July Visa Bulletin: Modest advancements in most EB-3 categories

Several employment-based categories will advance modestly in July, according to the State Department’s July Visa Bulletin. The advancements follow significant retrogressions in a number of categories in last month’s bulletin.

Key movements:

• India EB-2 will advance by one month.
• India EB-3 will advance by one month.
• Philippines EB-3 will advance by 3 ½  months.

Mexico EB-3, and the EB-3 categories for El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras and All Other Countries will advance by 15 days.

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

Additional notes: The modest changes follow significant retrogressions in last month’s Visa Bulletin, which the State Department said were necessary because of a high volume of adjustment-of-status applications submitted to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and in order to hold visa numbers within their limits until the close of the fiscal year Sept. 30. The India EB-2 category is expected to continue to advance moderately in August and 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 July 2016. Applicants seeking to file for adjustment of status are reminded that the Dates for Filing chart does not take effect unless USCIS 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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