U.S. Department of State Publishes August 2019 Visa Bulletin
Categories: Attorneys , Business Immigration , Business Law , Citizenship , Citizenship Green Cards , Commercial Litigation , Commercial Transactions , Corporate Law , Green Cards , Immigration Law , International Law , Investment Visas , Law Firm , Lawyers , Legal Services , Real Estate , Software Agreements , Technology Law , Trusts And Estates
Link: https://travel.state.
Pasricha & Patel Takeaways:
U.S. Department of State’s August 2019 visa bulletin is reflective of its recent forecast that there would be only slight forward movement, if any, for most of the employment-based preference categories. In fact, the Department of State stated that because of the steady increase of employment applicant demand starting in late May 2019 for adjustment of status cases filed with the USCIS, and with no slowdown in sight, the Department of State has no choice but to establish or retrogress many of the August Final Action Dates in order to hold the Worldwide numbers use within the maximum allowed FY 2019 annual limits. This has negatively impacted the Worldwide numbers for EB-1, EB-2, and EB-3.
Interestingly, both China and India’s EB-2 preference categories moved slightly ahead, while EB-3 for China advanced by 7 months to July 1, 2016. But the EB-3 preference category for India retrogressed all the way back to January 1, 2006. EB-1 preference category remained the same for India at January 1, 2015, while EB-1 for China retrogressed to July 1, 2016 from May 8, 2017.
These dates should be maintained until the end of fiscal year 2019, as the Department of State does expect the Final Action Dates will return back to July 2019 levels starting in October 2019, which is the start of the Fiscal Year 2020.
On the family-based visa categories, F2A spouse and children of permanent residents category remains ‘current’ for the month of August. And the expectation is that the USCIS will also continue to allow those F2A applicants to use the Final Action Dates chart in the August 2019 Visa Bulletin. But for all the other family-based preference categories, visa applicants will still use the Dates for Filing chart in the August 2019 Visa Bulletin.
We suggest that readers continue to keep an eye out for any updates on this issue via our website. And should our readers have any further questions about the various visa preference categories, please do not hesitate to contact our office to schedule a consultation to discuss this matter further.