Visa Bulletin for July 2012: EB-2 Category Retrogressed For Other Countries
The U.S. Department of State (DOS) just released the Visa Bulletin for July 2012. The Worldwide retrogression to January 1st, 2009 came as a surprise to many because it set the visa availability numbers back 3 years. The employment-based second preference cut-off dates for China and India remain "unavailable" and no change is anticipated before the end of the fiscal year. The numerical system reported in the Visa Bulletin is essentially a "quota" system allocating available immigrant visas by preference category and country of nationality.
Each preference category is allocated a number of immigrant visas each fiscal year. The movement in the Visa Bulletin is based upon the number of applications in the queue and the number of new filings. For example, a national of any country other than India and China that is an EB-2 employee (e.i; a physician), whose Labor Certification was received by the Department of Labor on May 30, 2012, has a Priority Date (PD) of May 30, 2012. His case is currently backlogged to January 1st, 2009. This means that only those EB-2 employees whose PD is on or before January 1st, 2009, are eligible to receive an immigrant visa.
