Why Rest Of World EB-1 and EB-2 should be safe for visa number availability

[eb2kid]

First of all, the current retrogression numbers for EB-3 and India and China are a disaster.

I am EB-2 Rest of World myself (still in Labor Cert stage), and I am hoping that EB-2 will remain C, or at least not experience any steep retrogression.

I performed some analysis to this effect, and thought that people might be interested.

First, let's estimate the effect of "spilling" visa numbers from Rest of World to India/China. Normally, there are 7% per country limits in each category. However, if there are excess visa numbers, they can spill over to India and China. If there was retrogression for Rest of World for EB-2, no spilling to India and China would occur, but they would be limited @ 7%.

Here are total EB I-485 approvals for 2003 and 2004: In both years, there the number of numbers used was below the limit, and there was no retrogression and therefore maximum spilling to India and China:
........WORLD...INDIA...CHINA...ROW.....CHIN/IND.adj.....TOTAL.ADJ.....%actual
2004....155,330.38,443..15,583..101,304.16,491...........117,795.......0.758355429
2003....81,727..20,526..7,468...53,733..8,747............62,480........0.764499279

E.g. in 2004, 155k EB 485's were approved. 38k of them from India, and 15k from China. Therefore, Rest Of World was 101k. Now, if you assume that India and China can both not take up more than 14%, if spilling were not to occur, India and China, together, would have only gotten 16,491 I-485's approved, bringing down the total to 117,795 I-485's. Do the sanity check: 16,491 is 14% of 117,795. If you take the ratio of 117,795 and 155,330, you get 75% -- Meaning the following: If in a given year, the visa numbers are not exhausted, i.e. there is no retrogression whatsoever, the effect of spilling of India and China combined is 25% -- i.e. if spilling was not permitted, 25% fewer total I-485's would have been adjudicated.

Let us now look at the last 4 years, during which no retrogression has occured. (retrogression only happened in 2005). We can now assume that, if retrogression were to occur for EB-2 rest of world, at least all the spilling effects to India/China, as well as spilling effects to lower preferences (namely, to EB-3) would certainly NOT occur.


...........2004....2003....2002....2001
total EB...155330..82137...174968..179195
EB-1.......31291...14544...34452...41801
EB-1 adj...23468...10908...25839...31350
EB-2.......32534...15459...44468...42620
EB-2 adj...24400...11594...33351...31965
EB-3.......85969...46613...88555...86058
EB-3 adj...64476...34959...66416...64543
Special....5407....5456....7344....8523
Invest.....129.....65......149.....193


The rows without "adj" are taken straight from INS statistics. The "adj" rows take into account spilling from Rest Of World to India and China -- i.e., if such spilling were not to occur, what the actual approvals would have been.

What does this tell us? In 2001, 31,965 "adjusted" EB-2's were approved, in 2002, 33,351, in 2003, 11,594, and in 2004, 24,400. It also shows that EB-1 and EB-2 are in lockstep, so if EB-2 was running the danger of retrogression, there wouldnt be much hope for EB-1 spilling over, since EB-1 and EB-2 approvals are almost identical. What this tells us though is that, for Rest of World, almost 2x the number of I-485 approvals that occured in 2004 could be sustained in 2006 without the need for retrogression. For 2003, it is almost a whopping 4x, whereas in 2002 and 2001 (when the quota was higher and a record number of EB-2's was approved), still only 75% of the quota for 2006 were approved.

Looking back at the history of I-485 approvals from 1986 through 2004, the three top years with the most I-485's approved are 2001, 2002, and 2004, in that order. Therefore, despite the lower cap in 2006, there is enough "buffer" for EB-2 Rest of World for 33% more EB-2 Rest Of World approvals than even in the busiest years of the .com bubble, 2001 and 2002.

Another point of concern that people have is the horrendus number of >300,000 unapproved labor cert backlog cases in the BEC's. And typically, there are more I-485's than labor cert's, due to spouses/kids, making the number of required I-485's even higher. HOWEVER, things to keep in mind for EB-2 Rest of World:
-- As can be seen from the Visa Bulletin, many many people with unapproved labor cert will be subject to retrogression, and therefore no immediate threat in terms of I-485 filings (namely, EB-3/India/China)
-- Secondly, many of these filings stem from April 2001, when people rushed to file a labor cert to become a legal resident in the US. I do not know the exact details, but my understanding is that this applies to people who were before out of status and had the once in a lifetime chance to become a legal permanent resident. In general, it is well known that illegal aliens tend to have less education (e.g. very few illegal aliens possess PhD's). Therefore, I would expect the people who filed for the April 2001 deadline (i.e. those people who otherwise would not have filed) to be mostly EB-3's.

My analysis holds for EB-1 Rest of World just like it does for EB-2 Rest of World, because, as can be seen from the charts above, the numbers are pretty much in lockstep, as are the quotas.

Therefore, as grim as visa number availability looks, it seems there is still some room for Rest Of World Eb-1 and Eb-2 to remain current. It will be interesting to see if this actually pans out that way. One nice thing to keep in mind: The annual quota is released quarterly, and the first three quarters each cannot consume more than 27% of the total quota. Therefore, if there is no retrogression in Rest of World Eb-2 until December, assuming that the rate of EB-2 Rest of World approvals remains constant, there should be no retrogression for the remainder of the year either.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

 

[sfmars]

Logically correct, but don't expect logic in future

This is a very good analysis.

From Math and Logic point of view you are correct. Unfortunatelly life shows that everything which is related to INS and BECs happens not in accordance to logic.

As for this Employment Based quotas EB1 EB2 EB3 (85.8% of 140,000), they never were used completely. It never happened when All World was out of any EB visas any time, and unused EB1 goes to EB2, unused EB2 goes to EB3. You may know that this year there were 50,000 of unused EB3 and congress gave it to Scheduled Workers (Nurses).

Look at the table, they implemented retrogression for EB3 for All World.
I can understand that retrogression should be implemented for countries which easy can take more than 7% .

But retrogression for all world in EB3 does not make sense, kind of like they are scared that other countries from the world will take more than 7% and the same time they give unused EB3 to nurses 50,000.

Next month they can decede that they have not enough nurses yet and implement retogression for EB2 for all world to take more visas for nurses and you will be retrogressed.

AS FOR ILLEGAL PEOPLE FROM 2001 IN BEC (THERE ARE AROUND 150,000 THEM THERE) , YOU ARE RIGHT THEY ARE IN EB3 CATEGORY BUT IN SUB-CATEGORY "OTHER WORKERS" WHICH CAN NOT EXCEED 10,000 VISAS EACH YEAR.

 

[eb2kid]

Look at the table, they implemented retrogression for EB3 for All World.
I can understand that retrogression should be implemented for countries which easy can take more than 7% .

But retrogression for all world in EB3 does not make sense, kind of like they are scared that other countries from the world will take more than 7% and the same time they give unused EB3 to nurses 50,000.

I agree that EB-3 retrogression was chosen very harshly -- probably too conservative. However, looking at my table, you can see that in 2001 and 2002, the number of EB3's issued were 60k AFTER adjusting for spilling to india and china. Now, if they assume that in 2006, the 40k EB1 and 40k EB2 are exhausted, there will be only 40k left for EB3. If such record level EB1 and EB2 approvals are seen that their respective 40k limits are exhausted, EB3 would well exceed 40k as well -- in fact, in 2001/2002, when EB1 and EB2 were below 40k, EB3, adjusted for India/China spilling, was around 60k. Therefore, if they anticipate heavy demand like in 2001 or 2002, they probably anticipate that they will run out of EB3 numbers world-wide this year, and therefore set EB3 retrogression dates aggressively.

Especially since it's the beginnign of the fiscal year, they probably would rather err on the side of being too conservative, since they can always advance retrogression dates fast if their models are wrong.

But -- according to my table -- if you expect no spilling to India and China, and a demand for numbers at about the level of 2001/2002 or even slightly higher, it becomes clear that there will not be enough EB3 numbers.

 

[JustWatching]

eb2kid -

Can you tell me where you are getting the statistics from?

Thanks

JustWatching

 

[tikal]

eb2kid: I am an EB2/Europe applicant, and was running thru' the same kinds of numbers in addition to PD distribution of LCs by month. I guess there is no way to find out the PD distribution of LCs by month, by country at the 2 BECs to estimate the future effects on the ROW (rest of world) category.

Let's monitor the various stage thru'puts and the visa# availability in the coming months, and keep this thread alive.

-Tikal

First of all, the current retrogression numbers for EB-3 and India and China are a disaster.

I am EB-2 Rest of World myself (still in Labor Cert stage), and I am hoping that EB-2 will remain C, or at least not experience any steep retrogression.

Let's keep our fingers crossed.

 

[akela]

EB-2 kid nice analysis

I guess I am getting old or maybe to depressed to make a head or tail of your analysis, what is the bottomline please, can you tell me that (I mean bottom line based on your analysis).

Moreover I was talking to my lawyer, she was suspicious that the govt might have given more visa than they should have and they are trying to rectify that. Well I am not very dense but it looks like, from your figure, is that, it is not true. Not enough 1 485 were given and it was under that year limit (of course if there are unaccounted 485 RELEASED than thats a different issue.

Thanks,
a

 

[g2p2]

where is RetrogressionAnalysis.xls?

JustWatching,

Earlier this morning I saw one of your posts titled something like "retrogression progress" (?) which had a spreadsheet attached to it by the name of "RetrogressionAnalysis.xls" - unfortunately now I cannot find that post anymore. could you kindly point me to the post please? I need to review your comments once more and a bit thoroughly. thanks very much.

Also on line 12 of the spreadsheet, what do you mean? Do you mean (guesstimate) that PD 2002 will be current in 1st qtr 2007 or it will be adjudicated by then?

Thanks again.

g2p2

eb2kid -

Can you tell me where you are getting the statistics from?

Thanks

JustWatching

 

[eb2kid]

Sure -- the first item, the per-country EB numbers for 2003 and 2004, come from this site:

http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/data/DSLPR.htm

Click on "Country of Birth" for 2003 and 2004, and select TOTAL Worldwide, India, and China, and then in the resulting excel sheet, under "Major Class of Admission"/"Employment based preferences". Unfortunately, it is not broken down further by EB-1, EB2, EB3, ...

Therefore, I assumed that the "spill" is uniform across EB1, EB2 and EB3 (i.e. i did the spillage calculation for all EB classes combined).


To get the numbers of each EB class by year, I looked at http://uscis.gov/graphics/shared/statistics/yearbook/YrBk04Im.htm , and clicked on "Table 4".

I could not find any other data sources to come up with a better analysis. Therefore, I assumed that the "spill" percentage is the same across each EB category.

eb2kid -

Can you tell me where you are getting the statistics from?

Thanks

JustWatching

 

[eb2kid]

summary

See title of the original posting...

I guess one could say this parargraph is the key takeaway:

Looking back at the history of I-485 approvals from 1986 through 2004, the three top years with the most I-485's approved are 2001, 2002, and 2004, in that order. Therefore, despite the lower cap in 2006, there is enough "buffer" for EB-2 Rest of World for 33% more EB-2 Rest Of World approvals than even in the busiest years of the .com bubble, 2001 and 2002.

So the conclusion is... EB1&EB2 RestOfWorld should remain current or at least NOT experience as steep a retrogression as the other categories/countries.

I guess I am getting old or maybe to depressed to make a head or tail of your analysis, what is the bottomline please, can you tell me that (I mean bottom line based on your analysis).

Moreover I was talking to my lawyer, she was suspicious that the govt might have given more visa than they should have and they are trying to rectify that. Well I am not very dense but it looks like, from your figure, is that, it is not true. Not enough 1 485 were given and it was under that year limit (of course if there are unaccounted 485 RELEASED than thats a different issue.

Thanks,
a

 

[eb2kid]

eb2kid: I am an EB2/Europe applicant, and was running thru' the same kinds of numbers in addition to PD distribution of LCs by month. I guess there is no way to find out the PD distribution of LCs by month, by country at the 2 BECs to estimate the future effects on the ROW (rest of world) category.

Let's monitor the various stage thru'puts and the visa# availability in the coming months, and keep this thread alive.

-Tikal

I guess we're in the same boat

There are a few mitigating factors.. E.g. sfmars mentioned that 150,000 of the BEC cases are these April-2001 "Other Workers", and they are EB3.

So there are really "only" ~150,000 backlogged labor certifications that have the same composition of EB2 and EB3 and countries as in prior years. If you look at my table for 2004 that breaks things down by EB2 and EB3, you will find that 27% of all (EB2&EB3) cases are EB2. Assuming that the same ratio holds, this means there are roughly 41,000 EB2 cases in the DOL backlog. Now, like I said before, there will be more I-485 filings due to dependants, and also a few more for people of exceptional ability which can also file EB2 but without labor cert. However, I would assume that these two factors combined don't account for more than 40,000 additional numbers in the most pessimistic scenario. This brings the total to 80,000 EB2 visa numbers that will be needed based on the BEC backlog. Since the BEC's will be in operation for another 2 years, the DOL estimates, this works out nicely to roughly 40,000 EB2 visa numbers a year, which is just the cap. Also keep in mind that the true numbers would be a bit lower, because you have people from India and China who are subject to retrogression. Therefore, using the same formula of 25%, the number of EB2 visa numbers per year might actually only be 30,000, if the DOL processes its backlog uniformly in 2 years.

There is almost no more USCIS backlog -- most service centers now have an average processing time of less than a year for I-485's.

By the way.. what's the best time to estimate the processing time for I-485 and I-140's? The reports published by the service centers jump back and forth, e.g. especially Nebrasks appears to be "catching up" at a record rate, whereas in reality, the progress has been much more gradual.

I use the following better approximation for processing times: First, one has to realize that processing times at USCIS vary greatly. Two people can file the exact same cases on the same day, and one takes 3months and another 9 months, e.g. due to background checks etc. Therefore, I think the most meaningful estimate is the "median" filers processing time. I.e. of all people who file the same month as me and the same cases.. When does the "median" guy (in terms of time) get his approval. Unfortunately.. nobody knows who the median of all people filing at a certain time will be until have the people have gotten theire approval. However, looking back to far is also not accurate because it doesnt properly reflect most recent trends in USCIS workload changes. Therefore, I use the following approximation: Look at the receipt dates of the cases that have been approved in the last 1-2 months, and take the median of it. http://www.immigrationwatch.com/ offers a section "Recent Approvals" -- click on 485 for each of the four service centers. Then click on "RD" to sort by receipt date. Of the long list, go to the median of the list (i.e. the "median" guy who just got approved).

Have you heard of people talking about unfairness of different processing times in different SC's? If you perform what I just described, you will come up with the following "estimate" processing times for each SC (for I-485):
CSC 09/10/04
NSC 08/26/04
TSC 05/27/04
VSC 07/16/04

According to this estimate, the processing centers are awfully close in terms of what cases they are processing. Each SC just has different guidelines for what they mention in their report, e.g. CA (who is always ahead) might mention a date once they touch the first few cases of that date, whereas NSC (who was always chronically behind) might only mention a date once the majority of the cases for date have been completed.

In general, while it seems NSC has been catching up if you look at their reports, according to my method (if you followed it for the last 6-8 months), NSC and CSC have always been very close, it seems more that NSC has gotten more aggressive in terms of what dates they report, similar to CSC.

 

[rrajendr]

Don't follow logic buddy. With USCIS and DOL nothing happens based on logic but more of a speculation. I don';t blame them either(expect on some occasions) they just abide by the immigration laws and congress has to step up with immigraiton reforms if they have to clean up the mess.

 

[tikal]

Just pray this boat can weather all storms and doesn't sink before it reaches the promised land I understand your focus on the median guy - prob is the approval distribution wrt time is heavily right-skewed. I would look at the mean time for approval, which would be much higher than the median.

Again I agree that EB2/ROW has low probability of being non-current.

I guess we're in the same boat

 

[jnpr]

Thank you for taking time to have this analysis. I hope we can collect as much as information and share with all of us. Let’s get through this hard time by keeping ourselves fully occupied. This is another article I found from immigration-law.com.

• Our review of the State Department reports indicates that the current visa number problem has been created by three factors, among others: One is the USCIS acceleration of reduction of processing times of EB-485 during the past one year in order to meet the Bush commitment of processing time reduction to 6 months by September 30, 2006. Readers may want to revisit our report on this issue a few days back. Between 2004 and 2005, the backlogs were reduced more than 69%, from close to 4 million cases to only 1 million cases of entire immigration benefits application cases. The cases which they have adjudicated included many oldest backlog cases. Since the 6-month processing time must be achieved by September 30, 2006, the demand for visa number will continuously rise and heavy. That is why the State Department predicted in October Visa Bulletin a limited movement of visa number during FY 2006. Secondly, the Congress passed a legislation giving 50,000 special numbers to nurses and physical therapists which they can recapture from the unused employment visa numbers between 2001 and 2004. The recapturable number in early 2005 was approximately 110,000. The problem is that the State Department uses regular visa EB-3 quota numbers before they deplete the recapture numbers for the nurses and physical therapists for whom the visa numbers were available. Obviously there were huge number of oldest cases for nurses waiting for a long line of EB-3 who started taking out the EB-3 numbers. Good news is that the impact from this second factor may gradually alleviated because of the limited period allowed in the legislation and soon-to-be exhausted recapture numbers. Thirdly, the deterioration of EB-3 visa numbers has added a pressure on EB-1 and EB-2 as increased number of Chinese and Indians sought EB-1 and EB-2 options. Old timers will remember that when the visa number retrogressed in the 1990s, the Chinese and Indians experienced exactly same problem. In fact, one time EB-2 number became worse than EB-3 number for the Chinese. As time moved on, such unusual movement of the visa numbers between EB-2 and EB-3 gradually subsided and it is expected that the history will repeat itself and the retrogression for EB-1 and EB-2 is expected to be alleviated as time moves on. The State Department may give us further predictions in the future, but we have decided to post the State Department's reports in the Visa Bulletin on the Employment Visa allocation prediction and its background explanation to give readers some sense out of the current crisis. This reporter hopes that this posting will help the readers' body temperature a little bit down and come out of the mental state of "blue." We will have to keep a "positive" attitude in this kind of crisis and should not allow emotional depression overwhelm our lives.

 

[pinkfloyd2000]

Please Help Gurus- Career move decision in two days

The analysis in this thread is just commendable and would like to thank every contributor.

I am in the midst of making a career move. I have a current labor application filed in BEC in Marh 2005 but another employer is ready to file PERM EB2. I belong to "Rest of the World Catagory". What's your take on this should I go ahead and make the move in hope that EB2 will not retro for other countries in next 5-6 months.

Thanks again.

 

[jnpr]

The analysis in this thread is just commendable and would like to thank every contributor.

I am in the midst of making a career move. I have a current labor application filed in BEC in Marh 2005 but another employer is ready to file PERM EB2. I belong to "Rest of the World Catagory". What's your take on this should I go ahead and make the move in hope that EB2 will not retro for other countries in next 5-6 months.

Thanks again.

Yes, you should change your job.
You can file Perm EB2 in 3 months, and your new PD will be 9 months later than your earlier PD. It doesn't make differences for EB2 non-retro affected countries.

 

[MDwatch]

The analysis in this thread is just commendable and would like to thank every contributor.

I am in the midst of making a career move. I have a current labor application filed in BEC in Marh 2005 but another employer is ready to file PERM EB2. I belong to "Rest of the World Catagory". What's your take on this should I go ahead and make the move in hope that EB2 will not retro for other countries in next 5-6 months.

Thanks again.

Go for it you have nothing to lose .... what is a few months when you could actually get your green card much faster by applying through PERM !!!

 

[nishokie]

what bothers me is that why is USCIS consuming regular EB3 numbers for nurses and therapists when they already have 50K dedicated numbers.

Thank you for taking time to have this analysis. I hope we can collect as much as information and share with all of us. Let’s get through this hard time by keeping ourselves fully occupied. This is another article I found from immigration-law.com.

• Our review of the State Department reports indicates that the current visa number problem has been created by three factors, among others: One is the USCIS acceleration of reduction of processing times of EB-485 during the past one year in order to meet the Bush commitment of processing time reduction to 6 months by September 30, 2006. Readers may want to revisit our report on this issue a few days back. Between 2004 and 2005, the backlogs were reduced more than 69%, from close to 4 million cases to only 1 million cases of entire immigration benefits application cases. The cases which they have adjudicated included many oldest backlog cases. Since the 6-month processing time must be achieved by September 30, 2006, the demand for visa number will continuously rise and heavy. That is why the State Department predicted in October Visa Bulletin a limited movement of visa number during FY 2006. Secondly, the Congress passed a legislation giving 50,000 special numbers to nurses and physical therapists which they can recapture from the unused employment visa numbers between 2001 and 2004. The recapturable number in early 2005 was approximately 110,000. The problem is that the State Department uses regular visa EB-3 quota numbers before they deplete the recapture numbers for the nurses and physical therapists for whom the visa numbers were available. Obviously there were huge number of oldest cases for nurses waiting for a long line of EB-3 who started taking out the EB-3 numbers. Good news is that the impact from this second factor may gradually alleviated because of the limited period allowed in the legislation and soon-to-be exhausted recapture numbers. Thirdly, the deterioration of EB-3 visa numbers has added a pressure on EB-1 and EB-2 as increased number of Chinese and Indians sought EB-1 and EB-2 options. Old timers will remember that when the visa number retrogressed in the 1990s, the Chinese and Indians experienced exactly same problem. In fact, one time EB-2 number became worse than EB-3 number for the Chinese. As time moved on, such unusual movement of the visa numbers between EB-2 and EB-3 gradually subsided and it is expected that the history will repeat itself and the retrogression for EB-1 and EB-2 is expected to be alleviated as time moves on. The State Department may give us further predictions in the future, but we have decided to post the State Department's reports in the Visa Bulletin on the Employment Visa allocation prediction and its background explanation to give readers some sense out of the current crisis. This reporter hopes that this posting will help the readers' body temperature a little bit down and come out of the mental state of "blue." We will have to keep a "positive" attitude in this kind of crisis and should not allow emotional depression overwhelm our lives.

 

[jnpr]

what bothers me is that why is USCIS consuming regular EB3 numbers for nurses and therapists when they already have 50K dedicated numbers.

At this time, USCIS will accept and approve all “Schedule A” cases before they use up year 2006’s EB3, then they use the 50K quota.
If there was no such bill for “Schedule A”, most of “Schedule A” are not eligible to file or be processed now.
Apparently the bill for “Schedule A” is a relief to EB3. However, it’s a disastrous bill for EB3. Otherwise, there is no way for EB3 other countries going back to March/2001.

I have hoped some USCIS directors could play around this ruling. In other words, they hold some Schedule A until the last quarter of financial year when EB3 regular is not available. However, it was my fantasy and it’s been proved not the case.

 

[eb2kid]

New Numbers for 2005 have come in!

immigration-law.com today links to this interesting set of numbers for EB allocation in 2005 http://travel.state.gov/pdf/FY05tableV.pdf

You get the following allocation:
total=242335
eb1=66344
eb2=43412
eb3=122130
eb4=10100
eb5=349

For 2006, the "budgets" are:
total=140000
eb1=40040
eb2=40040
eb3=40040
eb4=9940
eb5=9940

Notice two things:
-- unused eb4+eb5 fall into eb1, and then trickle to eb2 and then eb3.

For EB2, in 2005, only 43,412 visas were issued! In 2006, the budget is 40k. However, the number in 2006 will be lower for significantly lower by natural reasons than 43,412:
-- the State Department has said that the demand for numbers has slowed down in 2006
-- Indians and Chinese have a strict cap now on EB2, whereas in 2005, every Indian and Chinese could file for EB2.

Therefore, I think there won't be demand for more than 40k EB2 number, and hence, Rest of World should NOT see any retrogression for the remaining year.

In fact, if you assume that eb4 will have very few extra numbers, and eb5 almost the full 10k numbers, EB1 will have a total actual budget of 50,000 numbers -- vs. 66,344 approvals in 2005.

To summarize this:
EB1 had 66,344 approvals in 2005 but only a budget of 50,000 in 2006
EB2 had 43,412 approvals in 2005 but only a budget of 40,000 in 2006

This seems to suggest that EB1 Rest of World is MORE LIKELY to see retrogressoin than EB2 Rest of World!

The key observation is that while EB1 takes priority and only unused numbers fall to EB2, extra heavy demand from EB1 does not allow EB1 to grab any of the 28.6% EB2 numbers.

What do you guys think?

 

[eb2kid]

Refinement

In the previous post, I assumed last year's allocation for EB1 and EB2 are the best proxy for 2006.

However, knowing that India and China will be subject to retrogression in EB1 and EB2, we can refine this even further: by adjusting the 2005 numbers with setting India and China to their maximum limits, which is 2800 for each country in each category.

According to the pdf file in the earlier post:
EB1: 66,344 approvals in 2005. India: 6,336 China: 6,422
EB2: 43,412 approvals in 2005. India: 16,687 China: 9,346

We can now adjust the 2005 numbers by assumign India and China had each only gotten 2,800 (which is the max they can get in 2006).

The adjusted numbers for 2005 come then out to:
EB1: 66,344-6,336-6,422+2*2800 = 59,186
EB2: 43,412-16,687-9,345+2*2800 = 22,980

These numbers now speak an even more dramatic picture illustrating that EB1 worldwide is a lot more under pressure than EB2 worldwide:
In 2005, a lot more EB1 & EB2 were approved because India and China were not subjected to thier 7% caps. In 2006, should rest of world experience retrogression for EB1 or EB2, china and india would be guaranteed to be subjected to their 7% caps, i.e. they could each generate no more than 2,800 numbers in each category.

Therefore, assuming an equal number of visa numbers for Rest of world (but india and china), in 2005, 59,186 EB1 and 22,980 EB2 numbers were issued.

Now, in 2006, we have roughly 50,000 numbers for EB1 and 40,000 numbers for EB2. Assuming that demand for 2006 is the same as 2005, except for retrogression effects for China and India, there would NOT be nough numbers for EB1 (roughly 10k too few) whereas for EB2, there would be 17k __EXTRA__ numbers compared to 2005 (which, if some are left, would go to India/China beyond their 7% limits or to EB3).

Expressing this in terms of remainders paints an even more dramatic picture:
EXCLUDING china+india (which will both get 2,800 numbers in teh case of retrogression) i.e. just rest of world alone:
EB1: in 2005, 53,586 numbers were needed. In 2006, 44,400 are available.
EB2: in 2005, 17,380 numbers were needed. In 2006, 34,400 are available.

So: In 2005, 53,586 Rest of World EB1's were issued, but this year, there are only 44,400 available -- unless EB1 demand dramatically drops, EB1 should see pressure for Rest of World

In contrast, Rest of World only used 17,380 EB2 numbers in 2005, and this year, it will have 34,400 numbers available -- i.e. even if the demand for EB2 DOUBLES over 2005, there will be just enough numbers.

Thoughts?