On March 16, 2012, at the AILA Midwest Regional Conference in Chicago, Charlie Oppenheim, Chief, Visa Control and Reporting at DOS, informed participants that he will likely retrogress India and China-mainland born Employment-Based Second Preference priority dates to around August 2007, effective with either the May or June 2012 Visa Bulletin. He also advised that he projects that all EB-1 visas available in FY2012 will be used this year, resulting in no "spilldown" to EB-2". What does this mean? Any individuals born in China or India who are immigrating under the EB-2 employment-based immigration category, and currently eligible to file adjustment of status applications, should do so ASAP. We will not know until the next State Department visa bulletins are issued the extent of the retrogression.

For individuals whose adjustment applications are filed and pending, the USCIS will be unable to approve applications with priority dates falling after the retrogressed dates.  This means that USCIS will simply postpone review of impacted adjustment applications until the priority dates again come current.

The government’s new fiscal year will commence October 1, 2012 and we should see some advancement in numbers in the new year. We will know more as the visa bulletins are issued in the next few months.

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