On April 5, 2006, The Department of State released the May 2006 Visa Bulletin.  As seen in the prior month's Bulletin, the EB-1 and EB-2 categories continue to show significant forward movement while the EB-3 category remains stagnant and the EB-3 "other workers" category retrogressed.

For Chinese-born individuals, the EB-1 category moved forward six months to July 1, 2004, while EB-2 moved forward one year to January 1, 2004.   Similarly, for individuals born in India, the EB-1 category moved forward six months to July 1, 2005 and EB-2 moved to January 1, 2003.  EB-1 and EB-2 remain current for all individuals born in countries other than India and China.  While the forward progress in the immigrant visa numbers for the EB-1 and EB-2 categories is encouraging, we would note that DOS cautions applicants not to expect this rate of progress to continue for the rest of the fiscal year.  DOS advises that movement over the past several months has been greater than originally anticipated as a result of low visa number demand by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS).  

In the EB-3 category, there was no movement for Chinese-born and Philippine-born individuals and for the world-wide cut off (individuals born in all countries other than India, China, Mexico, or the Philippines).  There was slight movement forward for India-born individuals of one month to March 1, 2001. 

DOS notes that for the EB-3 "other workers" category that "continued heavy demand for numbers (particularly for adjustment of status cases at USCIS offices) has brought allocations close to the 5,000 annual numerical limit. Therefore, it has been necessary to retrogress the Employment Third preference "Other Worker" cut-off date in an effort to limit future demand. Should the annual limit be reached, it will be necessary to immediately make the category "unavailable" for the remaining months of the fiscal year."

For more information on the Visa Bulletin and country quota movements, including information movement in the Family-Based Quotas, please see our DOS Visa Bulletin and Quota Movement page, which includes detailed charts of quota movement for the past decade.

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