6/13/2009

The following information is from Charles Oppenheim, Chief of Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting Division at DOS. Mr. Oppenheim was a guest speaker at a May 20, 2009 American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) meeting.

1. Current Trends in Visa Usage

Mr. Oppenheim stated that immigrant visa applications at U.S. consulates abroad are down seven percent from FY2008. India will use all the visa numbers that are available to its nationals this fiscal year. This is due, in part, to huge increases in the usage of EB4 and EB5 categories. Applicants from India have used twice the number of visas estimated for FY2009. Mr. Oppenheim stated that, because of the excess demand, further retrogression may occur over the summer months.

2. Employment-Based, First Preference (EB1)

Mr. Oppenheim expects that all EB1 visa numbers will be used before the end of FY2009. This may result in the establishment of a cutoff date for the EB1 categories for India and China, beginning in August or September 2009. Usage in the EB1 worldwide category (listed as "all chargeability areas except those listed") is also higher than expected. This may lead to imposition of a cutoff date toward the end of FY2009.

Mr. Oppenheim explained that a trickling effect of unused visa numbers between EB categories has helped keep EB1 and EB2 categories current in prior years. However, due to the processing of a high number of applications, this trickling effect has already occurred, but is not expected to occur again in FY2009. 

Mr. Oppenheim attributed this to the hard work of the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), as well as that of the DOS, as they have succeeded in processing enough cases to likely use all available visa numbers from all categories for FY2009. He stated that the DOS and the USCIS are supposed to process enough cases to use the annual allotment of visa numbers and not leave any available visas unused and wasted in any fiscal year.

3. Employment-Based, Second Preference (EB2)

The EB2 category worldwide is also expected to be over-subscribed and will exhaust all allocated visa numbers before the end of FY2009. To date, Mr. Oppenheim estimates that 3,200 EB2 India visa numbers have been used in FY2009. The high usage in the EB1 category has prevented the usual trickle of visas to the EB2 category. Thus, China will experience the same EB2 retrogression as India in July 2009. The EB2 China cutoff date is expected to be set at January 1, 2000. 

4. Employment-Based, Third Preference (EB3)

All EB3 categories are currently unavailable; all available visa numbers have been allocated. No change is expected to occur until the beginning of FY2010.