Here are the latest developments with the new May 2015 edition of the U.S. Department of State Visa Bulletin, including our analysis and comments:
India EB-2 and EB-3.
The rapid forward movement trend in the EB-2 India category continues in May 2015. EB-2 India will advance by 7.5 months to April 15, 2008. The U.S. Department of State projects that the cut-off date in this category will continue to advance at a slower pace in the next few months. Also, since the EB-3 category is still at January 2004 and advances only by one week, EB-3 to EB-2 conversion will likely spike and this could stop or even reverse the EB-2 forward movement.
China EB-2 and EB-3.
EB-2 China is advancing more than one year from April 2011 to June 1, 2012. We continue to see rapid forward movement in the EB-2 category. China EB-3 is moving forward to May 1, 2011. It is no longer more advantageous to file cases in the EB-3 category for Chinese nationals and this will likely result in increased EB-2 filings, which in turn may slow down or even stop the EB-2 forward movement.
Worldwide, Mexico and the Philippines EB-3.
The Worldwide and Mexico EB-3 cut-off date is advancing to January 1, 2015. As we observed in our earlier newsletters, the EB-3 category is now as good as the EB-2 category in terms of overall case processing time frames. The EB-3 wait time is now approximately 3.5 months and this is a lot less than the average government processing time for permanent residence cases, which means that processing times for such cases are now determined solely by government administrative efficiency. The EB-3 Philippines retrogressed by almost 7 years, reflecting a substantial increase in permanent residence case filings for Schedule A nurses.
Family-Based Categories.
There are no major changes in the family based preference categories and they all continue to advance at a regular but otherwise pretty slow pace.