AILA’s DOS Liaison Committee has published a document on October 19, 2023, relating to the October 2023 and November 2023 Visa Bulletin’s content and relevant information shared by USCIS. Below is a summary with the main information:
“The Visa Bulletin summarizes the availability of immigrant visas for the coming month. It distills the data into whether family and employment-based categories are current or backlogged in a given month. DOS and USCIS collaborate monthly to publish the Visa Bulletin. Within each category, the Visa Bulletin provides a Final Action Chart reflecting priority dates considered current and available and a Dates for Filing Chart reflecting priority dates anticipated to become current during the fiscal year.
The Visa Bulletins for October and November 2023 continued much of the retrogression that began with the May 2023 bulletin. While there were hopes that with the start of the new fiscal year, final action dates for EB-2 and EB-3 worldwide would be current, both categories start the fiscal year with cutoff dates, which is unprecedented.
EB-2 worldwide basically remained the same, stuck in July 2022. In the November 2023 Visa Bulletin, the dates for EB-2 worldwide advanced seven days, from July 8, 2022, to July 15, 2022. In contrast, while EB-1 worldwide started the fiscal year as current, retrogression persists for nationals of China and India. The same dates remain in place for November.
While the October 2023 Visa Bulletin contains no explanation for the continued retrogression, in its FAQ, USCIS explained that it has a significant number of employment-based adjustment of status applications in its inventory and, based on demand, cannot accept substantial additional filings to start this fiscal year.
Based on USCIS’s explanation, members are advised not to expect the cutoff dates to advance beyond those in the Dates for Filing Chart during FY2024.’’
Cite as AILA Doc. No. 23101901.