The Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for February 2008 reports that effective February 1, 2008, the EB-2 India category will be "unavailable". DOS advises that retrogression of India EB-2 numbers was necessary because "demand for numbers by CIS Offices for adjustment of status cases has remained extremely high in recent months. As a result the annual limit for the India Employment Second preference category has been reached, and the category has become "unavailable" effective immediately."

For individuals born in India, the EB-2 priority date will move from January 1, 2000 to "unavailable" on February 1, 2008. This means that no EB-2 adjustment of status (I-485) applications will be accepted by USCIS after January 31, 2008, regardless of priority date. This also means that all Indian nationals who presently have an EB-2 adjustment of status application pending at USCIS will see their cases put on hold while they wait for their priority date to become current and available. EB-2 India will not become available again until October 2008. It is too early to tell what the EB-2 priority date will be when it becomes available again.

A retrogression in the EB-2 category immediately impacts only those individuals in the final stages of the permanent resident process (i.e., those seeking to file adjustment of status (AOS) application, those waiting for an AOS application to be adjudicated, or those seeking to apply for an immigrant visa at a U.S. Consulate or Embassy based on an approved immigrant visa petition). Retrogression has no impact on the processing of a labor certification application that is about to be filed or is pending with the Department of Labor. Furthermore, the retrogression does not prohibit the filing of the immigrant visa petition (I-140) based on an approved labor certification application, even if that immigrant visa petition will be filed under a category that is presently unavailable.

The EB-2 category includes individuals who have labor certifications filed on their behalf where the requirements were at least a Master's degree or a Bachelor's degree plus five years of progressive post-baccalaureate experience. National Interest Waiver cases also fall in the EB-2 category.

The other categories in the February Visa Bulletin are largely unchanged from the January 2008 Visa Bulletin. EB-1 is current for all countries, and EB-2 is current for all countries other than India and China. EB-2 China is unchanged at January 1, 2003. In the EB-3 category, for all countries other than China, India, and Mexico, the priority date moved forward 2 weeks to November 1, 2002. EB-3 China moved forward two weeks to November 15, 2001. EB-3 India remains unchanged at May 8, 2001, and EB-3 Mexico is unchanged at April 22, 2001.

It is important to note that "nationality" is not the same as citizenship. Generally, DOS looks at the country of birth in determining whether a person is a national of a given country. As a result, persons who become citizens of other countries (i.e., Indians who become Canadian citizens) are still considered nationals of their birth country for immigrant visa purposes.

For general information on visa retrogression, please see our FAQ on this subject. For more information on the Visa Bulletin and country quota movements, including information about movement in the Family-Based Quotas, please see our DOS Visa Bulletin and Quota Movement page which includes detailed nationality-specific charts of quota movement for the past decade.

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