JUNE 2020 VISA BULLETIN: PROGRESS FOR PHILS AND WW EB-3; EB-1

The Department of State has just issued the June 2020 Visa Bulletin. This is the ninth Visa Bulletin of Fiscal Year 2020. This blog post analyzes this month's Visa Bulletin.

June 2020 Visa Bulletin

Table A: Final Action Dates -- Applications with these dates may be approved for their Green Card (Permanent Residency card) or Immigrant Visa appointment.

Employment- based	All Other	CHINA	INDIA	PHILIPPINES
1st	C	15AUG17	08JUN16	C
2nd	C	01NOV15	12JUN09	C
3rd	08NOV17	15JUN16	01APR09	08NOV17

MU Law Analysis

This was another eagerly anticipated Visa Bulletin.  The DOS moved the Philippines and Worldwide EB-3 ahead by 10 months, which is encouraging.  The Indian and Chinese EB-3 dates moved ahead one month, which is also a promising sign. It would not surprise us to see another big progression in the July Visa Bulletin, especially for the Philippines and Worldwide EB-3s. 

The EB-1 movements were also reassuring.  India EB-1 progressed 10 months.  China EB-1 advanced by a month.  The Indian and Chinese EB-2 dates also moved ahead, with India progressing by 10 days and China by one month.  These progressions could mean that more visa numbers flow down to other categories.

MU continues to believe that the State Department should be accelerating these dates at a faster rate and will need to aggressively accelerate the dates in the next few months in order to ensure that all visas are used in fiscal year 2020.  We have said this for several months.  Very few immigrant visas have been issued in the last 60 days because of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Conspiracy rumors are out there.  Some are speculating that the White House is interfering and illegally holding back progressions. The State Department did not include any comments at the end of the Visa Bulletin.  This lack of transparency from the State Department is feeding the speculation.  At the very least the State Department should explain how it expect to use this year’s full allotment of immigrant visas.