I-140 Statistics US Non-Immigrants: Home to All Non Immigrants

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 (thank you to our reader who pointed to this release) - http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/cisomb-recommendation_extraordinary_ability_petitions.pdf.

Some of the important relevant information can be found on Page 6 of the document which has plots for I-140 EB1 and EB-2 adjudications, including receipts and approvals for the Texas (TSC) and Nebraska (NSC) Service Centers. Report suggests that USCIS has experienced a slight downturn in EB-1 and EB-2 filings over the past five years for both EB-1 and EB-2 (note report does not include National Interest Waiver petitions), with approval and denial rates remaining consistent.

Key point to note here are -

EB1-A and EB1-B has high rate of denial rate, around 40% to 60% respectively.
EB2 I-140 approval rate is close to 100%
Respective I-140 filings for each fiscal year 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
EB1 majority demand comes from EB1-C and not from EB1-A and EB1-B. Those filings do not look enormous.

Based on I-140 receipt data and 100% approval rate for EB2 petition, we tried to deduce some I-140 demand for PD 2008, 2009 and 2010.

EB2-India & China I-140 Demand based on released data

First of all we started after taking into account the PERMs that were approved for the FY 2008, FY 2009 and FY 2010.

Table I

We know from past analysis that usual break down of PERMs are 65%-35% for EB2-EB3 for India and China, and 50% for EB2-ROW-M-P. Based on this assumption and 100% approval rate, total I-140 demand for PERMs filed each fiscal year as follow.

Table II

If we now compare this data with recently released DHS document -http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/cisomb-recommendation_extraordinary_ability_petitions.pdf. ; then I-140 Receipt numbers come very close to that suggested in above table. Approvals per released DHS document is as follow:

Table III

Reason for difference in two numbers can be accounted based on

First of all data is based on PERM approvals and some of demand from past fiscal year will roll-over into current fiscal year I-140 demand due to time lag between approval of PERM and filing of I-140s
Our assumption of 65% and 50% is flat and there may be a difference month to month.
Please note NIW applicants do not have to file PERM and hence that difference in negated here.

In addition to above numbers we should remember that lot of PERM cases that were filed with PD 2008 and PD 2009 were audited and were later approved in FY 2011. Few cases were approved in FY 2010 but we will neglect it for time being. If we will look at the EB2-IC and EB2-ROW-M-P breakup for FY 2011, we can see demand from PD 2008 and PD 2009 that will come from approvals in FY 2011.

This data comes from these articles
a) FY 2011 Q1-Q2 PERM data
b) FY 2011 Q3 PERM Approvals
c) FY 2011 Q4 PERM Approvals

Table IV

Please note that from above table it is difficult to deduce EB2 I-140 Receipts of 39000 reported in DHS document. Our estimation only shows 21,034 receipts. This is still a mystery to us.

EB2-India & China demand based on Priority Date
To calculate this for now we can neglect the difference that we see in DHS I-140 Receipts data (Table II) and I-140 demand data from PERM approvals (Table III), then we can roughly estimate total EB2-IC I-140 demand for each fiscal year just by using Table II. In order to capture FY 2011 approvals for old priority dates, we will add EB2-IC demand for each fiscal year to respective approvals in FY 2011. Based on above calculations, estimate for EB2-IC I-140 demand is (in red)

Table V

Some key points to note

I-140 Receipt demand will always lag PERM Approval times.
Difference between 29000 - 27588 = 1412 from Table II and Table III can account for some demand before October 2007.
It is assumed that most of the cases for certain priority date is approved in same fiscal year, so total demand upto end of FY 2010 will be same but real numbers for each PD may be off depending upon PERM approval time within that fiscal year.
These calculations do not consider any abandon cases due to individuals leaving country, getting lay-offed or re-filing due to long audit processing time, multiple PERM factors or double filings within a family. You can assume anything from 65%-85% for this as a multiple PERM factor.
This data does not consider any EB3-EB2 portings.
You can multiply this demand by 2.0 to 2.25 based on dependent factor to get estimate of I-485 demand.

EB2-India & China I-485 demand based on Priority Date

To above numbers you can add 8000 visa numbers that was approved for this fiscal year. Also add demand from August 2007-September 2007 plus 4000-5000 PWMBs overall and then based on your estimation of spillover calculate cut-off date on retrogression.

My take will be the option Multiple PERM factor of 75%.
EB2-IC demand , August-September 2007 from PERM data = 4,000
All PWMBs =                                                                         4,500
EB2-IC Approvals for backlogged cases =                                8,000
Demand until Sep 2008 =                                                         25,233
__________________________________________________________

Total I-485 Demand upto September 2008 = 41,733

Spillover + annual limit expected at most can be around 28,000

Cut-off Dates for this year can hover around March-June 2008 after retrogression for the best scenario.

USCIS yesterday released Approval and Denial Statistics for I-140 for EB1 Category for fiscal years 2005 to 2010. USCIS release specifically points that released statistical data for I-140 is for E-11 and E-12 category. As per DHS, definition for E11 and E12 is "Aliens with extraordinary ability, new arrivals (E11)" and "Outstanding professors or researchers, new arrivals (E12)". New arrivals are usually individuals who has applied from outside the US or CP cases (physically residing outside US), whereas Adjustments are individuals who are currently present in the US in a non-immigrant category adjusting to a immigrant status to receive permanent residence. Since E11 and E12 includes data released for new arrivals it should not include AOS numbers. But this does not look right when you compare USCIS released data and DHS released data on FY 2009 I-485 Visa Number Use as per Class of Admissions. We can see that the numbers are very close when recent released data is viewed in terms of AOS + new arrival. As far as I think, USCIS data does include AOS applicants as well. as new arrivals Please note that I-140 data would only include primary applicants i.e. E11, E16, E12 and E17

DHS Vocabulary on Class of Admissions

Aliens with extraordinary ability, new arrivals (E11)

Aliens with extraordinary ability, adjustments (E16)

Outstanding professors or researchers, new arrivals (E12)

Outstanding professors or researchers, adjustments (E17)

Multinational executives or managers, new arrivals (E13)

Multinational executives or managers, adjustments (E18)

Fiscal Year 2009 Data

Type and class of admission --------------------------Total----AOS-- New Arrivals

Aliens with extraordinary ability, new arrivals (E11)---------308 -----NA------- 308

Aliens with extraordinary ability, adjustments (E16) --------3,134- - 3,134 ------NA

Outstanding professors or researchers, new arrivals (E12) ---20------NA------- 20

Outstanding professors or researchers, adjustments (E17)-- 3,412--- 3,412------NA