The Department of State has released the February 2010 Visa Bulletin. The bulletin shows that all countries of chargeability for employment based 1st preference (EB1) remain current. In the employment based 2nd preference (EB2), all countries other than China and India are current. EB2 China has a priority date of May 22, 2005, a change of 21 days from January's visa bulletin. EB2 India has a priority date of January 22, 2005, which indicates no change from last month. In the employment based 3rd category (EB3) cutoff dates are present for all countries. The EB3 date for all countries other than India and Mexico is September 22, 2002 and is a little over a month of forward movement from the January bulletin. EB3 India remains at June 22, 2001 and EB3 Mexico remains at July 1, 2002, both categories showing no movement from January.

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 (http://www.jackson-hertogs.com/JH/30501.pdf) 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 since 1996.

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