Friday, February 17, 2023

MARCH 2023 VISA BULLETIN: ANALYSIS AND RETROGRESSION PREDICTION

The Department of State has recently issued the March 2023 Visa Bulletin.  This blog post analyzes this month's Visa Bulletin. 

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.

EB

Worldwide

CHINA

INDIA

PHILIPPINES

1st

C

01FEB22

01FEB22

C

2nd

01NOV22

08JUN19

08OCT11

01NOV22

3rd

C

01AUG18

15JUN12

C

Other workers

01JAN20

22DEC13

15JUN12

01JAN20

Table B: Dates of Filing

The USCIS is using the Table B Dates of Filing chart for I-485 employment-based filings. See: USCIS Visa Bulletin Dates

 

MU Law Analysis

This was an uneventful Visa Bulletin.  All dates remain the same as in the February Visa Bulletin.

Having said this, the Visa Bulletin included a foreboding Note,

E.  VISA AVAILABILITY IN THE EMPLOYMENT-BASED THIRD (EB-3) PREFERENCE CATEGORY

Increased demand in the Employment Third category may necessitate the establishment of a worldwide final action date (including Mexico and Philippines) in the coming months to hold number use within the maximum allowed under the Fiscal Year 2023 annual limit. This situation will be continually monitored, and any necessary adjustments will be made accordingly.

This means that retrogression is coming for all EB-3 categories, including the Philippines and Worldwide.

As we have mentioned in our last few blogs, the FY 2023 employment-based immigrant visa limit is 197,000, as compared with 281,507 in FY 2022.  These quotas are greater than the usual 140,000 employment-based limit because of spillovers of unused family-based immigrant visas in the prior fiscal year. Slowdowns related to COVID caused the allocation of family-based visas to be short of the limit.    It is expected that the employment-based quota will return to 140,000 in FY 2024, which starts October 1, 2023.

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