State Department Advises of Upcoming Significant Move in Visa Availability
Courtesy of AILA
The State Department noted on November 5, 2002, that due to a fall off in
demand for immigrant visas resulting from the delays caused by the IBIS
security check process, family based immigrant visa priority dates are expected
to move significantly.
A priority date is the date on which an immigrant visa petition is filed for
family based permanent residency cases or the date of filing of an employment
based petition or a labor certification application. The priority date
determines the place in line for a prospective immigrant waiting for the
availability of the visa necessary to immigrate to the United States.
A "visa" is necessary for permanent residency status whether a beneficiary of a
permanent residency application is currently inside or outside the U.S. There
are significant waiting periods for most family based immigrant
classifications, (except for immediate relatives of U.S. Citizens), due to the
demand exceeding the limited number of immigrant visas allocated to nationals
of each foreign nation.
Accordingly, a temporary decrease in demand in visas will enable certain
long-waiting pending immigrants to complete the final phase of the permanent
residency process since more visas will become available relative to demand.
However, once the demand picks up again, the movement in priority dates will
slow down and possibly move backward if demand exceeds supply.
The State Department also noted that it does not expect employment based
immigrant visas to retrogress and that all categories will continue to be
"current" - meaning there are sufficient numbers of visas relative to demand and
no waiting period exists for employment based immigrant cases.
Below is the text of the advisory.
DOS Advises on Immigrant Visa Numbers
Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting Division at the State Department, has advised AILA that he expects that family-based immigrant visa numbers will start moving forward at a more rapid rate in the next few months. Because of the slow-down in INS processing since March due to IBIS checks, demand from INS has fallen off. If State Department moves the visa numbers forward more rapidly, more people who are consular processing will be able to complete the process.
Mr. Oppenheim also indicates that, despite rumors to the contrary, State Dept. does not foresee a retrogression in employment-based immigrant visa numbers during the rest of fiscal 2003 or in fiscal 2004. The one caveat is that, as more "other worker" cases start to emerge from the processing pipeline, it is possible that the "other worker" subcategory could begin to backlog.
