June Visa Bulletin: India EB-2, China EB-2, EB-3 to retrogress

Several employment-based categories, including India EB-2 and China EB-2 and EB-3 will significantly retrogress in June, according to the State Department’s June Visa Bulletin.

The State Department said the retrogressions of Final Action Dates are necessary because of extremely high volumes of adjustment-of-status applications submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the past two months and the effort to hold visa numbers within the limits until the close of the fiscal year Sept. 30.

Key movements:

• India EB-2 will retrogress more than four years.
• India EB-3 will advance by three weeks.
• China EB-2 will retrogress two years and eight months.
• China EB-3 willretrogress by more than three years and seven months.
• Philippines EB-3will advance by nearly three months.

Other categories will not advance or retrogress. All EB-1 categories will remain current.

Additional notes: The India EB-2 category is expected to advance moderately from July through September. China EB-2 and EB-3 are not expected to advance in the next three months until new visa numbers become available Oct. 1.

Application Final Action Dates for Employment-Based Preference Cases:

The State Department also released its Dates for Filing chart for June 2016. Applicants seeking to file for adjustment of status are reminded that the Dates for Filing chart does not take effect unless U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services confirms it via a web posting in the coming week. To date, USCIS has not allowed applicants to use the Dates for Filing chart for filing adjustment of status applications.

This alert has been provided by the BAL U.S. Practice group. For additional information, please contact BerryApplemanLeiden@bal.com.

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