U.S. Department of State Publishes February 2020 Visa Bulletin
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Link: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Bulletins/visabulletin_february2020.pdf
Pasricha & Patel
The U.S. Department of State has published the February 2020 visa bulletin, and once again, there is not much movement, if only slightly, in the employment-based immigrant visa categories across the countries. Of interest is the Department of State has indicated that due to the high level of employment-based visa demands since October 2019, with primary demand for adjustment of status cases that are being filed with the USCIS, that the most affected categories – which are the EB-2, and EB-3 Other Workers preference categories – that the Department of State expects to set ‘Rest of the World” final action date starting in the month of March. This action will be needed in order to hold the visa numbers usage within the Fiscal Year 2020 annual limits.
And as for the family-based immigrant visa categories, there also is not much movement in the various categories, with the exception of the F4 Brother and Sister of U.S. citizen preference category for “Rest of the World”. In this particular category, the visa numbers have been moving quite rapidly for the past two (2) years. And this has yielded a big increase in applicant demand. Therefore, there will be retrogression of that particular visa preference category in February 2020 in order to maintain the visa number use within the Fiscal Year 2020 annual limits. In fact, the Department of State expects this will be the case for at least the next several months.
So, the takeaway here is that the visa number movements are starting to slow down due to great demand for the visa numbers. Nevertheless, we do recommend our readers to watch out for regular updates on our site for any further developments.
Should you have any further questions about the different visa preference categories and filing procedures, please do not hesitate to contact our office to schedule a consultation to discuss your concerns further.