USCIS to suspend employment-based adjustment of status processing until Oct. 1

All employment-based preference categories have reached their quotas for the current fiscal year. As a result, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced that it will suspend processing of all employment-based applications for permanent residence and adjustment of status beginning today through Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year. The agency will resume processing of these applications Oct. 1.

The one-week suspension was expected, as the government typically exhausts the annual visa allocation during the month of September. The announcement today does not change the Visa Bulletin going forward. Under the new Visa Bulletin system, a new set of cutoff dates for filing adjustment of status applications (“Dates for Filing”) will be available, allowing applicants to file for adjustment of status if their priority date is earlier than the filing cutoff date for their preference category and country of origin. The new cutoff dates will provide greater opportunity for immigrants in backlogged categories to be able to file for adjustment of status, and will be available when USCIS determines that more immigrant visa numbers are available than the number of known applicants.

BAL Analysis: Employment-based immigrants who are eligible to file on Oct. 1 should continue to prepare their applications for submission on the earliest eligible filing date.

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