The Department of State (DOS) administers the 140,000 employment-based visa slots each year, allocating them as necessary to both USCIS for stateside processing and to U.S. embassies overseas. When it appears that demand in a particular category will exceed the supply of visas available for that year, DOS will establish cut-off dates for new filings in that category. In contrast, when there is a sufficient supply of visas in a particular category to meet demand, there is no limit on new filings and the category is considered “current.” However, DOS gauges demand based on the number of cases that are actually approved during the course of the fiscal year, not on the total number of cases that are pending. Thus, when USCIS processing of employment-based cases does not yield sufficient approvals to project that the annual cap will be met, DOS is unable to impose a cut-off date and new filings may continue.
Employment-based visas that are not used in a fiscal year are shifted (or “recaptured”) the following fiscal year into the family-sponsored visa categories under a complex statutory formula. While this concept is intended to recapture unused visas, in reality, this process of recapturing visa numbers between the two categories, coupled with USCIS processing of employment-based visa applications below DOS projections, has resulted in the loss of thousands of employment-based visas under the formula over multiple years. Between FY 2001 and FY 2004, over 141,000 employment-based immigrant visa numbers were unused. This number effectively represents an entire year’s supply of employment-based visas. It is ironic that many thousands of employment-based immigrant visas simply evaporated while thousands of applications sat idle and generated demand for interim benefits. U.S. citizens and businesses had legitimate expectations of visa availability only to have them lost to delays and processing problems.
From: Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman Annual Report to Congress, June 2005
Employment-based visas that are not used in a fiscal year are shifted (or “recaptured”) the following fiscal year into the family-sponsored visa categories under a complex statutory formula. While this concept is intended to recapture unused visas, in reality, this process of recapturing visa numbers between the two categories, coupled with USCIS processing of employment-based visa applications below DOS projections, has resulted in the loss of thousands of employment-based visas under the formula over multiple years. Between FY 2001 and FY 2004, over 141,000 employment-based immigrant visa numbers were unused. This number effectively represents an entire year’s supply of employment-based visas. It is ironic that many thousands of employment-based immigrant visas simply evaporated while thousands of applications sat idle and generated demand for interim benefits. U.S. citizens and businesses had legitimate expectations of visa availability only to have them lost to delays and processing problems.
From: Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman Annual Report to Congress, June 2005