US Department of State Publishes June 2019 Visa Bulletin

Pasricha & Patel
May 15, 2019

Link: https://travel.state.gov/content/dam/visas/Bulletins/visabulletin_june2019.pdf

Pasricha & Patel Takeaways: U.S. Department of State’s June 2019 visa bulletin shows only slight movement in the employment-based preference categories. In particular, the employment-based 3rd visa preference category numbers for Indian nationals did not move at all, while the EB-2 visa numbers for Indian nationals did move by a few days only.

However, the EB-1 visa preference category for Indian nationals will see a dramatic retrogression in June, as the overwhelming demand for this visa category has pushed the final action date back to January 1, 2015. And this is expected to last until the October 2019 visa bulletin (the start of the first month of fiscal year 2020), when the EB-1 India category should return to at least February 22, 2017.

Readers should also pay close attention to the EB-5 visa preference category for India, as continued heavy applicant demand is expected to reach per-country annual limit during July. And that would result in setting the final action date in the July 2019 visa bulletin (for a date in 2017), and then in August 2019, India EB-5 category would be in the same situation as the China EB-5 category (most likely 2014). This is supposed to be temporary though, as the EB-5 visa numbers for India should progress again to the summer or fall of 2017 starting in October 2019 (the start of the first month of fiscal year 2020).

We suggest that readers 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.