News Update - March 1, 2008
By Alan Lee, Esq.†‡
Employment Based Cases Show Rapid Advances for March - Department
of State Visa Office Issues a Note of Caution
Applicants were pleasantly surprised by the March 2008 visa bulletin
which showed rapid advance in the employment based (EB) categories,
especially the EB-3 category (bachelor's degreed or 2 years experience
required cases) which moved from November 1, 2002, to January 1,
2005. For China born, the category advanced from November 15, 2001
to December 1, 2002, an advance of over one year. China's EB-2 (advanced
degreed or exceptional ability required cases) moved 11 months from
January 1, 2003, to December 1, 2003. The Other Worker (EW) category
advanced from October 1, 2001, to January 1, 2002, worldwide including
China. For India born, however, the EB-2 remains unavailable; and
EB-3 only advanced to August 1, 2001.
In discussing the advances, the State Department Visa Office commented
that advancement of the cutoff dates at this time should prevent
a situation later in the fiscal year where there are large numbers
of numbers available but not enough time to use them. The Visa Office
stated that "If the expected increase in CIS number use materializes,
future cutoff date movements could slow or stop."
That caution may be appropriate as U.S.C.I.S. recently published
a memorandum on February 4, 2008, that adjustment of status cases
which had been pending 180 days that were otherwise approvable except
for name check clearance, can now be approved. Although not broken
down into categories, the U.S.C.I.S. Ombudsman's 2007 annual report
disclosed that as of May 2007, the agency had 329,160 FBI name check
cases pending. U.S.C.I.S. recently confirmed that its service centers
are conducting sweeps for cases that can be approved at this time.
In the February 20, 2008, Questions and Answers which appeared on
the U.S.C.I.S. website and were then temporarily withdrawn, the
Service stated that it was currently aware of approximately 47,000
I-485 applications that were affected by the policy modification,
a seemingly optimistic low number.
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