September 14, 2009

October Visa Bulletin

The Department of State has issued the visa bulletin for the new fiscal year beginning on October 1, 2009. As predicted, retrogression in many categories continues with some dates being pushed back even further than they were before numbers became unavailable earlier this year.

The only employment-based category remaining current for all nationalities is the first preference (EB-1) category. Almost all other categories remain severely backlogged.

The October 2009 priority date cut-offs for the employment-based categories are:

If a category is designated as unavailable, the annual quota of immigrant visas has been met and immigrant visas are no longer available in that category. Note that categories may become unavailable in the middle of a month, but it is rare.

The availability of visas is published based on data collected from consular officers and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). Both are required to report to the Department of State the number of foreign nationals who qualify for immigrant visas in the different categories. The bulletin indicated that USCIS made allocations for the demand received by September 9th, 2009 in the chronological order of the reported priority dates. Where the demand exceeded the available number of immigrant visas within a category, that category was deemed unavailable. Only applicants with a priority date earlier than the cut-off date may be allotted a visa number. These individuals then become eligible to complete the permanent residence process through the filing of an I-485 with USCIS or an Immigrant Visa application with the U.S. Consulate abroad. The complete visa bulletin may be viewed here.