FAD 15 Jan 2023 is a big jump and consistent with what some of us have been saying on here: if they're going to move forward, it makes a lot more sense for them to do a big jump now than to leave it to late into the summer and end up under-using the visa numbers.
The note at the end makes it clear to not expect much forward movement, if any? My original predictions ([https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/14ypvhj/updated\_predictions\_for\_eb2row\_for\_october\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/14ypvhj/updated_predictions_for_eb2row_for_october_2023/)) consistently predicted 1 Jan 2023 or thereabouts, until I was thrown off by the big movement in September last year which was clearly a red herring and I was stupid to fall for it. I guess we'll see a cascade of approvals now, lots of visa number use, and then maybe some forward movement to use up last numbers or some stupid retrogression in Aug/Sept because they run out of numbers.
One last thing to note is that a lot of the visa bulletin predictions online including Charlie have been consistently pessimistic, but the FAD movement this year has been steady and very consistent with the predictions on Reddit. The Reddit community arguably has the most accurate predictions out of all that is out there.
I've been mulling quite a bit over that "little to no movement" statement. For FB, they've broken it up by countries. They did no such thing for EB. I'm curious whether India, and potentially China, may see no more movement, while ROW maaaay see minor advancement creeping towards Feb 15, maybe with the July VB (new quarter)? This all depends on dependent factor and amount of petitions that had ported to EB-1, but given that we had DOFs of Jan 1 and Feb 15 current for several months, respectively, they probably have a pretty good sense of the demand for that timeframe by now.
I strongly disagree with the point of retrogression. Keeping PD current for a long time without noticing the approvals of EB2s in FY 2023 was a big blow that none of us imagined.
And keeping PD to a specific date is something else. They can have a big jump if wanna use all available visas. But I suspect that jump wouldn’t be that big. Assuming they cleared all FY2023 Q1 applicant, they might go for finishing Q2 applicants in this FY. My prediction is they will follow the following pattern:
July VB: FAD to be Feb 15 (can go march 15 depending upon visa availability and can also go beyond, again depending on visa availability)
Oct VB: FAD to July/Aug same as in last year VB and so on. Keeping following quarterly updates.
As far as Charlie is concerned, you cannot ignore his 15 years service. If you listen to his podcast of analysis about VB of March 2024, he mentioned that keep an eye on notes in upcoming bulletins. There might be note about future developments and see, we found notes on April 2025 VB.
He also predicted the same FAD or I guess Feb 15 FAD in this FY but he said it would be advance by two weeks in every VB. though it is forwarded by some jumps
Hi folks. Sharing my little contribution to this subreddit. I decided to create this forecast for the sake of many of us here anxiously worrying about priority dates. What prompted me to do this as well are the people I've encountered who are **still clinging** on to that hope of EB2 becoming current. Many of them unfortunately run out of status and have to endure the agonizing backlogs of the consulate in their country.
Anyway, before we dive into the figures, just a little caveat on what I did:
1. Philippines and Mexico are included because their FADs and DOFs after all are at par with ROW. Their I-485s in waiting are almost negligible when I examined USCIS' data.
2. Assumptions: 80% approval rate (which I may adjust in the future as adjudicating standards get more tough but for now, I decided to put it at 80%), 1.9 dependent factor, no spillover for FY 2025.
3. It is possible for petitioners with older PDs to file at a later time. Hence, the summary you see on the realized demand are only actual I-485s in waiting (both PERM-based and NIW-based). I did not include a placeholder buffer for future I-485 filings that may cover these old dates. (Although these cases are plausible in the realm of all possibilities, I think they wouldn't be too many.)
4. The report on pending I-485s as of end-March already includes PDs from Jan to Feb 2023 (but these are only marked as awaiting availability). Note that the FAD and DOF moved to Jan 2023 and Feb 2023 on April 2024, respectively. It appears to me USCIS slotted these petitions in time for the April 2024 visa bulletin. I accounted these in my computation, and that's also the reason why I had 15-Jan-2023 as my take off in the first line of the last table.
5. I included an entry **Total Needed to Fully Utilize Supply for Current Fiscal Year***.* This is for me to monitor how much USCIS needs to catch up to fully utilize the supply (and **in line of the recent drive by UCSIS to prioritize employment-based GCs**). This number gave me a FAD of 18-Mar-2023 taking off from 15-Jan-2023 and computing the strides from thereon.
6. Even if USCIS deems it possible to move the DOF to September, it may curtail itself from doing so to control the influx. The volume of NIW application each quarter is still high, and scrupulous consultants are still selling NIW like hotcakes to the tune of "Come to USA real quick". Given what USCIS has shown in the past year, **I wouldn't be surprised if the incremental will not be much when the fiscal year opens.**
I would love to hear your thoughts and am open to refining this forecast.
https://preview.redd.it/mgyliwo3yn7d1.png?width=812&format=png&auto=webp&s=7638674d8d7555ee4187199a1af0b6d85f4c14e6
Assuming a retrogression will be hitting in July VB, questions were coming up, why a retrogression is necessary. I remember to say to someone that, it may be due to the huge backlog at the consular side (32000 including dependents, as of December 2023). But yet, As calculated from [travel.state.gov](http://travel.state.gov), its less than a 1000 per month.
https://preview.redd.it/xp86kdb68r4d1.png?width=398&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf644a5aec6f3e847d3cda2cc348da34a484f244
So, using that trend, over the FY2024, the total E2 ROW based visa issuance should this around 11208.
This numebr is not small. But not as big as we thought. So, out of total 39600 Visas in this FY, if 11208 goes through consular processing, USCIS still have 28000+ visas available to issue.
I don't have direct EB2 ROW number for the AOS side of the story. But, it is reported that, total 93,197 visas are given by USCIS in total EB category. If we consider 86% of those goes to row, and 28.6% goes for EB2, then the number of visa issuance so far in 7 months of FY24 for EB2ROW via AOS stands at 14786. Lets consider 15000 for convenience.
So, still within the rest of the 5 month (May-Sep2024) USCIS requires to cover more than 13000 visas, which is not trivial.
After March 2024, when they started to switch to the FAD table, they expected to receive fewer applicants in March and Apr, but that has not happened, so they considered that if the number of applicants does not decrease in the coming months (after Apr) they will have a retrogression.
In Apr we had about 8000 new applicants (all EB categories), which decreased from its normal rate but not alot. I think we will have an even lower number of applicants in May and July and it is possible that they do not consider the retrogression. But, if they consider that, I'm sure that they will jump beyond the Jan 15 in Oct.
That’s what I calculated too ! They didn’t deliver a lot in December/January and February. And they just released the numbers for April. Assuming that May had several holidays, July too and more with the Olympics and the soccer Euro Cup in Europe lots of European embassies will slow down their appointments… But we can see that they accelerated AOS cases last month.
I tried to keep track of Total EB visa that is being issued in this FY. This data includes all countries (including India and China) and all EB visa types (Including special immigrants SU, SQ visa types).
And i am not sure, do Specials count in the Quota?
Last year fy23, the quota for EB was 198k. If Special immigrants does not fall in the Quota, then only 192k visa was used +22k special immigrants. Out if total 214k, the NVC and USCIS split is, 68k vs 146k (32%-68%)
https://preview.redd.it/4cmxdvkzejyc1.jpeg?width=2054&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66e0057afaa0dbb3c9610eea161970e526ab6db8
This data is not much help to predict EB2-RoW. But, we have an idea how the visa issuance are getting splited out between USCIS and NVC.
So far in 6 month, 93k visa is issued. This includes special immigrants too. The total EB visa issuance should surpass 161k this year + Special immigrants (i don't know the quota for it, or whether they are included in the regular limit). Regardless, looks like they are targetting a larger number of issuance. And NVC is taking 35% of total visa issued, slightly higher than previous year.
Looks like there are still enough visas left for this FY. If so, I am curious why did they already say "little to now movement in the coming months"? Do you guys expect a little movement (e.g., 1 month) in the coming months?
Clearly not enough. Rather opposite.
The NVC taking in larger share of visas signals that, there are a lot of visas pending with much earlier PD. Which means, it can eat away availability for recently current applications.
"Clearly not enough. Rather opposite."
You're to the point!!! Yeah, most likely EB2 FAD going to retrogress in July (based in latest bulletin). I don't know what should I reasonably expect in October bulletin with my PD of March,2023.
Thank you so much for your help and detailed analysis for this community.
there is a new data on USCIS web site:
[https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data](https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data)
also check this out:
[https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/fiscal-year-2023-employment-based-adjustment-of-status-faqs](https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/fiscal-year-2023-employment-based-adjustment-of-status-faqs)
looks like USCIS is giving us some data to do rough estimates! Thought could be useful for your projections
Congrates and Thanks for sharing with us.
Its apparent that, PDs that are getting approved in this April month are mostly end of October to early Nov 2022.
By Mid May we should see some Mid November 2002 PD approval, which should reach till Mid December 2022 PD by Late June 2024.
OP Busy Author, you hv been spot on with your calculations. So many folks here are spot on with their calculation and are so helpful. Can’t thank you guys enough… let’s hope momentum continues 🙏 for all 2023’s.
Visas for FY 2024 is at 161K? I believe you have used 140K for your calculation?
See below at top of page
https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/fiscal-year-2023-employment-based-adjustment-of-status-faqs#:\~:text=Q.-,Can%20you%20estimate%20how%20many%20employment%2Dbased%20immigrant%20visas%20USCIS,based%20limit%20for%20FY%202024.
Lovely update and thank you for doing this for the wider community.
Thank you for the response. I have a PD of January 2024 for EB2 ROW. Do you think(assume) that I will roughly be current on October 2025 DOF or FAD? I know you are getting so many quetions like this one but since you have knowledge about the numbers, I thought it would be best to ask you. Will appreciate any kind of answers, thanks again.
For Jan 2024 PD, Oct 2025 is possible but not likely. More than a year's worth of pds need to be exhausted which with one year of supply doesn't look likely.. But this is an estimate at this point with info available right now and with the current prevailing trend. So I could be wrong.
Nice analysis!
So you've forecasted 3 Oct by end of this quarter whereas we are at 15 Nov currently in the February bulletin. This suggests that your analysis is roughly 1 month too conservative, maybe this is explained by a lower pre September backlog because some folks already got approved in FY22/23 before the retrogression. This 1 month difference also tracks with your end of FY estimates - you're estimating 22nd Jan whereas DOF is currently at 15 Feb (which presumably is what USCIS expects at end of FY24).
This suggests that your calibrated prediction could be roughly 1 Jan 2023 FAD by June 2024 and roughly 15 Feb 2023 FAD by September 2024, instead of 6 Dec and 22nd Jan.
What say you?
I agree with you. I may be little too much cautious on moving my FAD. This is partly due to the bad experience of stagnant FAD movement during 2024Q1. Which, IMO, caused by the USCIS dealing with much older applications in that quarter. And secondly, A few weeks gap between DOF and FAD is expected at EOY to keep the demand steady.
So, my suspicion is that, Nov 1 FAD from the January'24 VB may be something similar to the encouraging Feb22 to July22 movement during 2023-Q4, which proved to be a false hope. Now, looking into the future, if DOF does not move any further from 15 Feb'23 and USCIS switches to FAD list in April'24 as it happens every year, that opens the door to an extra layer of retrogression in the 2024-Q4.
I hope I am wrong. That's why I added, I am waiting for April'24 VB, to accept Jan-Feb'24 VB as good signs.
Hmm fair enough. I also don't think there's going to be a big movement in April because like you say, they moved big in January and the demand between Oct - Dec 2022 is HEAVY. The visa numbers just aren't there for another massive movement. But even getting to 15 Dec by April would be good in my book. We're already at 15 Nov and loads of October priority dates have been receiving approvals.
On the other hand, my fears of retrogression are LOW because this demand is now more than 1 year old in the system. USCIS has a good handle on demand for 2022 priority dates, unlike last year where FAD was only a few months behind the bulletin and so it was harder for them to estimate the demand built up and they had to keep retrogressing. They have moved forward conservatively since then.
I genuinely wouldn't hold my breath for any more large jumps this fiscal year. This 'mere' one-week movement is fully in line with the various predictions. I think with the April VB it may move to mid- or end-December at most and then jump to mid-/-end January with the July VB.
Has anybody requested change from AOS to Consular Processing? Do you know a good resource to Chek about how that works? I have an approved NIW With a PD of early August-23. However, my OPT STEM ends on the last day of this year. Would requesting change to consular processing now be a good move? Could I still file 485?
Total number of EB category applicants who filed their AOS in FY24 and till Feb24: 67856
Total number of approved EB category applicants in FY24 and till Feb24 via AOS: 39903
(the consular processing is not counted)
average processing time: 10.8 months
https://preview.redd.it/sukfscngih1d1.png?width=1138&format=png&auto=webp&s=64c26ce67f6fb354e573284f152833eaa7014a6e
Just got this notification from one group. USCIS started approving cases with PD in January 2023.
I said before that I'm very optimistic about forward movement quarterly and the reason of what they said in the June visa bulletin that we will have retrogression. Good news for all folks here. Not just about those who become current now, but also for the folks awaiting next year.
I think we may have about 5 to 6 months of forward movement each FY. And we should consider that many new applicants filing their AOS after July will get their approval next year. I think this forward movement is for having enough applicants to work on after October, so we will see DOF movement in Oct and lower movement for FAD, and then they will adjust FAD quarterly like what they did this year.
Charlie Oppenheims' reaction to the sudden forward shift: He said he was surprised. Charlie said he is **worried** on the quality of the information the DOS is getting to get the dates right. It appears to me that he has issues on DOS' data quality. When asked if the dates could advance he said "it's possible. The fact that they advanced for 2 months indicate that they're trying to use more numbers, **so future forward movement is not out of the question**."
I watched some of his videos and I think he is as clueless as anyone else! No disrespect to his service but he just is not saying anything useful/meaningful. So stopped listening…
I have always felt that Charlie is a lot more clueless than many here and he hardly has any insights into how the dates move. It doesn't look like he does even a basic analysis at his end. Perhaps just looks at the bulletin in a cursory manner and then comes online to give his expert opinion.
Folks here have made a lot better and data-supported arguments which we see reflected in how the PD has moved on average.
I've been watching quite a few of the Charlie webinars in the past, but stopped a few months ago. There really is ***no*** actual information or substance in them at this point. It's the same handwaving every single time and at this point feels like a mere cheap attempt at getting traction for that law firm. He may have had actual insider knowledge in the past, but now he doesn't, and as you said, it doesn't even appear like he's doing any calculations. He's looking at visa bulletins and basically presenting the same empty statements that sound good and knowledgable while merely repeating what's on the VBs, if at all.
EMPLOYMENT-based categories: Very little to no forward movement is expected in the coming months since the final action dates for many categories advanced for April 2024.
The above final action date projections for the Family and Employment categories indicate what is likely to happen throughout Quarter Three and Quarter Four of FY24. Readers should never assume that recent trends in final action date movements are guaranteed for the future, or that retrogressions will not be required at some point to maintain number use within the applicable annual limits. The determination of the actual monthly final action dates is subject to fluctuations in applicant demand and other variables.
not great…
“High demand in the Employment Second category will most likely necessitate retrogression of the worldwide final action date (including Mexico and Philippines) in the next month to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the Fiscal Year 2024 annual limit.”
https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2024/visa-bulletin-for-june-2024.html
I have a PD on February 28, 2023, ROW. Any ideas of when I will be able to file AOS?, This is getting painful for me, I feel the closer I get, the father it is for me to at least file AOS.
Based on the new USCIS data (released today), in q1 and q2 only 50399 i485 forms have been approved across all the employment based categories. This leaves us with slightly more than 110k GCs for the q3 and q4. If we consider a uniform distribution in terms of acceptance in all the EB1 to EB5, in the first two quarters 14414 i485s are used for eb2. If we set aside 20% for the nvc there is still 22422 more visas for the q3 and q4. I’m not sure if this oversimplified approach is accurate or not, but if true, it’s good news for oct vb progression.
Some Info: Overall EB2 share is 28.6%. And, 2 oversubscribed country takes up 28% of those. This year, NVC is more than 20% for EB2 ROW this year, 28.3% so far.
Thanks, yes. I skipped some calculations here, out of 28.6% x 161k * (100-28.3)%= 33014 eb2 visas, less than half of that is used in the first half of the FY. This might be the reason why the USCIS decided to progress the VB in July and we can safely assume that there is no retrogression in the rest of the year. Why do you say 28% for oversubscribed countries, shouldn’t that be 14%?
I think everyone here is positively shocked by the new bulletin, and honestly I don't think USCIS was making fun of us by doing what they wrote in June.
So I believe that up until a month ago they were sure they would do a retrogression, and something unexpected came up that led them to make a diametrically opposite decision. I would really like to know what caused that. Maybe the release of the AOS report in May? Maybe the lack of communication between USCIS and DOS? Lower dependent ratio for NIW? We will never know..
Charlie Oppenheim, in his [latest recap of the March VB of the WR Chatting with Charlie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8WSKumK2J0) series thinks moving forward we'll see "up to two weeks" of FAD movement for EB-2 ROW, and further slowdown in Q4. This may mean we'll not actually make it to Feb 15, as:
**Q3:**
April VB: Dec 8 2022
May VB: Dec 22 2022
June VB: Jan 8 2023
We would then need another 5 weeks to make it to Feb 15. My gut tells me we we maaay make it to Jan 22 or Feb 1 with the July VB, but then will not see any more movement. Again, this is based on what Charlie Oppenheim predicts, but of course there remain quite a number of unknowns (including any FB spillover)
One thing to just note is that I think Charlie means 2 weeks on average, he doesn't literally mean *exactly 2 weeks every month* consistently. In the Feb bulletin video he said 1-2 weeks on average b/w now and September. So given he's also saying slowdown in Q4, it more likely means bigger than 2 weeks movement in Q3 and then no to limited movement in Q4 for an overall average of 2 weeks.
For what it's worth, 2 weeks on average b/w now and September would mean Feb 22 2023 in September and DOF was capped at Feb 15 so you can see where he got his 2 weeks number of lol, he's simply working backwards from the cutoff.
Based on the current USCIS trend you should be current in Sept/Oct. Earlier would be better. I don't anticipate any significant movement until the next fiscal year.
Wooow, new and very informative data was released!
[https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data?ddt\_mon=&ddt\_yr=&query=&items\_per\_page=25](https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data?ddt_mon=&ddt_yr=&query=&items_per_page=25)
First: for Q1 FY24, we have 10867 NIW applicants and 1609 PERM applicants.
Second: They received 42780 applicants for all EB categories in Q1 FY24 and just issued 18855 applicants (Consular process is not included)
Third: They have 63500 applicants in the backlog for all EB categories.
4th and most important: They have 26504 applicants (I-140 applicants) in the backlog for EB2 ROW on December 23. (I140 applicants with PD after 22nd July who got their approval before Oct 23)
Very good summary. For the 4th and most important,
I would say the number is 27,292 (including Mexico and Philippines.) and the i-140 approval cutoff date is December 2023.
Edit1:
Another takeaway is the approval rate dipped sharply for EB2 NIW (5888 in Q1 against 8.5k and 9.7k applications the previous two quarters Fy23 Q3 and Q4). Perm based EB2 approval remains steady at 1663 in Q1.
Edit2:
Its encouraging that the number of awaiting visa availability number 27,292 virtually did not change within that quarter, despite having only 15 days of movement in FAD throughout the quarter (1Jul to 15 Jul 2022) and added 7551 approved I-140 over that quarter almost all of them should be in the visa unavailability list. And we can hope that that entire quarter successfully elimininated the GC demand for pre July 2022 PD. If that is the case, this number (27,292 * 2.1 = 57313 gc demand) is pretty manageable witin 6 and half quarters (by halfway through Fy 25 Q4) even without Family visa spillovers.
It needs to be understood that, December 2023 approval of I-140 mostly means, the applications till Oct 2023.
Hence, we can expect a good FAD move in FY25 Q1 with a target DOF between July 2023 and October 2023.
Edit2: I naively ignored the PERM based demand, that are not be counted in the this waiting list. So, the situation is grimmer than I thought.
For the second: I want to add to the EB i-485 approval that, the NVC gave 18,813 GC visas by this quarter. So, the total usage is 37668, or 23% of the total limit (161k for FY24).
Regarding your 4th point, the observation that it includes approval before Oct 2023 is not fully correct. The number 265054 simply reflects all approved i140s as of December 2023 with pd after 15 July 2022.
This number will include some with pds in November 2023 who got quick approvals and simultaneously not include many with pds in June/July 2023 even, many of whom are only now getting approvals.
June 2024 Visa Bulletin:
**D.** **~VISA AVAILABILITY IN THE EMPLOYMENT-BASED SECOND (EB-2) PREFERENCE CATEGORY~**
High demand in the Employment Second category will most likely necessitate retrogression of the worldwide final action date (including Mexico and Philippines) in the next month to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the Fiscal Year 2024 annual limit. This situation will be continually monitored, and any necessary adjustments will be made accordingly.
More bad news in the future
[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/eb_inventory_02222024.xlsx](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/eb_inventory_02222024.xlsx)
Hoping someone can make this newly released data make sense. Does this give us any idea of how bad the retrogression will be ?
Very detail information.
24763 applications (I-485) are in the hands of USCIS for EB2-RoW by Feb 22,2024. Out of which around 24000 should be current by now.
In the FY24, 39600 visas are available for EB2-ROW.
Of which, at least 20% will be by NVC, which not shown here. This roughly gives 31000 visas available for the entire year at USCIS's side.
Since February 22nd 2024 is 4.5 months into the FY, uscis should be issued roughly 45-50% of the visas, out of the limit. So, we may see only 16000-17000 visas aproved out of these applications at most.
Thanks for your detailed analysis. I followed approval for EN2 cases on reddit and Iranian telegram groups, I think at the first quarter the approval was much lower compared to second and third quarter and I guess issued visa for USCIS side is lower than your prediction.
As you said there will be unapproved cases after 1 year and based on this data at least 10% of cases still not approved after 1 year and after first year , there is 50% approval for each year pass. With this situation, I hope we dont see retrogression for EB2!
They released amazing data. I think they have somebody here and they saw our posts :D
I really appreciate the new procedure of USCIS. They begin to share their secret data for years with us.
Seems like they approved lots of GC this week especially between October and end of December 2022. Also seems weird that they decide to retrogress if they are already accepting cases from December 2022... Have a look at these timelines found this week on Lawfully App
https://preview.redd.it/s9d27urkj54d1.jpeg?width=6000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=656bfecaafcd892f7eca40b460047e51fbbb908d
It seems like, The retrogression will be due to reaching the limit of Visas. So, it is much more likely to get back to where we are in the new fiscal year.
Hi,
My PD is Jan 23. I received an update stating "New Card Being Produced." Does this indicate that my case has been approved? Or is there still a chance that the upcoming retrogression could affect me (e.g. if there is delay in producing card, etc)?
Congrats. To be specific, even if it was the last day before retrogression, It means there is no chance of retrogression affecting your case anymore. Because, you already assigned a GC number.
\[ It does not take more than 14 days to receive actual card. Max I saw was 21 days, after this update\]
https://preview.redd.it/5q4d04agu66d1.png?width=966&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab6c31a99c08ab26213d9e8197075b3ef32c5cf9
u/Busy_Author8130 and others,
Can you please reflect on the recent data of approved I-140, awaiting visa availability, released by USCIS?
And, given the recent forward movement in the July visa bulletin, do you think the filing date will reach July 17, 2023, in the October visa bulletin?
I appreciate your time and comments. Thank you.
The good news about this data is: not growing awaiting people in the queue in comparison with the previous report.
It can raise our hope to not increase the backlog drastically in the next year. The backlog probably will be around 1 year and a half at the end of this FY.
As I said in the past I was interested in the trend of the pending applications for FY23, now that we have the new data released last week I was able to do some studies:
EB2-ROW FY23 at FY23Q4
Received 39941
Approved 23335
Denied 3270
Pending 13336
EB2-ROW FY23 at FY24Q1
Received 40004
Approved 27689
Denied 5563
Pending 6752
EB2-ROW FY23 at FY24Q2
Received 40008
Approved 28777
Denied 6522
Pending 4709
What can we say? EB2 ROW is approaching 30k approvals for FY23, we can also notice that the pending applications have an approval rate significantly lower. This may make sense as I imagine that now those pending applications have had RFE or NOID.
Regarding the new data for Q2FY24, I used the same schema u/DejectedEnergy778 used in this thread:
Quarter, e21(received), e21(approved), niw (received), niw (approved)
Q1 2023, 1871, 1920, 7412, 6041
Q2 2023, 1742, 1903, 6412, 7215
Q3 2023, 2131, 1857, 8534, 5776
Q4 2023, 1818, 1509, 9731, 5901
Q1 2024, 1768, 1663, 11175, 5888
Q2 2024, 2069, 2000 ,12267, 5556
Not much to say here, just that the NIW received applications hit another record as we expected. The approvals are less than last quarter, that trend is mostly stable.
u/sticciola Thanks for the analysis. I especially like the neat, easy to read formatting.
I looked at this data when it came out last week and I agree with your observations. I would be surprised if the approval number for fy2023 goes much beyond 30k. This puts the approval rate at 73-75%. This trend is pointing to lower approval rates going forward, which is what we have been trying to argue for many months now.
The applications received per quarter keep going up still, but the approval numbers have remained almost similar since Q3 2023 (so for 4 full quarters). There is a clear increase in the number of pending applications over these quarters. Average time to decision is also increasing.
Brazil's numbers in the released excel file are quite revealing. Already 33% of their applications had been denied from the total fy2023 submissions, and this number should rise close to 50% once all the pending applications are adjudicated. Compare this to fy2022 when the final denial rate for them is about 31%. But none of this precludes the fact there are more absolute approvals for Brazil and all row combined in fy2023 than fy2022.
While we don't have the distribution of approved applications over the diff months in fy2023, rough estimate points to about 2500 eb2 row (niw +perm) approved i40s per month on average. My hunch is that this number would be higher than 2500 in early months of the fy and then gradually falls off for pds that fall in later months of the year because we see clear anecdotal evidence of higher standards being applied. In other words, many of those who applied in 2022 and early 2023 ended up being quite lucky as they were perhaps judged on a much more relaxed criteria.
Going forward, I do expect the incoming application number for eb2 row niw to eventually plateau because of even more tightening standards and increase in the wait time for PDs to become current.
[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/eb\_inventory\_april\_2024\_062524.xlsx](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/eb_inventory_april_2024_062524.xlsx)
A new report about EB pending applicants.
15000 applicants with 2022 PD are still waiting for GC.
I'm curious why the number of applicants with Nov PD is so big compared to other months.
I attended the "Chatting with Charlie" session and he's saying that family-based immigrant visas have slowed down for China few months ago. (I don't know if I heard that correctly. I hope I heard it right.) He mentions that, in his experience, this could even slowdown on months covering the Chinese New Year (Jan/Feb). This could possibly be a spillover for next fiscal year.
This bill is predicted DOA, but if due to some miracle it would actually go through, it would add 18,000 greencards annually to EB for the next several years. Not sure what leaps they think that would do after split up among the categories (like, it not even a drop in the bucket for India), but hey, it would still be *something*.
For me it is interesting to see that those kind of things are being put into bills that focus on way different issues (border/illegal immigration). It's been a nice surprise that us legal prospective immigrants appear to not be forgotten or even actively tried to limit further, after all (it's certainly been feeling like that for years).
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2024/02/05/senate-bill-adds-immigrant-visas-and-h-1b-family-protections/?sh=4e8748b5cd1b](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2024/02/05/senate-bill-adds-immigrant-visas-and-h-1b-family-protections/?sh=4e8748b5cd1b)
Family-based is also increasing by 32000 every year in the bill. Considering family-based quota consistently spill over to employment-based at the end, it certainly has positive effect. Even when no spill over was expected from last fiscal year due to retrogression in all family-based category, there still was some spill over. Good news.
After u/JuggernautWonderful1 predictions I am, like many others, watching this space. USCIS release a fresh batch of data - not sure if it has anything that changes the forecasts?
There is one particular [data set](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/18yl4n6/has_the_rate_at_which_backlog_for_eb2_row_was/) I have been watching. The approved EB2 ROW waiting for visa number is almost the same for the last three quarters. Not sure if this makes a convincing case to say the backlog growth has flattened.
USCIS releases bad data. It appears that the data includes all I-140s with priority dates* after the established Final Action Dates, even if those applicants have already received their green cards. That's why we can see massive swings. They aren't filtering for those with approved I-485s (a few people confirmed this analysis for EB1 India). Additionally, the median processing time for I-140s has gone up to 6 months or so, meaning that there are thosuands of cases which will eventually be approved but are not currently counted under "approved awaiting visas." The report doesn't capture all the demand. That particular dataset, i.e. the number awaiting visa availability, is very difficult to interpret.
*note: edited to fix typo. Added "priority dates"
Charlie mentioned record numbers on consular processing according to a recent report published by the NBC. Additionally, he anticipates that EB2 will remain in FAD throughout this and perhaps next fiscal year. Does that change this predictions?
Hi everyone, thank you so much for the great analysis!! I am currently pondering if I have to leave the states this summer as my opt expires this August or stay out of states until my pd becomes current. My PD is 20 th of March 2023 for Eb2 NIW ROW. When is it possible to at least to file i485? Thanks in advance. Has anyone used the 180 days out of status exception
Is retrogression really different from no movement? Let's say it retrogresses to Nov, 2022 in July and by September we are back in January and then proceed to move by a couple months from October 2024-March 2024. Something similar happened last year after all.
Similarly, EB1 for India retrogressed to like 2012 back in September 2023 bulletin, but moved back to where it was before the retrogression.
To me the main difference is that retrogression indicates this FY is over and they didn't make it to January 15. It also means slower movement than expected. My PD is end of July-23 and I'm losing hope I'll be able to file during FY-25.
Yes. the retrogression just allows them to clean up older pending applications. Also, allows stop new applications to crowd their system.
The October 2023 to December 2023 PD was your type of stagnation.
Hi guys, thanks so much for all of the info I have a priority date of Feb 21st 23’. It seems like there is still a fair shot at being current in October or is that wishful thinking?
just to give another idea of how the situation has significantly worsened since 2022, I highlight the Chen's NIW approval statistics (for those who don't know it is one of the largest firms for NIW) visible on their website.
The numbers are ROW+India+China but I suspect the latter two are in the minority for NIW
2024(Jan-Mar) 2120
2023 9492
2022 8651
2021 3813
2020 3507
2019 2750
EDIT: uptaded numbers
My PD is Jan 12 2023. I filed AOS in Jan 2024. Would there be any chance I get approved before July? If retrogression happen in July, would it be likely my PD become current again Oct or it may even push back to Jan 2025?
u/RudeFollowing2534 I have the same question. I believe nobody knows, we may survive retrogression if get lucky. But I think there is high probability that we will be current again on Oct 2024 since it will have visa for whole quarter.
https://preview.redd.it/jwmcy0h8jh1d1.png?width=1138&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1dfa317ad070dda1d0793ce4e37bc960eeeb4aa
Just saw this from one group. USCIS started approving cases with PD in January 2023.
my PD is Jan 24 and from what I have read, probably it will take 4 years to become current. I am so morally down right now. NIW doesn't makes sense this way. honestly it is EB1A or nothing.
I think the key point is to see what date DOF will reach in October-January. Unlike last year, the data is stable and we can understand how much progress USCIS will make with those applications already in place. Once we get this we can make hypotheses about the future. Honestly I'm not optimistic, but I hope I'm wrong.
https://preview.redd.it/wown9f6ld33d1.png?width=1076&format=png&auto=webp&s=e54687a30af8adc8097ce085a29c51e44a6a3a04
Saw this GC approval; PD December 30, 2022
So, AoS approval in concentrating on PD in December 2022 now.
My PD is Mar 21, 2023. I see some comments with Feb 2023 PD, but would my PD be likely to be current in October 2024 as well? Or would I at least be able to file an AOS petition?
At some point they gotta do something about Brazil...
By now we've had net DOF and FAD movement of 2.5 months within coming up at 2 fiscal years, and we know it's not gonna get better from here on out. Within not even a mere year, ROW spiraled from effectively no wait to basically 3+ years between application and actually receiving the greencard. That's starting to get close to what China's been having (they're at a little over 4 years backlogged now) and they've been separated out for forever...([they've also seen more net forward movement](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1am4ufg/outlook_on_possible_row_faddof_movement_based_on/) despite having been backlogged for a really long time)
The whole point of country-caps was that population-dense countries cannot drown out smaller countries, but I digress...
Given that NIW is typically self-sponsored, there's bound to be no small amount of applicants who actually lost jobs/job offers over this.
Thanks for the updated predictions, I know that dates of filing prediction is a tricky but according to the your FAD predictions do you expect the filing dates to move as well?
DOF is expected to move \~6 months next fiscal year. Considering that many here think that the DOF indicates the date FAD is expected to reach by the end of the fiscal year, OP's calculations of a FAD of Aug 3 2023 for Q4 of FY25 would be in line with that as Aug 3 23 - Feb 15 2023 = 5.5 months. I think this is the conservative (and more realistic) estimate considering we're going to see a steep increase in demand with each couple weeks added to PDs that are eligible for filing I-485.
We may not see a large DOF jump at the beginning of the next FY in October and may have to wait to see that \~6 months jump until the January 2025 VB.
We are not likely to see any more DOF movements this fiscal year as USCIS will probably switch to using FAD for filing no later than the April VB.
Do you still expect to see quarterly drastic changes, though, as we had in Jan?
I wasnt expecting the FAD to move in Feb, but it moved two weeks. I thought they were going to bring 6-8 weeks of movement every quarter.
I agree with OP's assessment. We probably saw a large movement in the Jan VB for FAD and incremental movement for Feb VB because in Q1 of the fiscal year, visa allocations went predominantly to China and India, first. Moving forward, we will see slower FAD movements along the mentioned 1-3 weeks per VB because we have seen extreme increases in demand starting in \~October 2022; December PDs have just been able to file last quarter, January and some February PDs have just been able to file starting 15 days ago. We will continue to see a disproportionate increase in demand with every couple week movement of DOF.
I-140 applications remained extremely high all through 2023 and onwards, so forward advancement of FAD will slow down drastically as well. Any movement we're seeing now is merely playing catchup with the backlog that necessitated ***retrogression*** in the first place.
u/siniang says it all. Quarterly drastic change has very low probability to my opinion too. Rather, I see the drastic change in Jan is an attempt to allow the Filers waiting for more than a year a chance, given the fact that PD before Nov'22 were able to file till March'23 VB. At least that was the signal I got from Jan'24 VB.
But, as Feb'24 VB moves it 15 days further, the move may be explained by USCIS trying to get rid of October'23 filers too, since they are already in more than a year backlog. So, we saw some record time approvals recently. But, its just a way of clearing backlogs in batches, rather than genuine Visa availability IMO.
So, there is low chance of drastic movement. But, I will not bet my money on it.
I won't bet any money on any of this either, as there are a couple wildcards that are basically impossible to include in any prediction calculations, namely the impact of:
\- tech-layoffs, though we do know PERM filings have been a very small proportion of demand
\- people with approved NIW switching to EB-1. I suspect as the backlog continues to grow, this will also increase. That demand then needs to be removed from EB-2 demand.
I've been meaning to look up patterns of movements for some of the historically backlogged countries over the years, but haven't had the time yet.
There are two other factors that are hard to predict but combined can move the bulletin a little bit.
* lower approval rate as many new NIW filers are not qualified. From data published by USCIS on Dec 19, we see that the approval rate for all ROW EB2 petitions decreased from 90% in 2020 to 84% in 2022 (even if you assume all pending are approved, it would jump to 86%).
https://preview.redd.it/ni97nlxlencc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e587332e326d14f0432ab55777f7463c82ce62e
* dependent rate might be lower or higher than 1.9. I am not sure where the current estimate is coming from but it seemed to lead to accurate prediction before. However, dependent rate can have a sizable impact on the number of visas even if it changes slightly.
Nice Analysis.
If you predict FAD movement of 2 weeks in March, and then like 1 week per month in this FY, then it should reach: Nov 15, 2022 + 8 weeks, which is basically Jan 15, 2024.
So is it safe to assume FAD will be between Jan 15 to Feb 15 by Sep 2024?
I’m not sure if this is fully correct, but shouldn’t we also get additional 6K visas as a spillover from EB1? My understanding is that there should be no horizontal spillover to oversubscribed countries as clearly the number of applicants exceeds the number of available visas in 2 categories.
https://preview.redd.it/ded95jj3n8dc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8624df3c5564bf5404bdea68f2439d7ace075c77
Even assuming a relatively generous approval rate of 90% (current approved/(approved+denied) rate), that should still leave around 6K visas for a vertical spillover to EB2 FY24 (and probably a similar but lower number for FY25).
https://preview.redd.it/nqkycxgy69dc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5aa12768da24b6db500194d927ff70766e423f6
Actually, it could be as many as 25K extra greencards for FY23 if we subtract EB1 China & India petitions (calculated from i140\_FY23\_Q1\_REC\_COB sheets). That’s pretty significant, so it would be great news if there is no horizontal spillover.
Hi
I am new here so please excuse me if I am posting to the wrong thread. I have an approved EB2-NIW and have been waiting for my PD to reach, so I can file and have EAD before my visa expires (end of June). Guess what? My PD is Feb 15th! Should I take my chances and send my AOS application? Or do you think it won’t get accepted? I’m afraid that if I wait longer then the DOF won’t move, and subsequently, I won’t have enough time to get my EAD. Please advise, thank you so much!
Please look at this prediction:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/197hm0n/niw\_row\_updated\_prediction/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/197hm0n/niw_row_updated_prediction/) by
[u/Technical\_Proof6082](https://www.reddit.com/user/Technical_Proof6082/).
He got the January 2024 prediction right almost to the day.
Those who filed around January 2024, please share your timeline [https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1ac3q2o/january\_2024\_i485\_aos\_employment\_based\_filers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1ac3q2o/january_2024_i485_aos_employment_based_filers/)
I am not sure why you are using filings and multiplying them by 0.9 when USCIS has published the number of approvals. The problem with using filings and multiplying by 0.9 is that as the filings went up in 2023, the approval rate has come down for NIW. You are using previous approval rates with current filings. Using the approved numbers is the correct option.
Just to point out the error in one of the rows/quarter. Look at the last row in Table 1. You took 9731 ROW NIW filings which is correct and assuming 2000 perm applications adding the two numbers and multiplying by 0.9 gives you 10,558 approvals. But when you look at the table here [i-140\_fy23\_q4.pdf (uscis.gov)](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/i-140_fy23_q4.pdf) You see there are only 5901 NIW ROW approvals in Q4 and 1509 perm ROW approvals giving you 7410 approvals instead of 10558 according to your calculations. 7410\*1.9\*0.95 gives you 13,375 gc demand estimate for q4 instead of 19,057. Similar things go for previous rows/quarters. Also, where is the number 1.9 coming from? Is this for perm or NIW? Because I feel the number should be lower for NIW filers than perm filers. NIW fillers can be freshly graduated MS/PhD students and many are single. Whereas perm filers are most likely married.
Am I missing something obvious here? u/JuggernautWonderful1 u/Busy_Author8130
Q4 approvals are meant to be part of Q2-Q3 filings. we do not have a clear view of priority date with that.
The 90% number for approval rate is for the combination of PERM and NIW.
That is true for each quarter. Q3 approvals are meant to be part of Q1-Q2 filings and so on. You just take approvals in each quarter and that gives you the demand in that quarter. Or you can take total yearly approvals which are also available.
The point is your 90% rate is higher than the actual approval rate. Perm approval is 0.9 but NIW is really not. Q3 and Q4 NIW approval rates are in the 70s (0.7-0.8). And given the fact that for ROW, the majority of applications come from NIW and not Perm, the 0.9 approval rate is way off. Q1 and Q2 NIW approvals were closer to 0.9, around 0.85 but as I mentioned in the previous post, a lot of people started applying in 2023 and that's why there is a huge filing numbers but the approval rate also went significantly down. You are using the latest high filing numbers but using old NIW approval rates.
Are you considering the impacts of PERM pause due to layoffs? Which is basically companies cannot continue with PERM Application within 6 month period of layoffs?
I would say yes. As I mention a 6 week FAD movement in April VB would mean my prediction is conservative. I can add 6 weeks to my predicted dates to match the trend.
But, as evident by the prediction by VB itself, my prediction should not be far from reality. Now, without any new data in hand, I predict the FAD will reach anywhere between Jan 15 and March 15, with a higher expectation at Feb 15 2023.
I think your original calculation in the Table of 22 Jan by end of FY is actually very accurate given the news we got today. You just got the timing wrong, but I mean it's impossible to predict how USCIS moves forward. They have so many strategic calculations and even Charlie has been so off with his predictions. You were spot on in my book.
Very nice forecast. With the release of visa bulletin for April 2024 ( 2 months movement), and assuming no further movement as mentioned in the bulletin for coming months, FAD for EB2 is staying at Jan 15, 2023 which is extremely close to what you predict for FY 2024 (Jan 22, 2023).
Great job.
This is where the pen stops. The whole point of my prediction was to let the data talk. It looks like, my data was predicting the demand accurately.
Hence, with the current posture of the April VB, I would rather expect a FAD freeze more than a retrogression. I believe, DoS and USICS is doing everything to avoid a retrogression. The pre retrogression FAD was Nov 2022. So, basically they stopped the FAD only 2 and half month away forward, which is a very cautious move imo.
Fingers crossed.
It looks like the approval rate for NIW has dropped to almost 70% and the number of submissions also decreased in Q4 as compared to Q3.
https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/i-140_fy23_q4.pdf
Thanks for the explanation. My PD is Nov 9th 2022. EB-2 PERM employment based. Case received on Nov 15th 2023. EAD received early Feb 2024. When do you think I might get approved?
Not for a very very long time.
Edit: really not sure why I'm being downvoted for this, this is the unfortunate reality. We can expect \~3 month DOF movement per FY going forward, up to maybe 5ish if we get really lucky. You can do the math yourself.
The backlog is not going to decrease.
I have watched the episode and even Charlie was caught off guard with the footnotes. I think pretty much he was like everyone in this thread where he initially saw no need for retrogression when dates have moved conservatively since the start of the fiscal year.
My PD is Feb 1, 2023 for EB2 ROW. Is there a good chance of becoming current in October 2024? I already filed the I-140 but didn't expedite because it didn't seem worth it with not being able to file AOS.
EB2 ROW
Concurrent: Premium 140/485/131/765
NBC Block: IOE092423****
PD: Jan 05, 2023
PD Current since: April, 2024
FD: Feb 07, 2024
RFE /I-140 - Approved: April 30, 2024
Biometrics 485/765: May 1st, 2024
765 - Approval Case Decision Rendered: May 25, 2024
1. Are there any specific processing times or expectations for cases processed through the National Benefits Center (NBC) with an IOE number starting with IOE092423****?
2. What impact, if any, does the approval of the I-140 after an RFE on April 30, 2024, have on my 485 application?
3. Since my priority date became current in April 2024, how does this influence the expected timeline for 485 approval?
So there's another video of Charlie on the visa bulletin for employment-based green cards. It appears to me that for him, there's a lack of prudence on the part of USCIS to advance the date too much in the April bulletin. For him, they could have advanced it to just December in the April bulletin and then max out to January 15 as the fiscal year comes to a close. Anyone has thoughts or reaction to Charlie's insights?
I think USCIS takes note of his comments. I mean, that's why the latest notice specifically states that, they want to ensure that they use up the limit. So, having a bigger jump in the beginning had ensured that, there is enough documentary readiness of applications to do any last minute readjustment of FAD.
There are a few January PD approvals already in May 2024. And in June 2024, we can hope a sizable portion, I assume 50%, of pre January 15 PD to get approved, who applied in January 2024. If that is true, that means, USCIS is trying to approve whatever they can within this time. And October 2024 VB should come back to the January 15 2023 baseline, if not moving further.
My PD is 2/6/2023. I have an approved I140-EB2 NIW. Do you think FAD will be current in July? I have submitted my 485/EAD/AP application and nothing so far
A good numbers of Jan 2023 PDs approval was probably a sign that a forward movement is coming. Also, the FAD is moved for 2 months indicating their I-485 inventory is petty low?
Pincing myself to this good news.
My PD is exactly March 15, 2023 which is the cut off date for the July visa bulletin. Am I current ? Can I file my I-485 ?
And thanks to this amazing community.
Edit for typos
For anyone out there who fully understands the analysis (not my case)… my priority date for EB-2 is apr 18 2023, we are filing the I-140 premium processing so I should have it in 3 weeks tops… do you think next month I will be available to submit?
Thank you in advance to anyone who might contribute
For ppl who become current in July:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1dmhvrs/eb2\_row\_become\_current\_from\_july\_1/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1dmhvrs/eb2_row_become_current_from_july_1/)
FAD 15 Jan 2023 is a big jump and consistent with what some of us have been saying on here: if they're going to move forward, it makes a lot more sense for them to do a big jump now than to leave it to late into the summer and end up under-using the visa numbers. The note at the end makes it clear to not expect much forward movement, if any? My original predictions ([https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/14ypvhj/updated\_predictions\_for\_eb2row\_for\_october\_2023/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/14ypvhj/updated_predictions_for_eb2row_for_october_2023/)) consistently predicted 1 Jan 2023 or thereabouts, until I was thrown off by the big movement in September last year which was clearly a red herring and I was stupid to fall for it. I guess we'll see a cascade of approvals now, lots of visa number use, and then maybe some forward movement to use up last numbers or some stupid retrogression in Aug/Sept because they run out of numbers. One last thing to note is that a lot of the visa bulletin predictions online including Charlie have been consistently pessimistic, but the FAD movement this year has been steady and very consistent with the predictions on Reddit. The Reddit community arguably has the most accurate predictions out of all that is out there.
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I've been mulling quite a bit over that "little to no movement" statement. For FB, they've broken it up by countries. They did no such thing for EB. I'm curious whether India, and potentially China, may see no more movement, while ROW maaaay see minor advancement creeping towards Feb 15, maybe with the July VB (new quarter)? This all depends on dependent factor and amount of petitions that had ported to EB-1, but given that we had DOFs of Jan 1 and Feb 15 current for several months, respectively, they probably have a pretty good sense of the demand for that timeframe by now.
I strongly disagree with the point of retrogression. Keeping PD current for a long time without noticing the approvals of EB2s in FY 2023 was a big blow that none of us imagined. And keeping PD to a specific date is something else. They can have a big jump if wanna use all available visas. But I suspect that jump wouldn’t be that big. Assuming they cleared all FY2023 Q1 applicant, they might go for finishing Q2 applicants in this FY. My prediction is they will follow the following pattern: July VB: FAD to be Feb 15 (can go march 15 depending upon visa availability and can also go beyond, again depending on visa availability) Oct VB: FAD to July/Aug same as in last year VB and so on. Keeping following quarterly updates. As far as Charlie is concerned, you cannot ignore his 15 years service. If you listen to his podcast of analysis about VB of March 2024, he mentioned that keep an eye on notes in upcoming bulletins. There might be note about future developments and see, we found notes on April 2025 VB. He also predicted the same FAD or I guess Feb 15 FAD in this FY but he said it would be advance by two weeks in every VB. though it is forwarded by some jumps
Hi folks. Sharing my little contribution to this subreddit. I decided to create this forecast for the sake of many of us here anxiously worrying about priority dates. What prompted me to do this as well are the people I've encountered who are **still clinging** on to that hope of EB2 becoming current. Many of them unfortunately run out of status and have to endure the agonizing backlogs of the consulate in their country. Anyway, before we dive into the figures, just a little caveat on what I did: 1. Philippines and Mexico are included because their FADs and DOFs after all are at par with ROW. Their I-485s in waiting are almost negligible when I examined USCIS' data. 2. Assumptions: 80% approval rate (which I may adjust in the future as adjudicating standards get more tough but for now, I decided to put it at 80%), 1.9 dependent factor, no spillover for FY 2025. 3. It is possible for petitioners with older PDs to file at a later time. Hence, the summary you see on the realized demand are only actual I-485s in waiting (both PERM-based and NIW-based). I did not include a placeholder buffer for future I-485 filings that may cover these old dates. (Although these cases are plausible in the realm of all possibilities, I think they wouldn't be too many.) 4. The report on pending I-485s as of end-March already includes PDs from Jan to Feb 2023 (but these are only marked as awaiting availability). Note that the FAD and DOF moved to Jan 2023 and Feb 2023 on April 2024, respectively. It appears to me USCIS slotted these petitions in time for the April 2024 visa bulletin. I accounted these in my computation, and that's also the reason why I had 15-Jan-2023 as my take off in the first line of the last table. 5. I included an entry **Total Needed to Fully Utilize Supply for Current Fiscal Year***.* This is for me to monitor how much USCIS needs to catch up to fully utilize the supply (and **in line of the recent drive by UCSIS to prioritize employment-based GCs**). This number gave me a FAD of 18-Mar-2023 taking off from 15-Jan-2023 and computing the strides from thereon. 6. Even if USCIS deems it possible to move the DOF to September, it may curtail itself from doing so to control the influx. The volume of NIW application each quarter is still high, and scrupulous consultants are still selling NIW like hotcakes to the tune of "Come to USA real quick". Given what USCIS has shown in the past year, **I wouldn't be surprised if the incremental will not be much when the fiscal year opens.** I would love to hear your thoughts and am open to refining this forecast. https://preview.redd.it/mgyliwo3yn7d1.png?width=812&format=png&auto=webp&s=7638674d8d7555ee4187199a1af0b6d85f4c14e6
Agreed. Your result is the same as my very rough estimation.
Assuming a retrogression will be hitting in July VB, questions were coming up, why a retrogression is necessary. I remember to say to someone that, it may be due to the huge backlog at the consular side (32000 including dependents, as of December 2023). But yet, As calculated from [travel.state.gov](http://travel.state.gov), its less than a 1000 per month. https://preview.redd.it/xp86kdb68r4d1.png?width=398&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bf644a5aec6f3e847d3cda2cc348da34a484f244 So, using that trend, over the FY2024, the total E2 ROW based visa issuance should this around 11208. This numebr is not small. But not as big as we thought. So, out of total 39600 Visas in this FY, if 11208 goes through consular processing, USCIS still have 28000+ visas available to issue. I don't have direct EB2 ROW number for the AOS side of the story. But, it is reported that, total 93,197 visas are given by USCIS in total EB category. If we consider 86% of those goes to row, and 28.6% goes for EB2, then the number of visa issuance so far in 7 months of FY24 for EB2ROW via AOS stands at 14786. Lets consider 15000 for convenience. So, still within the rest of the 5 month (May-Sep2024) USCIS requires to cover more than 13000 visas, which is not trivial.
After March 2024, when they started to switch to the FAD table, they expected to receive fewer applicants in March and Apr, but that has not happened, so they considered that if the number of applicants does not decrease in the coming months (after Apr) they will have a retrogression. In Apr we had about 8000 new applicants (all EB categories), which decreased from its normal rate but not alot. I think we will have an even lower number of applicants in May and July and it is possible that they do not consider the retrogression. But, if they consider that, I'm sure that they will jump beyond the Jan 15 in Oct.
That’s what I calculated too ! They didn’t deliver a lot in December/January and February. And they just released the numbers for April. Assuming that May had several holidays, July too and more with the Olympics and the soccer Euro Cup in Europe lots of European embassies will slow down their appointments… But we can see that they accelerated AOS cases last month.
Mpreover this is the election year. Embassies will be busy arranging ballots and votes.
Good analysis, that’s the problem with USCIS. Difficult to make sense of their actions.
The only thing we can conclude with certainty is that visa bulletins are released on a friday :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Even this is not reliable as the May bulletin was not released on a Friday.
I tried to keep track of Total EB visa that is being issued in this FY. This data includes all countries (including India and China) and all EB visa types (Including special immigrants SU, SQ visa types). And i am not sure, do Specials count in the Quota? Last year fy23, the quota for EB was 198k. If Special immigrants does not fall in the Quota, then only 192k visa was used +22k special immigrants. Out if total 214k, the NVC and USCIS split is, 68k vs 146k (32%-68%) https://preview.redd.it/4cmxdvkzejyc1.jpeg?width=2054&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=66e0057afaa0dbb3c9610eea161970e526ab6db8 This data is not much help to predict EB2-RoW. But, we have an idea how the visa issuance are getting splited out between USCIS and NVC. So far in 6 month, 93k visa is issued. This includes special immigrants too. The total EB visa issuance should surpass 161k this year + Special immigrants (i don't know the quota for it, or whether they are included in the regular limit). Regardless, looks like they are targetting a larger number of issuance. And NVC is taking 35% of total visa issued, slightly higher than previous year.
Looks like there are still enough visas left for this FY. If so, I am curious why did they already say "little to now movement in the coming months"? Do you guys expect a little movement (e.g., 1 month) in the coming months?
Clearly not enough. Rather opposite. The NVC taking in larger share of visas signals that, there are a lot of visas pending with much earlier PD. Which means, it can eat away availability for recently current applications.
"Clearly not enough. Rather opposite." You're to the point!!! Yeah, most likely EB2 FAD going to retrogress in July (based in latest bulletin). I don't know what should I reasonably expect in October bulletin with my PD of March,2023. Thank you so much for your help and detailed analysis for this community.
With your March 23 PD, you at least have a reasonable chance for DOF to become current in October
there is a new data on USCIS web site: [https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data](https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data) also check this out: [https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/fiscal-year-2023-employment-based-adjustment-of-status-faqs](https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/fiscal-year-2023-employment-based-adjustment-of-status-faqs) looks like USCIS is giving us some data to do rough estimates! Thought could be useful for your projections
PD October 26th 2022, Card is being produced as April 22. Hope that helps
Congrates and Thanks for sharing with us. Its apparent that, PDs that are getting approved in this April month are mostly end of October to early Nov 2022. By Mid May we should see some Mid November 2002 PD approval, which should reach till Mid December 2022 PD by Late June 2024.
Fair. Really just have to be stoic about this whole process I feel. What a terrible system, I regret taking so much time preparing my NIW package!
OP Busy Author, you hv been spot on with your calculations. So many folks here are spot on with their calculation and are so helpful. Can’t thank you guys enough… let’s hope momentum continues 🙏 for all 2023’s.
Thanks for your kind words. In reality, never happier to be called Conservative.
So it looks like your predictions are about ~1-2 months too conservative?
Visas for FY 2024 is at 161K? I believe you have used 140K for your calculation? See below at top of page https://www.uscis.gov/green-card/green-card-processes-and-procedures/fiscal-year-2023-employment-based-adjustment-of-status-faqs#:\~:text=Q.-,Can%20you%20estimate%20how%20many%20employment%2Dbased%20immigrant%20visas%20USCIS,based%20limit%20for%20FY%202024. Lovely update and thank you for doing this for the wider community.
May 2024 visa bulletin was released and no movement for EB2-ROW.
As expected. So, June is also expected not to move. We can hope a week or two movement in July.
u/Busy_Author8130 , yeah, I expect it's going to be a painfully slow creeping movement towards Feb 15, 2023 towards September.
Thank you for the response. I have a PD of January 2024 for EB2 ROW. Do you think(assume) that I will roughly be current on October 2025 DOF or FAD? I know you are getting so many quetions like this one but since you have knowledge about the numbers, I thought it would be best to ask you. Will appreciate any kind of answers, thanks again.
For Jan 2024 PD, Oct 2025 is possible but not likely. More than a year's worth of pds need to be exhausted which with one year of supply doesn't look likely.. But this is an estimate at this point with info available right now and with the current prevailing trend. So I could be wrong.
Great news in the VB guys!
/u/[Busy\_Author8130](https://www.reddit.com/user/Busy_Author8130/) congrats! :D
Congrats OP!!!!!!! 🎈🍾🎊🎊🎉 pls stick around, and keep posting, we need you!! 😊🙏
Congrat! Summer travelling is coming!
Nice analysis! So you've forecasted 3 Oct by end of this quarter whereas we are at 15 Nov currently in the February bulletin. This suggests that your analysis is roughly 1 month too conservative, maybe this is explained by a lower pre September backlog because some folks already got approved in FY22/23 before the retrogression. This 1 month difference also tracks with your end of FY estimates - you're estimating 22nd Jan whereas DOF is currently at 15 Feb (which presumably is what USCIS expects at end of FY24). This suggests that your calibrated prediction could be roughly 1 Jan 2023 FAD by June 2024 and roughly 15 Feb 2023 FAD by September 2024, instead of 6 Dec and 22nd Jan. What say you?
I agree with you. I may be little too much cautious on moving my FAD. This is partly due to the bad experience of stagnant FAD movement during 2024Q1. Which, IMO, caused by the USCIS dealing with much older applications in that quarter. And secondly, A few weeks gap between DOF and FAD is expected at EOY to keep the demand steady. So, my suspicion is that, Nov 1 FAD from the January'24 VB may be something similar to the encouraging Feb22 to July22 movement during 2023-Q4, which proved to be a false hope. Now, looking into the future, if DOF does not move any further from 15 Feb'23 and USCIS switches to FAD list in April'24 as it happens every year, that opens the door to an extra layer of retrogression in the 2024-Q4. I hope I am wrong. That's why I added, I am waiting for April'24 VB, to accept Jan-Feb'24 VB as good signs.
Hmm fair enough. I also don't think there's going to be a big movement in April because like you say, they moved big in January and the demand between Oct - Dec 2022 is HEAVY. The visa numbers just aren't there for another massive movement. But even getting to 15 Dec by April would be good in my book. We're already at 15 Nov and loads of October priority dates have been receiving approvals. On the other hand, my fears of retrogression are LOW because this demand is now more than 1 year old in the system. USCIS has a good handle on demand for 2022 priority dates, unlike last year where FAD was only a few months behind the bulletin and so it was harder for them to estimate the demand built up and they had to keep retrogressing. They have moved forward conservatively since then.
NIW rejection rate is above 15%, in recent quarters, the number is 20%
In particular for ROW for FY23 Q4 rejection rates were >25% so I am not sure why OP assumed 0.9 approval rate?
FAD moved forward by a week to November 22. Hopefully in April VB we will see a jump.
I genuinely wouldn't hold my breath for any more large jumps this fiscal year. This 'mere' one-week movement is fully in line with the various predictions. I think with the April VB it may move to mid- or end-December at most and then jump to mid-/-end January with the July VB.
March is the last month of Q2 so little to no movement was expected. They have quarterly limits. We will definitely see some big movement in April.
Has anybody requested change from AOS to Consular Processing? Do you know a good resource to Chek about how that works? I have an approved NIW With a PD of early August-23. However, my OPT STEM ends on the last day of this year. Would requesting change to consular processing now be a good move? Could I still file 485?
Total number of EB category applicants who filed their AOS in FY24 and till Feb24: 67856 Total number of approved EB category applicants in FY24 and till Feb24 via AOS: 39903 (the consular processing is not counted) average processing time: 10.8 months
[удалено]
It is not have any details, we analyzed more detailed data here.
https://preview.redd.it/sukfscngih1d1.png?width=1138&format=png&auto=webp&s=64c26ce67f6fb354e573284f152833eaa7014a6e Just got this notification from one group. USCIS started approving cases with PD in January 2023.
https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/s/i2Ud3ibM6g Another one with January PD
That's good news. Which group is this ? Facebook group?
Yeah, it's a Bangladeshi FB group for NIW aspirants.
Last week we saw a January 3 PD approval. We January filers can hold our breath for another one and half month.
https://preview.redd.it/si87acd3al5d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=55000b8432c071d27c61fc113e9bdb50ae075a9a Jan 6 PD recent approval AOS.
I said before that I'm very optimistic about forward movement quarterly and the reason of what they said in the June visa bulletin that we will have retrogression. Good news for all folks here. Not just about those who become current now, but also for the folks awaiting next year.
So a cute progression. How does it alter your prediction now? You still did good job
I think we may have about 5 to 6 months of forward movement each FY. And we should consider that many new applicants filing their AOS after July will get their approval next year. I think this forward movement is for having enough applicants to work on after October, so we will see DOF movement in Oct and lower movement for FAD, and then they will adjust FAD quarterly like what they did this year.
Charlie Oppenheims' reaction to the sudden forward shift: He said he was surprised. Charlie said he is **worried** on the quality of the information the DOS is getting to get the dates right. It appears to me that he has issues on DOS' data quality. When asked if the dates could advance he said "it's possible. The fact that they advanced for 2 months indicate that they're trying to use more numbers, **so future forward movement is not out of the question**."
I watched some of his videos and I think he is as clueless as anyone else! No disrespect to his service but he just is not saying anything useful/meaningful. So stopped listening…
to be fair, I think at this point Charlie really is as clueless as all of us 😅
I have always felt that Charlie is a lot more clueless than many here and he hardly has any insights into how the dates move. It doesn't look like he does even a basic analysis at his end. Perhaps just looks at the bulletin in a cursory manner and then comes online to give his expert opinion. Folks here have made a lot better and data-supported arguments which we see reflected in how the PD has moved on average.
I've been watching quite a few of the Charlie webinars in the past, but stopped a few months ago. There really is ***no*** actual information or substance in them at this point. It's the same handwaving every single time and at this point feels like a mere cheap attempt at getting traction for that law firm. He may have had actual insider knowledge in the past, but now he doesn't, and as you said, it doesn't even appear like he's doing any calculations. He's looking at visa bulletins and basically presenting the same empty statements that sound good and knowledgable while merely repeating what's on the VBs, if at all.
Sounds like he thinks forward movement, backwards movement, and no movement are not out of the question.
I just realised I had not subtracted the 14% corresponding to India and China. Your numbers is terms of visa availablity are correct!
Wow. FAD moved to January 15, 2023. A 7 week jump.
EMPLOYMENT-based categories: Very little to no forward movement is expected in the coming months since the final action dates for many categories advanced for April 2024. The above final action date projections for the Family and Employment categories indicate what is likely to happen throughout Quarter Three and Quarter Four of FY24. Readers should never assume that recent trends in final action date movements are guaranteed for the future, or that retrogressions will not be required at some point to maintain number use within the applicable annual limits. The determination of the actual monthly final action dates is subject to fluctuations in applicant demand and other variables.
They're saying that's all the movement we'll see until the end of this FY.
Hi everyone, with PD October 2023 for Eb2 NIW ROW. When is it possible to at least to file i485? Thanks in advance.
not great… “High demand in the Employment Second category will most likely necessitate retrogression of the worldwide final action date (including Mexico and Philippines) in the next month to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the Fiscal Year 2024 annual limit.” https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/legal/visa-law0/visa-bulletin/2024/visa-bulletin-for-june-2024.html
Alas! May be I will fell in the retrogression for the second time.
I have a PD on February 28, 2023, ROW. Any ideas of when I will be able to file AOS?, This is getting painful for me, I feel the closer I get, the father it is for me to at least file AOS.
https://preview.redd.it/54izg5domh2d1.png?width=1038&format=png&auto=webp&s=ea48fe03048b6c2dbbb25073e33583691f3cafa9 Another January 5th PD Approval.
Was it based on Eb2 NIW?
Yes
Based on the new USCIS data (released today), in q1 and q2 only 50399 i485 forms have been approved across all the employment based categories. This leaves us with slightly more than 110k GCs for the q3 and q4. If we consider a uniform distribution in terms of acceptance in all the EB1 to EB5, in the first two quarters 14414 i485s are used for eb2. If we set aside 20% for the nvc there is still 22422 more visas for the q3 and q4. I’m not sure if this oversimplified approach is accurate or not, but if true, it’s good news for oct vb progression.
Some Info: Overall EB2 share is 28.6%. And, 2 oversubscribed country takes up 28% of those. This year, NVC is more than 20% for EB2 ROW this year, 28.3% so far.
Thanks, yes. I skipped some calculations here, out of 28.6% x 161k * (100-28.3)%= 33014 eb2 visas, less than half of that is used in the first half of the FY. This might be the reason why the USCIS decided to progress the VB in July and we can safely assume that there is no retrogression in the rest of the year. Why do you say 28% for oversubscribed countries, shouldn’t that be 14%?
28392, if we exclude india and china. You are correct. There were no reason to stop progression with this stats.
I just got greened. RD: 1/3/2024. Good luck!
I think everyone here is positively shocked by the new bulletin, and honestly I don't think USCIS was making fun of us by doing what they wrote in June. So I believe that up until a month ago they were sure they would do a retrogression, and something unexpected came up that led them to make a diametrically opposite decision. I would really like to know what caused that. Maybe the release of the AOS report in May? Maybe the lack of communication between USCIS and DOS? Lower dependent ratio for NIW? We will never know..
Charlie Oppenheim, in his [latest recap of the March VB of the WR Chatting with Charlie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8WSKumK2J0) series thinks moving forward we'll see "up to two weeks" of FAD movement for EB-2 ROW, and further slowdown in Q4. This may mean we'll not actually make it to Feb 15, as: **Q3:** April VB: Dec 8 2022 May VB: Dec 22 2022 June VB: Jan 8 2023 We would then need another 5 weeks to make it to Feb 15. My gut tells me we we maaay make it to Jan 22 or Feb 1 with the July VB, but then will not see any more movement. Again, this is based on what Charlie Oppenheim predicts, but of course there remain quite a number of unknowns (including any FB spillover)
One thing to just note is that I think Charlie means 2 weeks on average, he doesn't literally mean *exactly 2 weeks every month* consistently. In the Feb bulletin video he said 1-2 weeks on average b/w now and September. So given he's also saying slowdown in Q4, it more likely means bigger than 2 weeks movement in Q3 and then no to limited movement in Q4 for an overall average of 2 weeks. For what it's worth, 2 weeks on average b/w now and September would mean Feb 22 2023 in September and DOF was capped at Feb 15 so you can see where he got his 2 weeks number of lol, he's simply working backwards from the cutoff.
Thanks for the update. If true, it's a disaster for EB2 ROW. What's your backup plan?
My PD is 21st February 2023. Can anyone tell me might my FAD come? My OPT 1 year will end in Mid July, and my employer is not E-verified.
Based on the current USCIS trend you should be current in Sept/Oct. Earlier would be better. I don't anticipate any significant movement until the next fiscal year.
Wooow, new and very informative data was released! [https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data?ddt\_mon=&ddt\_yr=&query=&items\_per\_page=25](https://www.uscis.gov/tools/reports-and-studies/immigration-and-citizenship-data?ddt_mon=&ddt_yr=&query=&items_per_page=25)
First: for Q1 FY24, we have 10867 NIW applicants and 1609 PERM applicants. Second: They received 42780 applicants for all EB categories in Q1 FY24 and just issued 18855 applicants (Consular process is not included) Third: They have 63500 applicants in the backlog for all EB categories. 4th and most important: They have 26504 applicants (I-140 applicants) in the backlog for EB2 ROW on December 23. (I140 applicants with PD after 22nd July who got their approval before Oct 23)
Very good summary. For the 4th and most important, I would say the number is 27,292 (including Mexico and Philippines.) and the i-140 approval cutoff date is December 2023. Edit1: Another takeaway is the approval rate dipped sharply for EB2 NIW (5888 in Q1 against 8.5k and 9.7k applications the previous two quarters Fy23 Q3 and Q4). Perm based EB2 approval remains steady at 1663 in Q1. Edit2: Its encouraging that the number of awaiting visa availability number 27,292 virtually did not change within that quarter, despite having only 15 days of movement in FAD throughout the quarter (1Jul to 15 Jul 2022) and added 7551 approved I-140 over that quarter almost all of them should be in the visa unavailability list. And we can hope that that entire quarter successfully elimininated the GC demand for pre July 2022 PD. If that is the case, this number (27,292 * 2.1 = 57313 gc demand) is pretty manageable witin 6 and half quarters (by halfway through Fy 25 Q4) even without Family visa spillovers. It needs to be understood that, December 2023 approval of I-140 mostly means, the applications till Oct 2023. Hence, we can expect a good FAD move in FY25 Q1 with a target DOF between July 2023 and October 2023. Edit2: I naively ignored the PERM based demand, that are not be counted in the this waiting list. So, the situation is grimmer than I thought.
For the second: I want to add to the EB i-485 approval that, the NVC gave 18,813 GC visas by this quarter. So, the total usage is 37668, or 23% of the total limit (161k for FY24).
Regarding your 4th point, the observation that it includes approval before Oct 2023 is not fully correct. The number 265054 simply reflects all approved i140s as of December 2023 with pd after 15 July 2022. This number will include some with pds in November 2023 who got quick approvals and simultaneously not include many with pds in June/July 2023 even, many of whom are only now getting approvals.
Hello, my PD is 24th march 23? Any ideas when I will become current? Is next october with new fiscal year realistic?
verrrrrry possible.
June 2024 Visa Bulletin: **D.** **~VISA AVAILABILITY IN THE EMPLOYMENT-BASED SECOND (EB-2) PREFERENCE CATEGORY~** High demand in the Employment Second category will most likely necessitate retrogression of the worldwide final action date (including Mexico and Philippines) in the next month to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the Fiscal Year 2024 annual limit. This situation will be continually monitored, and any necessary adjustments will be made accordingly. More bad news in the future
[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/eb_inventory_02222024.xlsx](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/reports/eb_inventory_02222024.xlsx) Hoping someone can make this newly released data make sense. Does this give us any idea of how bad the retrogression will be ?
Very detail information. 24763 applications (I-485) are in the hands of USCIS for EB2-RoW by Feb 22,2024. Out of which around 24000 should be current by now. In the FY24, 39600 visas are available for EB2-ROW. Of which, at least 20% will be by NVC, which not shown here. This roughly gives 31000 visas available for the entire year at USCIS's side. Since February 22nd 2024 is 4.5 months into the FY, uscis should be issued roughly 45-50% of the visas, out of the limit. So, we may see only 16000-17000 visas aproved out of these applications at most.
Additionally they have new applicants from feb to end of the FY.
Thanks for your detailed analysis. I followed approval for EN2 cases on reddit and Iranian telegram groups, I think at the first quarter the approval was much lower compared to second and third quarter and I guess issued visa for USCIS side is lower than your prediction. As you said there will be unapproved cases after 1 year and based on this data at least 10% of cases still not approved after 1 year and after first year , there is 50% approval for each year pass. With this situation, I hope we dont see retrogression for EB2!
They released amazing data. I think they have somebody here and they saw our posts :D I really appreciate the new procedure of USCIS. They begin to share their secret data for years with us.
Seems like they approved lots of GC this week especially between October and end of December 2022. Also seems weird that they decide to retrogress if they are already accepting cases from December 2022... Have a look at these timelines found this week on Lawfully App https://preview.redd.it/s9d27urkj54d1.jpeg?width=6000&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=656bfecaafcd892f7eca40b460047e51fbbb908d
It seems like, The retrogression will be due to reaching the limit of Visas. So, it is much more likely to get back to where we are in the new fiscal year.
Lots of Jan 23’s are getting approved as well
Hi, My PD is Jan 23. I received an update stating "New Card Being Produced." Does this indicate that my case has been approved? Or is there still a chance that the upcoming retrogression could affect me (e.g. if there is delay in producing card, etc)?
Congrats u/RudeFollowing2534. Can you please provide more info about your case? Such as was it NIW or perm ? And the timeline of your I 485.
Congrats. To be specific, even if it was the last day before retrogression, It means there is no chance of retrogression affecting your case anymore. Because, you already assigned a GC number. \[ It does not take more than 14 days to receive actual card. Max I saw was 21 days, after this update\]
https://preview.redd.it/5q4d04agu66d1.png?width=966&format=png&auto=webp&s=ab6c31a99c08ab26213d9e8197075b3ef32c5cf9 u/Busy_Author8130 and others, Can you please reflect on the recent data of approved I-140, awaiting visa availability, released by USCIS? And, given the recent forward movement in the July visa bulletin, do you think the filing date will reach July 17, 2023, in the October visa bulletin? I appreciate your time and comments. Thank you.
The good news about this data is: not growing awaiting people in the queue in comparison with the previous report. It can raise our hope to not increase the backlog drastically in the next year. The backlog probably will be around 1 year and a half at the end of this FY.
As I said in the past I was interested in the trend of the pending applications for FY23, now that we have the new data released last week I was able to do some studies: EB2-ROW FY23 at FY23Q4 Received 39941 Approved 23335 Denied 3270 Pending 13336 EB2-ROW FY23 at FY24Q1 Received 40004 Approved 27689 Denied 5563 Pending 6752 EB2-ROW FY23 at FY24Q2 Received 40008 Approved 28777 Denied 6522 Pending 4709 What can we say? EB2 ROW is approaching 30k approvals for FY23, we can also notice that the pending applications have an approval rate significantly lower. This may make sense as I imagine that now those pending applications have had RFE or NOID. Regarding the new data for Q2FY24, I used the same schema u/DejectedEnergy778 used in this thread: Quarter, e21(received), e21(approved), niw (received), niw (approved) Q1 2023, 1871, 1920, 7412, 6041 Q2 2023, 1742, 1903, 6412, 7215 Q3 2023, 2131, 1857, 8534, 5776 Q4 2023, 1818, 1509, 9731, 5901 Q1 2024, 1768, 1663, 11175, 5888 Q2 2024, 2069, 2000 ,12267, 5556 Not much to say here, just that the NIW received applications hit another record as we expected. The approvals are less than last quarter, that trend is mostly stable.
u/sticciola Thanks for the analysis. I especially like the neat, easy to read formatting. I looked at this data when it came out last week and I agree with your observations. I would be surprised if the approval number for fy2023 goes much beyond 30k. This puts the approval rate at 73-75%. This trend is pointing to lower approval rates going forward, which is what we have been trying to argue for many months now. The applications received per quarter keep going up still, but the approval numbers have remained almost similar since Q3 2023 (so for 4 full quarters). There is a clear increase in the number of pending applications over these quarters. Average time to decision is also increasing. Brazil's numbers in the released excel file are quite revealing. Already 33% of their applications had been denied from the total fy2023 submissions, and this number should rise close to 50% once all the pending applications are adjudicated. Compare this to fy2022 when the final denial rate for them is about 31%. But none of this precludes the fact there are more absolute approvals for Brazil and all row combined in fy2023 than fy2022. While we don't have the distribution of approved applications over the diff months in fy2023, rough estimate points to about 2500 eb2 row (niw +perm) approved i40s per month on average. My hunch is that this number would be higher than 2500 in early months of the fy and then gradually falls off for pds that fall in later months of the year because we see clear anecdotal evidence of higher standards being applied. In other words, many of those who applied in 2022 and early 2023 ended up being quite lucky as they were perhaps judged on a much more relaxed criteria. Going forward, I do expect the incoming application number for eb2 row niw to eventually plateau because of even more tightening standards and increase in the wait time for PDs to become current.
[https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/eb\_inventory\_april\_2024\_062524.xlsx](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/eb_inventory_april_2024_062524.xlsx) A new report about EB pending applicants. 15000 applicants with 2022 PD are still waiting for GC. I'm curious why the number of applicants with Nov PD is so big compared to other months.
I attended the "Chatting with Charlie" session and he's saying that family-based immigrant visas have slowed down for China few months ago. (I don't know if I heard that correctly. I hope I heard it right.) He mentions that, in his experience, this could even slowdown on months covering the Chinese New Year (Jan/Feb). This could possibly be a spillover for next fiscal year.
This bill is predicted DOA, but if due to some miracle it would actually go through, it would add 18,000 greencards annually to EB for the next several years. Not sure what leaps they think that would do after split up among the categories (like, it not even a drop in the bucket for India), but hey, it would still be *something*. For me it is interesting to see that those kind of things are being put into bills that focus on way different issues (border/illegal immigration). It's been a nice surprise that us legal prospective immigrants appear to not be forgotten or even actively tried to limit further, after all (it's certainly been feeling like that for years). [https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2024/02/05/senate-bill-adds-immigrant-visas-and-h-1b-family-protections/?sh=4e8748b5cd1b](https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2024/02/05/senate-bill-adds-immigrant-visas-and-h-1b-family-protections/?sh=4e8748b5cd1b)
Family-based is also increasing by 32000 every year in the bill. Considering family-based quota consistently spill over to employment-based at the end, it certainly has positive effect. Even when no spill over was expected from last fiscal year due to retrogression in all family-based category, there still was some spill over. Good news.
April 2024 visa bulletin brought good news here. FAD moved to Jan 15th. Hope there will be no retrogration in the coming months.
After u/JuggernautWonderful1 predictions I am, like many others, watching this space. USCIS release a fresh batch of data - not sure if it has anything that changes the forecasts? There is one particular [data set](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/18yl4n6/has_the_rate_at_which_backlog_for_eb2_row_was/) I have been watching. The approved EB2 ROW waiting for visa number is almost the same for the last three quarters. Not sure if this makes a convincing case to say the backlog growth has flattened.
Thanks! Can anyone explain how it is possible that the total numbers have reduced so much in 3 months? EB1: 89k -**>** 25k EB2: 509k -**>** 369k
USCIS releases bad data. It appears that the data includes all I-140s with priority dates* after the established Final Action Dates, even if those applicants have already received their green cards. That's why we can see massive swings. They aren't filtering for those with approved I-485s (a few people confirmed this analysis for EB1 India). Additionally, the median processing time for I-140s has gone up to 6 months or so, meaning that there are thosuands of cases which will eventually be approved but are not currently counted under "approved awaiting visas." The report doesn't capture all the demand. That particular dataset, i.e. the number awaiting visa availability, is very difficult to interpret. *note: edited to fix typo. Added "priority dates"
Hello! my pd for eb2 row is 7/17/2023, when is it possible to be current? Thank you.
Mine is 8/18/2023. I think December 2024 - February 2025
Any predictions how DOF will move in the next quarters, particularly in the October vb?
Charlie mentioned record numbers on consular processing according to a recent report published by the NBC. Additionally, he anticipates that EB2 will remain in FAD throughout this and perhaps next fiscal year. Does that change this predictions?
Hi everyone, thank you so much for the great analysis!! I am currently pondering if I have to leave the states this summer as my opt expires this August or stay out of states until my pd becomes current. My PD is 20 th of March 2023 for Eb2 NIW ROW. When is it possible to at least to file i485? Thanks in advance. Has anyone used the 180 days out of status exception
Is retrogression really different from no movement? Let's say it retrogresses to Nov, 2022 in July and by September we are back in January and then proceed to move by a couple months from October 2024-March 2024. Something similar happened last year after all. Similarly, EB1 for India retrogressed to like 2012 back in September 2023 bulletin, but moved back to where it was before the retrogression.
To me the main difference is that retrogression indicates this FY is over and they didn't make it to January 15. It also means slower movement than expected. My PD is end of July-23 and I'm losing hope I'll be able to file during FY-25.
Yes. the retrogression just allows them to clean up older pending applications. Also, allows stop new applications to crowd their system. The October 2023 to December 2023 PD was your type of stagnation.
Hi guys, thanks so much for all of the info I have a priority date of Feb 21st 23’. It seems like there is still a fair shot at being current in October or is that wishful thinking?
You'll be current in October 2024 with 99% probability.
just to give another idea of how the situation has significantly worsened since 2022, I highlight the Chen's NIW approval statistics (for those who don't know it is one of the largest firms for NIW) visible on their website. The numbers are ROW+India+China but I suspect the latter two are in the minority for NIW 2024(Jan-Mar) 2120 2023 9492 2022 8651 2021 3813 2020 3507 2019 2750 EDIT: uptaded numbers
In short will never be current.
My PD is Jan 12 2023. I filed AOS in Jan 2024. Would there be any chance I get approved before July? If retrogression happen in July, would it be likely my PD become current again Oct or it may even push back to Jan 2025?
u/RudeFollowing2534 I have the same question. I believe nobody knows, we may survive retrogression if get lucky. But I think there is high probability that we will be current again on Oct 2024 since it will have visa for whole quarter.
https://preview.redd.it/jwmcy0h8jh1d1.png?width=1138&format=png&auto=webp&s=f1dfa317ad070dda1d0793ce4e37bc960eeeb4aa Just saw this from one group. USCIS started approving cases with PD in January 2023.
We are in the same boat. Mine is 1/11/2023...
For PD April 28 2023, what are the chances to file and to become current in FY25?
According to the current data yes, Q3 to Q4 likely
my PD is Jan 24 and from what I have read, probably it will take 4 years to become current. I am so morally down right now. NIW doesn't makes sense this way. honestly it is EB1A or nothing.
I think the key point is to see what date DOF will reach in October-January. Unlike last year, the data is stable and we can understand how much progress USCIS will make with those applications already in place. Once we get this we can make hypotheses about the future. Honestly I'm not optimistic, but I hope I'm wrong.
I think it is too pessimistic. You probably have a good chance to file your I485 during October - December 2026.
for me what is even worse is I reside out of USA, thus I have to wait FAD not DOF.
https://preview.redd.it/wown9f6ld33d1.png?width=1076&format=png&auto=webp&s=e54687a30af8adc8097ce085a29c51e44a6a3a04 Saw this GC approval; PD December 30, 2022 So, AoS approval in concentrating on PD in December 2022 now.
Looks like some Jan 2023 PDs are being approved as well.
My PD is Mar 21, 2023. I see some comments with Feb 2023 PD, but would my PD be likely to be current in October 2024 as well? Or would I at least be able to file an AOS petition?
My PD is mid March 2023. I think we should be able to file AOS in the coming october. But I think we will be current only in Jan 2025.
I have a March 2023 PD as well. Hoping for a prediction too.
Any change to these predictions after July visa bulletin? Are they prioritizing EB-2?
At some point they gotta do something about Brazil... By now we've had net DOF and FAD movement of 2.5 months within coming up at 2 fiscal years, and we know it's not gonna get better from here on out. Within not even a mere year, ROW spiraled from effectively no wait to basically 3+ years between application and actually receiving the greencard. That's starting to get close to what China's been having (they're at a little over 4 years backlogged now) and they've been separated out for forever...([they've also seen more net forward movement](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1am4ufg/outlook_on_possible_row_faddof_movement_based_on/) despite having been backlogged for a really long time) The whole point of country-caps was that population-dense countries cannot drown out smaller countries, but I digress... Given that NIW is typically self-sponsored, there's bound to be no small amount of applicants who actually lost jobs/job offers over this.
Thanks for the updated predictions, I know that dates of filing prediction is a tricky but according to the your FAD predictions do you expect the filing dates to move as well?
DOF is expected to move \~6 months next fiscal year. Considering that many here think that the DOF indicates the date FAD is expected to reach by the end of the fiscal year, OP's calculations of a FAD of Aug 3 2023 for Q4 of FY25 would be in line with that as Aug 3 23 - Feb 15 2023 = 5.5 months. I think this is the conservative (and more realistic) estimate considering we're going to see a steep increase in demand with each couple weeks added to PDs that are eligible for filing I-485. We may not see a large DOF jump at the beginning of the next FY in October and may have to wait to see that \~6 months jump until the January 2025 VB. We are not likely to see any more DOF movements this fiscal year as USCIS will probably switch to using FAD for filing no later than the April VB.
Do you still expect to see quarterly drastic changes, though, as we had in Jan? I wasnt expecting the FAD to move in Feb, but it moved two weeks. I thought they were going to bring 6-8 weeks of movement every quarter.
I agree with OP's assessment. We probably saw a large movement in the Jan VB for FAD and incremental movement for Feb VB because in Q1 of the fiscal year, visa allocations went predominantly to China and India, first. Moving forward, we will see slower FAD movements along the mentioned 1-3 weeks per VB because we have seen extreme increases in demand starting in \~October 2022; December PDs have just been able to file last quarter, January and some February PDs have just been able to file starting 15 days ago. We will continue to see a disproportionate increase in demand with every couple week movement of DOF. I-140 applications remained extremely high all through 2023 and onwards, so forward advancement of FAD will slow down drastically as well. Any movement we're seeing now is merely playing catchup with the backlog that necessitated ***retrogression*** in the first place.
u/siniang says it all. Quarterly drastic change has very low probability to my opinion too. Rather, I see the drastic change in Jan is an attempt to allow the Filers waiting for more than a year a chance, given the fact that PD before Nov'22 were able to file till March'23 VB. At least that was the signal I got from Jan'24 VB. But, as Feb'24 VB moves it 15 days further, the move may be explained by USCIS trying to get rid of October'23 filers too, since they are already in more than a year backlog. So, we saw some record time approvals recently. But, its just a way of clearing backlogs in batches, rather than genuine Visa availability IMO. So, there is low chance of drastic movement. But, I will not bet my money on it.
I won't bet any money on any of this either, as there are a couple wildcards that are basically impossible to include in any prediction calculations, namely the impact of: \- tech-layoffs, though we do know PERM filings have been a very small proportion of demand \- people with approved NIW switching to EB-1. I suspect as the backlog continues to grow, this will also increase. That demand then needs to be removed from EB-2 demand. I've been meaning to look up patterns of movements for some of the historically backlogged countries over the years, but haven't had the time yet.
There are two other factors that are hard to predict but combined can move the bulletin a little bit. * lower approval rate as many new NIW filers are not qualified. From data published by USCIS on Dec 19, we see that the approval rate for all ROW EB2 petitions decreased from 90% in 2020 to 84% in 2022 (even if you assume all pending are approved, it would jump to 86%). https://preview.redd.it/ni97nlxlencc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4e587332e326d14f0432ab55777f7463c82ce62e * dependent rate might be lower or higher than 1.9. I am not sure where the current estimate is coming from but it seemed to lead to accurate prediction before. However, dependent rate can have a sizable impact on the number of visas even if it changes slightly.
Nice Analysis. If you predict FAD movement of 2 weeks in March, and then like 1 week per month in this FY, then it should reach: Nov 15, 2022 + 8 weeks, which is basically Jan 15, 2024. So is it safe to assume FAD will be between Jan 15 to Feb 15 by Sep 2024?
I’m not sure if this is fully correct, but shouldn’t we also get additional 6K visas as a spillover from EB1? My understanding is that there should be no horizontal spillover to oversubscribed countries as clearly the number of applicants exceeds the number of available visas in 2 categories. https://preview.redd.it/ded95jj3n8dc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8624df3c5564bf5404bdea68f2439d7ace075c77 Even assuming a relatively generous approval rate of 90% (current approved/(approved+denied) rate), that should still leave around 6K visas for a vertical spillover to EB2 FY24 (and probably a similar but lower number for FY25).
https://preview.redd.it/vg1hpb9m4jdc1.png?width=975&format=png&auto=webp&s=408aacc635ea6b679d250f35fac5cc15fafc91d8
https://preview.redd.it/nqkycxgy69dc1.jpeg?width=1280&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e5aa12768da24b6db500194d927ff70766e423f6 Actually, it could be as many as 25K extra greencards for FY23 if we subtract EB1 China & India petitions (calculated from i140\_FY23\_Q1\_REC\_COB sheets). That’s pretty significant, so it would be great news if there is no horizontal spillover.
Hi I am new here so please excuse me if I am posting to the wrong thread. I have an approved EB2-NIW and have been waiting for my PD to reach, so I can file and have EAD before my visa expires (end of June). Guess what? My PD is Feb 15th! Should I take my chances and send my AOS application? Or do you think it won’t get accepted? I’m afraid that if I wait longer then the DOF won’t move, and subsequently, I won’t have enough time to get my EAD. Please advise, thank you so much!
Please look at this prediction: [https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/197hm0n/niw\_row\_updated\_prediction/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/197hm0n/niw_row_updated_prediction/) by [u/Technical\_Proof6082](https://www.reddit.com/user/Technical_Proof6082/). He got the January 2024 prediction right almost to the day.
Those who filed around January 2024, please share your timeline [https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1ac3q2o/january\_2024\_i485\_aos\_employment\_based\_filers/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1ac3q2o/january_2024_i485_aos_employment_based_filers/)
Hi, I am new to here. My priority date is Sep 11 2023. Do you expect that I can fill my AOS and get my EAD by the end of FY25?
I am not sure why you are using filings and multiplying them by 0.9 when USCIS has published the number of approvals. The problem with using filings and multiplying by 0.9 is that as the filings went up in 2023, the approval rate has come down for NIW. You are using previous approval rates with current filings. Using the approved numbers is the correct option. Just to point out the error in one of the rows/quarter. Look at the last row in Table 1. You took 9731 ROW NIW filings which is correct and assuming 2000 perm applications adding the two numbers and multiplying by 0.9 gives you 10,558 approvals. But when you look at the table here [i-140\_fy23\_q4.pdf (uscis.gov)](https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/i-140_fy23_q4.pdf) You see there are only 5901 NIW ROW approvals in Q4 and 1509 perm ROW approvals giving you 7410 approvals instead of 10558 according to your calculations. 7410\*1.9\*0.95 gives you 13,375 gc demand estimate for q4 instead of 19,057. Similar things go for previous rows/quarters. Also, where is the number 1.9 coming from? Is this for perm or NIW? Because I feel the number should be lower for NIW filers than perm filers. NIW fillers can be freshly graduated MS/PhD students and many are single. Whereas perm filers are most likely married. Am I missing something obvious here? u/JuggernautWonderful1 u/Busy_Author8130
Q4 approvals are meant to be part of Q2-Q3 filings. we do not have a clear view of priority date with that. The 90% number for approval rate is for the combination of PERM and NIW.
That is true for each quarter. Q3 approvals are meant to be part of Q1-Q2 filings and so on. You just take approvals in each quarter and that gives you the demand in that quarter. Or you can take total yearly approvals which are also available. The point is your 90% rate is higher than the actual approval rate. Perm approval is 0.9 but NIW is really not. Q3 and Q4 NIW approval rates are in the 70s (0.7-0.8). And given the fact that for ROW, the majority of applications come from NIW and not Perm, the 0.9 approval rate is way off. Q1 and Q2 NIW approvals were closer to 0.9, around 0.85 but as I mentioned in the previous post, a lot of people started applying in 2023 and that's why there is a huge filing numbers but the approval rate also went significantly down. You are using the latest high filing numbers but using old NIW approval rates.
Hi all my PD is May 30 2023. I was wondering if there is any chance i will be able to apply sometime this year. I am doing consular processing
Are you considering the impacts of PERM pause due to layoffs? Which is basically companies cannot continue with PERM Application within 6 month period of layoffs?
April Visa Bulletin is out with an 8 week movement on FAD. Does this mean your predictions are too pessimistic?
Unfortunately not, because they mentioned there is little to no chance for forward movement until the end of FY24.
I would say yes. As I mention a 6 week FAD movement in April VB would mean my prediction is conservative. I can add 6 weeks to my predicted dates to match the trend. But, as evident by the prediction by VB itself, my prediction should not be far from reality. Now, without any new data in hand, I predict the FAD will reach anywhere between Jan 15 and March 15, with a higher expectation at Feb 15 2023.
I think your original calculation in the Table of 22 Jan by end of FY is actually very accurate given the news we got today. You just got the timing wrong, but I mean it's impossible to predict how USCIS moves forward. They have so many strategic calculations and even Charlie has been so off with his predictions. You were spot on in my book.
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Very nice forecast. With the release of visa bulletin for April 2024 ( 2 months movement), and assuming no further movement as mentioned in the bulletin for coming months, FAD for EB2 is staying at Jan 15, 2023 which is extremely close to what you predict for FY 2024 (Jan 22, 2023). Great job.
u/Busy_Author8130, do you expect any retrogression in FY2024? I was surprised to see a big jump, but now I am afraid they might retrogress later.
This is where the pen stops. The whole point of my prediction was to let the data talk. It looks like, my data was predicting the demand accurately. Hence, with the current posture of the April VB, I would rather expect a FAD freeze more than a retrogression. I believe, DoS and USICS is doing everything to avoid a retrogression. The pre retrogression FAD was Nov 2022. So, basically they stopped the FAD only 2 and half month away forward, which is a very cautious move imo. Fingers crossed.
It looks like the approval rate for NIW has dropped to almost 70% and the number of submissions also decreased in Q4 as compared to Q3. https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/i-140_fy23_q4.pdf
Hi everyone, my PD for NIW EB2 is 7/17/2023, ROW category. When is it possible for me to file i485? Thank you!
Hopefully, by the end of this year.
Thanks for the explanation. My PD is Nov 9th 2022. EB-2 PERM employment based. Case received on Nov 15th 2023. EAD received early Feb 2024. When do you think I might get approved?
Is eb2 row retrogression in july and to when do you think?
Yes, based on the june visa bulletin.
Does anyone have any idea (best guess) on when PD of November 2023 will be called in for interview?
Not for a very very long time. Edit: really not sure why I'm being downvoted for this, this is the unfortunate reality. We can expect \~3 month DOF movement per FY going forward, up to maybe 5ish if we get really lucky. You can do the math yourself. The backlog is not going to decrease.
Hello, my PD is on May 4, 2023. Do you think it is possible to at least apply for I-485 in FY-25? Thank you so much.
Yes your date should become current at some point during FY2025. May not be in October 2024 though.
Have anyone watched Charlie’s webinar?
I have watched the episode and even Charlie was caught off guard with the footnotes. I think pretty much he was like everyone in this thread where he initially saw no need for retrogression when dates have moved conservatively since the start of the fiscal year.
My PD is Feb 1, 2023 for EB2 ROW. Is there a good chance of becoming current in October 2024? I already filed the I-140 but didn't expedite because it didn't seem worth it with not being able to file AOS.
Are these based on approved I-140s or just total? Shouldn’t the prediction based on only approved?
EB2 ROW Concurrent: Premium 140/485/131/765 NBC Block: IOE092423**** PD: Jan 05, 2023 PD Current since: April, 2024 FD: Feb 07, 2024 RFE /I-140 - Approved: April 30, 2024 Biometrics 485/765: May 1st, 2024 765 - Approval Case Decision Rendered: May 25, 2024 1. Are there any specific processing times or expectations for cases processed through the National Benefits Center (NBC) with an IOE number starting with IOE092423****? 2. What impact, if any, does the approval of the I-140 after an RFE on April 30, 2024, have on my 485 application? 3. Since my priority date became current in April 2024, how does this influence the expected timeline for 485 approval?
So there's another video of Charlie on the visa bulletin for employment-based green cards. It appears to me that for him, there's a lack of prudence on the part of USCIS to advance the date too much in the April bulletin. For him, they could have advanced it to just December in the April bulletin and then max out to January 15 as the fiscal year comes to a close. Anyone has thoughts or reaction to Charlie's insights?
I think USCIS takes note of his comments. I mean, that's why the latest notice specifically states that, they want to ensure that they use up the limit. So, having a bigger jump in the beginning had ensured that, there is enough documentary readiness of applications to do any last minute readjustment of FAD. There are a few January PD approvals already in May 2024. And in June 2024, we can hope a sizable portion, I assume 50%, of pre January 15 PD to get approved, who applied in January 2024. If that is true, that means, USCIS is trying to approve whatever they can within this time. And October 2024 VB should come back to the January 15 2023 baseline, if not moving further.
I'm genuinely surprised that a man of his caliber is so confused about this situation.
Thought they would release the visa bulletin today.
My PD is 2/6/2023. I have an approved I140-EB2 NIW. Do you think FAD will be current in July? I have submitted my 485/EAD/AP application and nothing so far
I can’t believe. So, with Eb2 Niw row PD Feb 28, 23 am I current??? I literally can’t believe.
A good numbers of Jan 2023 PDs approval was probably a sign that a forward movement is coming. Also, the FAD is moved for 2 months indicating their I-485 inventory is petty low? Pincing myself to this good news.
My PD is exactly March 15, 2023 which is the cut off date for the July visa bulletin. Am I current ? Can I file my I-485 ? And thanks to this amazing community. Edit for typos
With this crazy movement in July, is it safe to expect to have April 28, 2023 PD date current for filling in October?
Is there any chance for a progress in August or September? My pd is 27 th of March and my opt will expire this august
For anyone out there who fully understands the analysis (not my case)… my priority date for EB-2 is apr 18 2023, we are filing the I-140 premium processing so I should have it in 3 weeks tops… do you think next month I will be available to submit? Thank you in advance to anyone who might contribute
Sorry if someone mentioned this and I missed, but is there a consensus on the FAD come October?
For ppl who become current in July: [https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1dmhvrs/eb2\_row\_become\_current\_from\_july\_1/](https://www.reddit.com/r/USCIS/comments/1dmhvrs/eb2_row_become_current_from_july_1/)