DECEMBER 2023 VISA BULLETIN: ANALYSIS AND EXPECTATIONS

The Department of State has just issued the December 2023 Visa Bulletin, which is the third of the 2024 US fiscal year.  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.

Employment- based	All Chargeability  Areas Except Those Listed	CHINA- mainland  born	INDIA	MEXICO	PHILIPPINES
1st	C	15FEB22	01JAN17	C	C
2nd	15JUL22	22OCT19	01JAN12	15JUL22	15JUL22
3rd	01DEC21	22JAN20	01MAY12	01DEC21	01DEC21

Table B: Dates of Filing

The USCIS is expected to use 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.   EB-2 and EB-3 Final Action Dates for China each advanced three weeks to October 22, 2019 (EB-2) and January 22, 2020 (EB-3). The Final Action Dates for all remaining employment-based categories remain as they were in November.

As we said last month, MU Law believes that the State Department is acting conservatively, which while frustrating, may prove to ratchet down the anxiety around the monthly chart, and provide a better measure of processing times for those involved. While no one likes a nearly two-year EB-3 retrogression for non-India and China, it may prove to be a stable set of dates.  We do expect these categories to slowly progress throughout the fiscal year pushing into 2022, and perhaps even into 2023.

BILL INTRODUCED TO INCREASE VISA NUMBERS FOR NURSES AND PHYSICIANS

US Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and US Senator Kevin Cramer (R-ND) introduced a bill, known as the Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act, on November 2, 2023, to address the nation’s shortage of physicians and nurses.

If passed, this bill will recapture 25,000 unused immigrant visa for nurses and 15,000 unused immigrant visas for physicians, from previous years. These visas would not be subject to the per country numerical limit that has led to lengthy waits for green cards for nurses and physicians from several countries.

Spouses and children that are accompanying or following to join these nurses and physicians, would be eligible for immigrant visas as part of this bill too. The spouses and children’s visas would not be considered as part of the 25,000 and 15,000 allocated visas for the nurses and physicians.

The nurse and physician cases would be required to be adjudicated by USCIS under USCIS’s premium processing program. There will be no additional fee for the premium processing.