U.S. Department Of State Update On Priority Dates And Demand

On June 19, 2012, Charles Oppenheim, Chief of the Immigrant Visa Control and Reporting division (Visa Office) at the U.S. Department of State (DOS), met with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) to discuss the recent EB-2 (Employment-Based, second preference) worldwide retrogression and provide an updated forecast of employment-based visa date movements for FY 2012 and beyond.

These comments and predictions are summarized below.

• When FY 2013 begins on October 1, 2012 and new immigration visa quota numbers again become available, the EB-2 cut-off dates for China-Mainland born and India, which are currently "unavailable," will move to August or September 2007 (the China cut-off may be slightly better). It is unlikely that the cut-off dates will advance at all for the first two quarters of FY 2013 unless the DOS' Visa Office is convinced that there is insufficient visa demand for the rest of the year. The Visa Office has already pre-adjudicated 17,000