At a recent meeting with the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA), the Department of State (DOS) indicated that it anticipates significant advancement of the employment-based second preference (EB2) for nationals of India and China between now and February.  Until the December Visa Bulletin is published (usually around the second week of November) it is not known what the actual EB2 cut-off date will be.

While the advancement of the China and India EB2 numbers is welcome news in the immigration community, this expectation of continued progress is surprising. Both the October and November Visa Bulletins issued by DOS indicated that continued EB2 progress might not be sustained or could even retrogress.   On the November Visa Bulletin, the priority date cut off for both EB2 India and China is November 1, 2007.

From a practical perspective, persons in the India and China EB2 categories who may become “current” in December 2011 should ensure that they file their Adjustment of Status (AOS) applications during that month, as it is possible they will not be able to file their AOS applications in January, should priority dates retrogress or become unavailable.  Please note that there is no advantage to filing an AOS application on the first date of the month, so there is no need to rush to file on December 1. 

Clients of Jackson & Hertogs may wish to review our AOS Checklist, which includes a list of documents and information that will be required to prepare and file the AOS application. WARNING: do not obtain a medical examination report in advance of your priority date coming current.   Please note that Jackson & Hertogs runs a monthly priority date report immediately after the Visa Bulletin is published, and will contact clients who become current in December.

For those clients whose applications for adjustment of status have been pending with the USCIS and who are waiting for the priority date to be current, it can take several weeks for the USCIS to pull all “current” pending cases to be worked. The USCIS has asked immigration practitioners not to make immediate inquiries on pending cases that become current and to allow the agency to actually pull and work the files. We monitor all cases and send appropriate inquiries at the end of each calendar month to follow up on “current” cases for which no approval notice or request for evidence was issued.

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