The Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for May 2008 indicates that there will be movement for all employment-based third preference (EB-3) and "Other Workers" categories as well as slight forward movement for EB-2 China and Eb-2 India in the month of May. EB-1 will remain current for all countries.

The priority date for the Other Workers category moved forward for all nationalities to January 01, 2003. In the EB-3 category, all countries other than India, Mexico and China moved forward nine months to March 01, 2006. EB-3 Mexico also moved forward nine months to July 01, 2002. More limited progress was seen for India and China, with EB-3 India moving forward one month to November 01, 2001, and China moving forward approximately six weeks to March 22, 2003. In the EB-2 category, all nationalities other than China and India remained current while the priority date for both China EB-2 and India EB-2 moved forward slightly to January 01, 2004.

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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