances anywhere close to such a total.

Applicability of Section 202(e): When visa demand by documentarily qualified applicants from a particular country exceeds the amount of numbers available under the annual numerical limitation that country is considered to be oversubscribed. This oversubscription may require the establishment of a cut-off date, which is earlier than that which applies to a particular visa category on a worldwide basis. The prorating of numbers for an oversubscribed country follows the same percentages specified for the division of the worldwide annual limitation among the preferences. (Note that visa availability cut-off dates for oversubscribed areas cannot be later than worldwide cut-off dates, if any, for the respective preferences.)

===========================
Click to expand...
 
it could be because of lc sub. the earlier pd employee left the company and lc is being used for a new employee. no overlooking is involved.
so one should not be surprised to find dates jumping back and forth like this erratically.

optimistguy said:
Infostarved,

This is what this bulletin say about how the cut-off date is established:

"The cut-off date is the priority date of the first documentarily qualified applicant who could not be accommodated for a visa number."

Then how is it possible that in June 2005, the EB3 cut-off date for India and Philippines was Aug 2002 (or around that) and now it is Jan 1998. Does it mean that USCIS overlooked the pending applications from 1998 when it first established the cut-off dates for EB3 last December?

We are also very curious to know about the real status of the 101K recaptured visas - are you able to find any information about that?

Regards.
Click to expand...
 
It could simply mean that the Jan 98 guy sat on his behind for a long long time and one fine day in June 2005 applied for 485.... right around the time when DoS realized it was running out of EB3 numbers.

tushar, I think LCsub does not get you the old PD.... can you check on that?

As for the 101k unused AC21 visas.... I dont have any info either confirming or refuting that report that they've used up 93k and there's only 8k left on the table.

If that's indeed true, then I would think it is illegal because they couldnt have made EB3 unavailable before applying that 8k too.

optimistguy said:
Infostarved,

This is what this bulletin say about how the cut-off date is established:

"The cut-off date is the priority date of the first documentarily qualified applicant who could not be accommodated for a visa number."

Then how is it possible that in June 2005, the EB3 cut-off date for India and Philippines was Aug 2002 (or around that) and now it is Jan 1998. Does it mean that USCIS overlooked the pending applications from 1998 when it first established the cut-off dates for EB3 last December?

We are also very curious to know about the real status of the 101K recaptured visas - are you able to find any information about that?

Regards.
Click to expand...
 
The cut-off date for EB3 for India was Aug 2002 in June 2005 before it became unavailable. It will be very strange indeed if between June 2005 and September 2005, all the pending applicants between 1-1-1998 and 8-1-2002 suddenly woke up and applied for their 485s.. That would be a very strange coincidence.

Which of the below three can be a possible explanation?

a) If indeed the above is the case, then there may not be somany applicants between 98 and Aug 2002 and we can expect things looking up pretty soon. I hope and pray that is the case, but I know it is unlikely.

b) USCIS completely goofed up their calculations for establishing the EB3 cut-off date either last december or this time around. I wount be very surprised at that.

c) The Schedule A effect. The EB3 has not looke up since the Schedule A were given first preference. There is more that that meets the eye regarding the Schedule A visa allocation and we still do not know how they establish the cut-off dates.

Back to square one I guess. Don't know if there is anything left to do except hanging-in wherever you are!


infostarved said:
It could simply mean that the Jan 98 guy sat on his behind for a long long time and one fine day in June 2005 applied for 485.... right around the time when DoS realized it was running out of EB3 numbers.

tushar, I think LCsub does not get you the old PD.... can you check on that?

As for the 101k unused AC21 visas.... I dont have any info either confirming or refuting that report that they've used up 93k and there's only 8k left on the table.

If that's indeed true, then I would think it is illegal because they couldnt have made EB3 unavailable before applying that 8k too.
Click to expand...
 
There's some excellent analysis and information here, and I have a comment about the sudden death of the priority date game.

Firstly, it's never just one thing that creates these issue, and given that so many of us smell the inconsistencies here, it's safe to presume that is the case in this instance.

I dont believe Schedule A applicants are the whole story, because if it were, we would only see the retrogression / unavailability in EB3. The fact that the retrogression is also in the EB2 and EB1 category visa's indicates a wider scope of explanation.
Also, as far as I know Schedule A immigrants are not coming from India and/or China in such huge numbers. They are coming from the Phillipines though.

In fact, since the visa availability is based mostly on predictive analysis a month in advance based on data that is at least 2 months behind (let me explain, Octobers visa number cut off dates are determined in September based on August data that was received by the Visa Office.) This data is collected from sources such as the Labor Department, and we all know that backlog reduction efforts at the Labor Dept have just started to take off....
This will mean that as time progresses and the Labor Dept backlog elimination starts to eliminate backlogs, a true FIFO at this stage will be establised by virtue of these cut off dates. It will also mean that the EB3 category is in for a really tough time, EB2 will also not be spared by much and EB1 may be better off. I say this, because not many illegal immigrants from the April 2001 batch are anything else but EB3.

But lets take heart, the EB3 category itself is divided into sub categories and the recipients of the amnesty (lets call a horse a horse) are not going to be in the same pool as most professionals here.

We should expect choking to get worse before it eases off and if the past is any indicator of the future, we may see wild fluctuations in the cut off dates until we get to the April 2001 mark.
 
>>It will be very strange indeed if between June 2005 and September 2005, all >>the pending applicants between 1-1-1998 and 8-1-2002 suddenly woke up >>and applied for their 485s.. That would be a very strange coincidence.

This is incorrect assumption as EB3 was "Unavailable" between July 1 2005 till end of Sep 2005 so no EB3 could apply 485 during this period.

I believe (and really hope) that DOS did this delibrately just to save EB3 numbers from Schedule A applicants. As per the "Schedule A Ruling" in Jun 05
that they will be entitled to general EB3 numbers first before start consuming 50K but there is one clause that says they SHOULD use 50K visa pool if the priority date is not-current or Unavailable. So DOS would probably wait till
the 50K quota is consumed considerably before opening the general quota. That way EB3 people(other than Schedule A) also will have fair change of getting Visa numbers. Anybody disagree?.
 
1. EB3 cut-offs never went to Aug 2002, they stopped at June 2002.
2. Nobody in EB3 could have filed 485 between 1-Jul-05 and 1-Oct-05.
3. EB3 cut-offs in the Oct 05 bulletin, in my best estimate, is based off of pending EB3 applications on 1-Jul-05.

4. DoS goofed up in setting up cut-offs - a possibility - why dont you ask the man himself? Charlie Oppenheim, the DoS guy responsible for setting up cutoffs (Immigrant Visa control and reports division), the same guy quoted in ilw.com as having said that AC21 had only 8K left. Here's his number!! 202-663-1087. I got it from http://foia.state.gov/mms/OrgDirectory/print_org.asp?ID=27
I dont plan on calling him but you can feel free to do just that :)

5. Schedule A cannot swamp EB3 really. Their 50K visas is orthogonal to this discussion. You might want to look at some of the earlier discussions on this thread for more info.


optimistguy said:
The cut-off date for EB3 for India was Aug 2002 in June 2005 before it became unavailable. It will be very strange indeed if between June 2005 and September 2005, all the pending applicants between 1-1-1998 and 8-1-2002 suddenly woke up and applied for their 485s.. That would be a very strange coincidence.

Which of the below three can be a possible explanation?

a) If indeed the above is the case, then there may not be somany applicants between 98 and Aug 2002 and we can expect things looking up pretty soon. I hope and pray that is the case, but I know it is unlikely.

b) USCIS completely goofed up their calculations for establishing the EB3 cut-off date either last december or this time around. I wount be very surprised at that.

c) The Schedule A effect. The EB3 has not looke up since the Schedule A were given first preference. There is more that that meets the eye regarding the Schedule A visa allocation and we still do not know how they establish the cut-off dates.

Back to square one I guess. Don't know if there is anything left to do except hanging-in wherever you are!
Click to expand...
 
Your Best Guess Please !!

Hi there

This is my first post on this site.
I am looking for your best guess for when the cut-off date will move to Jabuary 2003 PD's for Skilled Workers (EB3).

Here my data:

EB3/RIR/Michigan/Switzerland
PD: January 2003
I-140: Approved July 2005
Immigration Physicle: Done


I appreciate ANY input and/or comment.

Thank you
gbroder
 
EB3 cut-off date was June 1st(to be precise).
Correction - Nobody in EB3 could have filed 485 between 1-Jun-05 and 1-Oct-05.

My PD is June 2002 :mad:

infostarved said:
1. EB3 cut-offs never went to Aug 2002, they stopped at June 2002.
2. Nobody in EB3 could have filed 485 between 1-Jul-05 and 1-Oct-05.
3. EB3 cut-offs in the Oct 05 bulletin, in my best estimate, is based off of pending EB3 applications on 1-Jul-05.

4. DoS goofed up in setting up cut-offs - a possibility - why dont you ask the man himself? Charlie Oppenheim, the DoS guy responsible for setting up cutoffs (Immigrant Visa control and reports division), the same guy quoted in ilw.com as having said that AC21 had only 8K left. Here's his number!! 202-663-1087. I got it from http://foia.state.gov/mms/OrgDirectory/print_org.asp?ID=27
I dont plan on calling him but you can feel free to do just that :)

5. Schedule A cannot swamp EB3 really. Their 50K visas is orthogonal to this discussion. You might want to look at some of the earlier discussions on this thread for more info.
Click to expand...
 
Nope... I was correct :)

I was referring to EB3 becoming unavailable worldwide starting July 1 2005.

Nobody in EB3 (regardless of their country of birth) could have filed 485 between 1-Jul-2005 and 1-Oct-2005.

vpHope said:
EB3 cut-off date was June 1st(to be precise).
Correction - Nobody in EB3 could have filed 485 between 1-Jun-05 and 1-Oct-05.

My PD is June 2002 :mad:
Click to expand...
 
Reason for dates regtrogressing from 02 to 98 --->

Iam a newbee and ignore this if it doesn't make sense.

One reason I can think of is there were too many labor applications (around 240k +) that were pending at the DOLS since 97 to 2005. Iam for sure there are not many cases between 98-2001. so...One and half year ago... two backlog reduction centres were opened in Texas and Phily and all the DOLs transferred these cases to these backlog centres. The people over there are working like crazy(still today) and clearing thousands of cases. Ofcourse most of the cases are EB3 and there are good enough EB2s also. The next step for all these labor approvals is 140/485.... Guess what will happen next...RETROGRESS the visa dates to 98.
 
Sounds logical

Your argument sounds logical. It is difficult to figure out how USCIS or govt workers think.
I hope the retrogression issue is taken care of soon.

MDGUTS
 
lc sub preserves pd.
approved lc (w\o i140) = pd & LC employer's property
approved lc+ approved i140 = pd employee's property (even after they leave the company).
infostarved said:
It could simply mean that the Jan 98 guy sat on his behind for a long long time and one fine day in June 2005 applied for 485.... right around the time when DoS realized it was running out of EB3 numbers.

tushar, I think LCsub does not get you the old PD.... can you check on that?

As for the 101k unused AC21 visas.... I dont have any info either confirming or refuting that report that they've used up 93k and there's only 8k left on the table.

If that's indeed true, then I would think it is illegal because they couldnt have made EB3 unavailable before applying that 8k too.
Click to expand...
 
Nurses

do nurses come under EB3, or they have a different category --somewhere i read that they come under Schedule-A workers and their PD is current.

just now i got the scare that since something like 50,000 visas were set aside from left overs from past years.

if PD is current i can imagine that 30k nurses may come in next year from india itself, and there wont be any visa left for any other category.

please say that i have the wrong data.
 
This is it !

Just hoping that they treat already filed cases free from retrogression. Also it seems like the only solution they could come up to eliminate backlog given their speed of approvals.

Since USCIS cannot increase its approval rate and that a large number of cases are still flowing in (when BEC/PERM's rate is faster than USCIS's approval rate) there will be "overflow explosion" and USCIS's promise to President that they will approve cases in 6 months by 2006 will never be met otherwise.


Chicago-case said:
Iam a newbee and ignore this if it doesn't make sense.

One reason I can think of is there were too many labor applications (around 240k +) that were pending at the DOLS since 97 to 2005. Iam for sure there are not many cases between 98-2001. so...One and half year ago... two backlog reduction centres were opened in Texas and Phily and all the DOLs transferred these cases to these backlog centres. The people over there are working like crazy(still today) and clearing thousands of cases. Ofcourse most of the cases are EB3 and there are good enough EB2s also. The next step for all these labor approvals is 140/485.... Guess what will happen next...RETROGRESS the visa dates to 98.
Click to expand...
 
It is all politics, not more (not math) ....

Chicago-case said:
Iam a newbee and ignore this if it doesn't make sense.

One reason I can think of is there were too many labor applications (around 240k +) that were pending at the DOLS since 97 to 2005. Iam for sure there are not many cases between 98-2001. so...One and half year ago... two backlog reduction centres were opened in Texas and Phily and all the DOLs transferred these cases to these backlog centres. The people over there are working like crazy(still today) and clearing thousands of cases. Ofcourse most of the cases are EB3 and there are good enough EB2s also. The next step for all these labor approvals is 140/485.... Guess what will happen next...RETROGRESS the visa dates to 98.
Click to expand...

Reading your post one can understand that everything is right and fair and done in accordance with reality and general logic, but it is not. You may know that cut off dates from the visa bulletin work for the both ends: 1. You can not file I485 if you did not do it before 2. You will not get green card until your PD is current even if you could manage to filed I485 in time.
And of course you will not get majority of green card benefits in this case except for EAD for you and for your dependants.

What would you say if DoS in November bulletin sets cut of date for India EB2/EB3 category January 1980 ?

Why did you decide that BECs work like crazy? I would say they work like lazy, they did not clear even 5% of the cases for almost one year.

Reading different forums I saw only one guy from NY who's PD is 2000.
People with PD up to 2000 already have green cards.
My point is even if there are 5-10 cases with PD 98/99 it is not the reason for retrogression like we have got in October.

My vision is that in the nearest future only EB1 qualified people will be able to get employment based green cards in US. It is current general line in US that Employment based immigration is not useful for native americans and for the country itself. Employment based immigrants steal jobs from the US citizens (it is not my thoght). The same time all illegal immigrants from specific country are very useful. They do not take high payable jobs from citizens and giving them chance to apply for green cards can help to get additional voices in the future election compaigns. We may see reflection of that in the discussed bills.

Today only nurses (Scheduled workers) can feel themselve relieved. But reading their discussions on the Murthy forum http://murthyforum.atinfopop.com/4/OpenTopic?a=tpc&s=1024039761&f=5314002182&m=267109829
I understood they also think they are relived now now due to the political reasons and expect retrogression for them too.
 
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They should be called Backlog Expansion Centers, not Backlog Elimination. They are operating even slower than the old state & regional system.
 
attn: INFOSTARVED

can you please crunch some number about schedule A workers affecting the visa number for India.

I am scared shit that for EB3-india and EB2-india there is no hopes for next two years(assuming that some of nurses have a master degree)
 
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