Visa Bulletin – March 2024

March Visa Bulletin for the FY 2024 was released few days. Here are key insights and updates to it with some predictions.

How to use Demand Data to calculate EB3 to EB2 Porting?

As per visa allocation each year under each category, USCIS/DOL should use 233 visas every month for EB2-India. Normally this should reduce demand by 233 every month. Since we are not seeing any reduction in demand data, it suggests that there are many individuals who are upgrading their case from EB3 to EB2. So what is the rate at which EB3 to EB2 porting is happening? Simple Calculations that could be used to estimate this is ...

EB3 to EB2 Porting with same employer: Not a good idea

These days it is been topic of the town for Indian nationals to port their priority date from EB3 to EB2 category. So far this totally makes sense. This could tremendously reduce the wait time for an individual to receive a green card. But an individual and his employer should be very careful while taking this step if they are planning to port the case with a same (current) employer. There are rumors that many employers are upgrading their employees’ petition from EB3 to EB2 category just to retain their employees.

I-485 Case Tracker for PDs 'Current'

We have released new I-485 case tracker for cases that are 'Current' today. Please use this tracker to enter details of your application and case status. Please fill in as much details as possible and edit the tracker as and when you will get more information on your application status. Use this tracker to see if PDs that has recently became current are getting approved

January 2012 I-485 Pending Inventory - EB Category Visa Use

USCIS released I-485 pending inventory upto 12 January 2012. Please note this inventory is only for Service Centers and Field Offices, and does not contain consular processing cases. Dependents are included. Here is a summary of the I-485 inventory when compared to October 2011 Inventory. This inventory is used to estimate the visa use during Q1 of FY 2012 and Projected Demand for FY 2012.Please note that one fallacy to using inventory to estimate demand is that it will not consider cases approved in less than 90 days.

EB Category Roll-Over and PWMB Demand: I-485 Receipt Data

We analyzed I-485 Approvals and Receipts for FY 2011 to estimate carry-over demand from FY 2011 in EB category. We also used this data in conjunction with USCIS I-485 Performance data and I-485 representative filings from June to September 2011 at trackitt to estimate People Who Missed the Boat (PWMB) demand for EB2-IC upto September 2011 that may start consuming visa numbers from FY 2012 annual allocation and/or spillover.

Prediction for EB2 Category for FY 2012

Here is the Prediction for EB2 Category cutoff date retrogression for Fiscal Year 2012. Basis for this prediction is simple calculations (see below) which is done based on available data i.e. PERM data published by DOL, I-485 Inventory data, latest trend on Trackitt for EB1 & EB2 cases and other published data by USCIS. Demand data for each dependent category is predicted and explained in calculations below. This data is further used to calculate spillover that would be available for EB2 category. Retrogression is estimated based on visa allotment available each year for each country and total spillover that is expected in FY 2012. In each case, Optimistic, Realistic and Worst-Case scenario is estimated.

Green Card Calculator - Employment Based

As per recent demand data released until September 01, 2011 on EB I-485 inventory, here is the 'Green Card' calculator for Employment- Based category that tells an individual how many I-485 applicants are there before them in the queue under their filed preference category. Beyond this, calculations are extended to predict how many years will it take an individual to receive a green card. In addition, you can put an assumption for a spillover that your category and country would receive every year and see how this changes the scenario.

What to do once Priority Date (PD) becomes current?

A very commonly asked question by fellow petitioners is the step by step process that they should follow after an individual’s Priority date will become current. Please read this article to check on next steps and required I-485 documents.

I-485 Primary & Secondary Evidence - Country Specific

Commonly asked question is what to do when primary evidence of birth, marriage, divorce etc is not available. Here is the country specific I-485 Required documents for (AOS) or (CP). Immigration officers or Adjudicators are asked to refer to the list below before making any decision on RFE or NOID in case primary evidence is not submitted or established. Please select your country from the drop-down list to see specific secondary evidence and documents.

EB2-India & China I-140 Demand (Yearly) based on DHS Released Report

DHS on 29th December 2011 released a Citizenship and Immigration Services Ombudsman's recommendation to improve the quality in Extraordinary Ability and Other Employment based petition adjudication document. We used this data to deduce I-140 demand for EB2-India and China.

EB2-IC Movements FY 2012 - Mr. Oppenheim's thinking?

We looked into if there is any analytical correlation between movements that Mr. Oppenheim did last year for Family Based Category (F2A) and current movement that we saw with EB2-India and China for Employment Based Category. Is there any correlation or equation or factor that can determine how Mr. Oppenheim would think in absence of demand or visible demand in case number of filings that he is receiving or available adjudicated case cases are less? That is when we started digging into this.

AC21 Portability - FAQs and Sample Letters to USCIS

Some people suggests that sending letter to USCIS on job change after invoking AC-21 portability is not required. But this is a gray area, and no one knows it better if USCIS should be informed when individual would invoke an AC-21 portability to change job once applicant's I-485 is pending for more than 180 days with USCIS.

Understanding Section 245(k) to use it for Derivative applicants after Primary’s I-485 approval

Common question asked by many primary I-485 applicants who had previously filed I-485 Adjustment of Status (AOS) application, which is still pending with USCIS, is about adding their spouses or children (derivatives) to their pending I-485 application. At this point there is always a concern among the petitioner that their case will be approved before their derivatives application

July 2012 Visa Bulletin Predictions - EB Category

Here is the prediction for July 2012 Visa Bulletin. We should see following movements in each category as long as USCIS/DOL would use visa numbers as per statutory allocations.

EB2 India & China - What to expect in FY 2012?

Cut-Off Dates has reached PD 15th April 2007 for EB2-India and China for FY 2011 in September bulletin, now what can we expect for FY 2012?. We have some analysis to estimate movement in FY 2012. This is very rudimentary as of now and can change as FY 2012 will progress.

EB3 ROW-Mexico-Philippines - What to expect in FY 2012?

For FY 2012, EB3-ROW-M-P is expected to move together similar to the movement that was seen for FY 2011. Based on available I-485 inventory, last released demand data, and hidden demand (or Consular Processing demand) that was observed in FY 2011, total EB3-M-P demand until ....

How to know if old I-140 has been revoked by previous employer?

If an individual filing a green card under employment-based category has changed job and now planning to port priority date from previous filed Labor certification, he/she will at least need an approved I-140 from previous employer to recapture priority dates. This I-140 should not be revoked and still active.

Understanding Visa Bulletin Cut-Off Date Determination

The State Department (DOS) is responsible for the allocation of numerically limited immigrant visa numbers under the authority granted by section 203 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). These visa numbers are allocated based on congressionally mandated preferences that assign an overall total, limits for each category and per country limits within each category. Here is a quick Memo on the steps involved.

'Hard' vs 'Soft' LUD - How to use it to track your case status with USCIS?

If you heard people talking about keeping track of 'Soft' and 'Hard' LUDs on forums and other websites, and wondered what it is, now you can understand what is LUDs and how you can use them to track any activity on your petition that is pending with USCIS.

How to Obtain an Emergency Advance Parole (AP) Document?

If your current status is Adjustment of Status (AOS) Pending and you are currently working on EAD, it is very important that you renew your Advance Parole (AP) document in timely manner, well in advance. If an individual leaves a country under AOS pending status with their AP application pending or AP document due expire when they are traveling outside of country, they will abandon their status in United Status. Subsequently their I-485 application will be denied.

People Who Missed the Boat (PWMB) during July 2007

Question was asked in the comment section that how would applications with Priority date before July 2007 who could not file in July 2007 would affect EB2-IC movement for FY 2011. These people are commonly referred as "People Who Missed the Boat (PWMB)" by some people. We earlier thought that these numbers will small percentage of the whole group. But careful analysis of PERM data suggests that these numbers are significant when you will include primary + dependents (assuming a family would consume 2.5 visas) applications.

EB3 to EB2 Porting Calculations - Part III

We have a poll on EB3 to EB2 Porting which is up since last week of February 2011, and till-date we have received '445' votes. Results has been consistent through out the poll for the last two months. It suggests that the general trend or distribution of individuals with different PD that are porting has not changed from day to day regardless of number of votes received.We are convinced that this will be a general trend for rest of the current year regardless of porting numbers. Calculations are further extended to extrapolate real world numbers.

H1B FY 2012 CAP Count & Predictions

As per recent release by USCIS, regular cap has utilized till date 11,200 visas and Masters quota has utilized 7,900 visas as of 13th May 2011. It is interesting to see that H1B visa under Master Cap has utilized more than 35% of the quota. As of now number of petitions increased from last week is 1,600. Based on past months trend, regular cap can reach by 27th January 2012 and Masters Cap by 30 September 2011.

H1B FY 2012 : List of Disqualified Employers

H1B FY 2012 season will be here soon. It is advisable that the prospective aspirants for H1B FY 2012 should be aware of the debarred or disqualified employer for this season. Please make sure you do not become a bait to any of these employers for your H1B filing. These employers are willful violator employer and are black-listed.

PERM Processing Time Starts to Slump

DOL recently released current PERM processing times. It looks like fire-sale is almost over and PERM processing time will again start creeping towards 1-2 months wait or more in coming months. 5 days approval will be a history. Temporary Government shutdown is still not in effect and this will delay the processing time further when some decision about it will be made during April 8, 2011. The Senate votes to fund the federal government through April 8. But the stalemate over 2011 spending remains, and no one wants to pass another short-term stopgap. Is the stage now set for a government shutdown next month is yet to be known.

Document on Tax Exemption for OPT Students and Students on F1B visa

Document or proof stating that OPT students are not required to pay Social Security Taxes and Medicare tax. You can share this with your employer

What is H1B 'CAP Exempt' visa?

Most of the international students after graduation would focus their attention to find a job in corporate world. But it is always difficult to find an employer who will be ready to sponsor your H1B visa. If you are lucky, you may find an employer who is willing to sponsor your work visa, but could not do it because quota is not available at that time or if quota is open, is worried that he may have to wait until start of fiscal year in October before you could begin working for him. What are other options in such case? Well in this case, you can opt for working for organizations that are exempted from H1B visa regular cap quota.

Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexico. Show all posts

Sunday, February 5, 2012

January 2012 I-485 Pending Inventory - EB Category Visa Use

Posted On Sunday, February 05, 2012 by Rav 0 comments

USCIS released I-485 pending inventory upto 12 January 2012. Please note this inventory is only for Service Centers and Field Offices, and does not contain consular processing cases. Dependents are included. Here is a summary of the I-485 inventory when compared to October 2011 Inventory. This inventory is used to estimate the visa use during Q1 of FY 2012 and Projected Demand for FY 2012.Please note that one fallacy to using inventory to estimate demand is that it will not consider cases approved in less than 90 days.

EB1 demand : In general, EB1 is highly backlogged with atleast 15,583 applications still pending at Service Centers. Although this number looks big at first glance please do not worry. This is just a backlog that USCIS will need to clear going forward. Rate of new application filings is very low and we can estimate at least 12,000 or more spillover from this category at current rate. This may change with time. It all depends how much USCIS will like to reduce it's inventory when crossing into FY 2013. Generally such number is around 8,000 year-to-year, and we have used this number to estimate our projected EB1 demand for FY 2012.


EB2-ROW-M-P demand - This category demand is little surprising at first. I am not sure if new demand is so low but we should remember that other significant demand for this category also comes from consular processed cases. Such demand is usually around 15%. Estimated Demand shown is only for USCIS and Field Offices. Usually year to year inventory for this category ends around 8,000 -10,000. We assumed 8,000 in our calculations.

If we will add 15% to the estimated demand, we can say that estimated FY 2012 EB2-ROW-M-P demand is around 1.15 * 22,379 = 25,735. From EB2-ROW-M-P, we can expect spillover around 34,200 - 25,735 = 8,465 or more

EB3-ROW-M-P demand - Visa use for for EB3-ROW-M-P is estimated from October 2011 to January 2012 inventory. Please see below.

 One thing to note here is that only 5,042 visa numbers were used by EB3-ROW-M-P at USCIS. Total visa number available for 3 months is around 8,682. Remaining 3,640 were used by consulates abroad. This demand is around 40% for CP cases.We are still marching towards 08 August 2006 for this category.

EB2-IC demand - This section of the article will only cover EB2-India and China demand till PD July 31st, 2007. This demand is all inclusive of visa numbers that are/will be used upto this PD for current fiscal year (FY 2012). Demand from October 2011-January 2012 inventory estimates visa number used until Q1, cases still waiting for visa numbers and new EB3 to EB2 porting cases. Remaining demand after PD July 2007 is covered in "Predictions for EB2-India & China FY 2012".

Just based on inventory it seems that only 7,795 visa numbers were used in Q1-FY 2012. Total PWMB numbers are also very less compared to what we initially thought. PWMBs includes all PDs from May 2006- July 2007 (June VB-November VB) that are still pending since October 2011 inventory. Visa use for such cases will come from this year's quota. These 14,430 demand will be limiting factor for current year cut-off date on retrogression. Retrogression will be estimated is next article.

EB3- India - Inventory for EB3-India compared to last fiscal year reduced by 4884 (2803 annual limit + 2081 estimated porting and/or case abandonment upto January 2003). Minimum movement around 08 November 2002 is expected. Movement can be little more if more folks from November-December 2002 will port for this year.

EB4- demand - Last year, EB4 demand was high or at par, and hence no spillover was received from this category. For this year also we may assume that no spillover will be received.

EB5- demand - EB5 demand is similar level as last year and may yield around 3000-4000 unused visa numbers if similar demand is seen in FY 2012.


Monday, August 22, 2011

EB3 ROW, Mexico & Philippines - FY 2012 Movement Estimation

Posted On Monday, August 22, 2011 by Rav 59 comments

For FY 2012, EB3-ROW-M-P is expected to move together similar to the movement that was seen for FY 2011. Based on available I-485 inventory, last released demand data, and hidden demand (or Consular Processing demand) that was observed in FY 2011, total EB3-M-P demand until 15th November 2006, will be 34,674. Based on annual allocation for EB3-ROW-M-P, visa number available will be 29,128 +2803 + 2803 = 34,734. Please see table below for detailed calculation. EB3-ROW-M-P is expected to reach 15-November-2006 for FY 2012 based on currently available data. This projection will be updated as cut-off dates will progress in FY 2012.

For FY 2012, EB3-ROW will only use 24,733 visas; EB3-M will use 3,024 visas and EB3-P will end up using 6,917 visa numbers. I-485 demand (or AOS or visible demand) from the inventory that is expected to clear in FY 2012 is 21507, 2326 and 5321 respectively for ROW, Mexico and Philippines in EB3 category.


Last Updated - 22 August 2011
* - Please note that for FY 2011, there was change in demand from inventory to inventory, every quarter. From October 2010 to September 2011, at least 7194 demand for previous already current PDs were added all together. These numbers accounted for at least 50% of increase in demand from inventory to inventory. If this is again observed for FY 2012, cut-off date is expected to reach only until PD July 2006 for EB3-ROW-M-P. We are hoping since most of the cases from LO are now returned to National Service Centers this is less unlikely, but we will need to keep a close eye at difference in demand that  may  evolve from inventory to inventory,


Sunday, August 14, 2011

EB3-ROW FY 2011 - Estimation of Visa Number used out of 28,800

Posted On Sunday, August 14, 2011 by Rav 17 comments

In this post we have estimated use of EB3-ROW annual allocation of 28,800 visas for FY 2011. Later, this calculation will be used to estimate movement for FY 2012. Positive side of movement observed in FY 2011 is that since cut-of dates for EB3-ROW-M-P are same, we can expect EB3-ROW to use almost close to full allocation for movement in FY 2012. Please note this is one way of looking at the movement observed in FY 2011 and reality can involve more hidden demand than estimated, and less visas used for EB3-M-P. We will know more about this when country-wise visa used numbers will be out for FY 2011 in December 2011.





From annual allocation, total visas used for EB3-ROW in FY 2011
Total visa used upto 22 November 2005 = 13927 + 7092 = 21019
Adding Consular Processing cases (15 %) = 1.15 * 21019 = 24,172


On similar lines as above from different inventories,

From ROW annual allocation, total visas used EB3-Mexico in FY 2011
Total visa used upto 22 November 2005 = 5177
Adding Consular Processing cases (15 %) = 1.15 * 5177 = 5,953
Out of EB3-ROW allocation, EB3-M could have used 5953-2803 = 3,150


From ROW annual allocation, total visas used EB3-Philippines in FY 2011
Total visa used upto 22 November 2005 = 2813
Adding Consular Processing cases (30 %) = 1.30 * 2813 = 3,656
Out of EB3-ROW allocation, EB3-P could have used 3656-2803 = 854


 Estimated EB3-ROW Allocation used for FY 2011

So EB3- ROW annual allocation of 28,800 were used more or less in this way (some error here and there)
.
24,172 + 3,150 + 854 = 28,176



Saturday, April 30, 2011

EB2 - ROW-Mexico-Philippines Visa Demand FY 2011 - Based on PERM Data

Posted On Saturday, April 30, 2011 by Rav 14 comments

We have analyzed the PERM data for FY 2011 Q1 and Q2, and FY 2010 Q4 (Aug-Sep) for EB2-ROW-M-P to ballpark current visa demand for this category. Goal behind this was to see if there is a possibility that some spillover from EB1 would be consumed by EB2-ROW before it will come to retrogressed EB2 countries. The reason behind using the FY 2010 month of August and September for the analysis was to consider the only demand from last fiscal year that is not considered in the September bulletin.. Please note that September bulletin is usually released in first week of August and hence any demand later than that is not considered during that bulletin. Though some of the cases are processed in the same fiscal year but gap time between PERM approval and submission of concurrent I-485/I-140 is minimum one month. So there is less likelihood that this demand was ever seen in FY 2010. We expect that all this demand was seen early this fiscal year.

Again to segregate PERM data in EB3 and EB2, 'minimum wage required' of less than $55000 was used as a criteria. Please note minimum wage required is different than wage offered. Any PERMs that would require wages above $55,000 were considered EB2. Though there is some error to this assumption, but this should give you rough idea about fair distribution. We understand that minimum wages required differs from state to state, and in some cases wages offered at universities and higher education institutes are lower but job requirements still qualifies you to EB2 category. All these errors in our assumptions for considering EB3s with higher minimum salary into our EB2 criteria and not considering EB2s from higher education institutes due to lower salary will offset each other. In order to complete an informed analysis, it was necessary to make some kind of assumptions.

That said, data was used to calculate total demand based on primary and dependents. On average family size used was 1.75. Further, this data was extrapolated for rest of the fiscal year only based on high demand seen in February and March. Data was extrapolated until July 2011 (reason same as explained before about release of September visa bulletin in first week of August).

What does this mean for EB2-ROW-M-P
This means PD dates for EB2-ROW-M-P will reman current for remaning fiscal year. For EB2-ROW if demand will pick up more than predicted, they can always use unused visa numebrs from EB1 category.


What does this mean for EB2-IC?
Expected EB2-ROW-M-P demand for current fiscal year will be around 28,599 +/- 1,000. Current fiscal year quota for EB2-ROW-M-P is around 34,400. Expected spillover is around 5000-7000 from EB2-ROW-M-P. Any increase in demand for EB2-ROW alone means consumption of some EB1 category unused visa numbers. EB2-M-P will yield atleast 2800 unused visas.




EB2-ROW-M-P Demand absed on PERM data