The Department of State (DOS) Visa Bulletin for June 2009 indicates a significant retrogression in employment-based second preference (EB2) for India-born individuals back to January 1, 2000. The DOS announcement indicates,

"It has been necessary to retrogress the India Employment Second preference cut-off date for June to keep visa issuances within the annual category numerical limit. At this time, it is not possible to estimate whether or not this retrogression will apply throughout the remainder of the fiscal year."

In EB2 China, the date remains the same at February 15, 2005. All countries other than India and China remain current in the EB2 category. Employment-based first preference (EB1) remains current for all countries as well.

The EB3 category will remain "unavailable" until October 2009 when the new fiscal year begins. DOS has indicated that demand from USCIS for adjustment of status cases with priority dates that were significantly earlier than the established cut-off dates resulted in the annual limits being reached.

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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