Update on India EB-2 Visa Unavailability
January 13th, 2008 by Brian D. Zuccaro
Serotte Reich Wilson, LLP received the following information on the unavailability of EB-2 visa numbers for Indian nationals and other immigrant visa retrogression issues from AILA and its Department of State Liaison.
The Department of State recently announced the India EB-2 visa unavailability in the February 2008 Visa Bulletin. The unavailability of EB-2 visas for Indian nationals has been expected since November 2007. In early November, indications were that the CIS demand for India EB-2 visa numbers would place significant pressure on the overall annual limitation. This initially led to the decision to roll back the priority date for India EB-2 for December 2007 to 01JAN02, and for January 2008 to 01JAN00.
Even with those significant retrogressions, CIS requested almost 300 India EB-2 visas for December 2007. There is some possibility that India EB-2 visas could again become available if it appears that the demand for India EB-1 visas will not exceed the annual limit, but that determination will not be able to be made until the second half of the fiscal year.
For China-mainland born EB-2 visas, if demand remains the same as what has occurred over the last few months, it is expected that the 01 JAN 03 cut-off date will hold, and it is likely that all numbers will be used within the current cut-off date.
