Visa Cut-Off Dates - How are they established?

[Dallas03096]

There seems to be a method in their madness in establishing Visa Cut-Off dates. Please see the following remarks in November Visa Bulletin:
Allocations were made, to the extent possible under the numerical limitations, for the demand received by October 6th in the chronological order of the reported priority dates. If the demand could not be satisfied within the statutory or regulatory limits, the category or foreign state in which demand was excessive was deemed oversubscribed. The cut-off date for an oversubscribed category is the priority date of the first applicant who could not be reached within the numerical limits.

Only applicants who have a priority date earlier than the cut-off date may be allotted a number. Immediately that it becomes necessary during the monthly allocation process to retrogress a cut-off date, supplemental requests for numbers will be honored only if the priority date falls within the new cut-off date.

 

[Jackolantern]

Simple answer: The dates are established by voodoo.

 

[andy garcia]

Cut-off dates

There seems to be a method in their madness in establishing Visa Cut-Off dates. ......

Read this from the July 2000 VB


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. 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.

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.

 

[Dallas03096]

Is this possible at all?

Please see the following remarks in November Visa Bulletin:
Allocations were made, to the extent possible under the numerical limitations, for the demand received by October 6th in the chronological order of the reported priority dates. If the demand could not be satisfied within the statutory or regulatory limits, the category or foreign state in which demand was excessive was deemed oversubscribed. The cut-off date for an oversubscribed category is the priority date of the first applicant who could not be reached within the numerical limits.

If we were to believe the above remarks in November Visa Bulletin, the demand (as on Oct 6) for visa numbers from EB3 Mexico applicants with PD earlier than 8 May 2001 has all been met whereas they could not satisfy the demand for EB3 India applicant with PD 22 Apr 2001.
What happened to the tons of 245(i) folks in EB3 Mexico category with PD 30 Apr 2001 who have already filed their I-485? Have they all been approved already?

 

[AGC4ME]

Only those applications that are approvable will be used to determine the cut-off dates. so if those applications are stuck in namecheck or not yet processed by SCs then they don't come in to the picture at all.

 

[jcgc]

Only those applications that are approvable will be used to determine the cut-off dates. so if those applications are stuck in namecheck or not yet processed by SCs then they don't come in to the picture at all.

This probably explains why China EB2 is so far ahead of India EB2. Most of the Chinese in my office have been stuck in namecheck since years (there are some with pd's in 2001 as well). None of the indians from that time are pending. So the Chinese queue of approvable I-485's is very small. and thats why they arent as retrogressd as India.

 

[gc_tx_2003]

in terms of whether all the Mexican applications before Apr 30, 2001 are approved, much depends on when they filed 485 what happened to their
namechecks etc, and when their 485 apps are actually going to be "Approvable".