Starting in October, 2015, an
additional chart will be posted on the Department of State Visa Bulletin that
provides new filing dates, or dates when applicants may be able to apply for
permanent residence. This change was announced on September 9th and
implements executive actions taken by the Obama administration in November 2014,
detailed in the White House report, Modernizing and Streamlining Our Legal Immigration System
for the 21st century, issued in July
2015. The revised process aligns U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services
(USCIS) with the procedures the Department of State (DOS) uses for foreign
nationals who seek to become U.S. permanent residents by applying for immigrant
visas at U.S. consulates and embassies abroad.
Background
The number of immigrant visas
available each year is set by Congress and follows a complicated metric based
on “preference categories” for both employment-based (EB) and family-based (FB)
petitions.
For instance, visa petitions for persons in the EB-1 category, i.e.
for multi-national managers and executives, outstanding researchers, or persons
of extraordinary ability, are considered more valuable to the U.S. economy and
therefore are given preference over an EB-3 petition filed for a skilled worker
with just a bachelor’s degree. Similarly, an immigrant petition
filed for unmarried sons and daughters (over 21) of U.S. Citizens have priority
over siblings of U.S. citizens.
In addition, Congress has
fixed per-country limits that set the percentage of immigrant visas that can be
given to persons from each country annually. Each country is given the same
percentage allocation of the worldwide quota. Thus, persons from the countries
with the highest rates of immigration to the U.S. – China, India, Mexico and
the Philippines – experience much longer wait times than those individuals from
countries with lower rates of U.S. immigration.
When an immigrant visa
petition is filed for a foreign national, how long that person will have to
wait to get a green card is determined by his or her “priority date.” The
priority date is the date when the applicant’s relative or employer properly
filed an immigrant visa petition on the applicant’s behalf with USCIS. For
workers for whom a labor certification application was required, the priority
date is the date the labor certification application was accepted for
processing by Department of Labor (DOL). Much like a ticket at a deli, the
priority date sets the applicant’s place in line. The length of time he or she
must wait for a green card will depend on many factors, including where he or
she falls on the preference list. For example, a first preference,
Canadian-born adult child of a U.S. citizen will have a far shorter wait
(currently seven years) than, say, a Philippines born sibling, for whom the
current wait time is over 23 years! Likewise, an EB-1 Nobel Prize winning
chemist will have no wait at all, whereas the current wait time is 11 years for
an Indian-born computer programmer with just a bachelor’s degree and little
professional experience.
For would-be immigrants and
their relatives or employers in the U.S. this confusing system is clarified
somewhat by the posting each month of the Visa Bulletin. This resource is
published by the Department of State and it sets forth visa availability for
each preference category according to priority dates. For each preference
category the Visa Bulletin gives a current priority date, meaning that
immigrant visas are available for those whose priority date is earlier than the
date given. If the letter C is shown, then immigrant visas are available for
all qualified applicants.
What’s New?
Beginning with the October 2015 Visa Bulletin, two charts per visa preference category will be
posted in the DOS Visa Bulletin. The first shows the Application Final Action
Dates (dates when visas may finally be issued). The second provides Dates for
Filing Applications (earliest dates when applicants may be able to apply). The
first of these dates will already be familiar and is described above. The
second chart gives a date when USCIS will begin accepting immigrant petitions.
This is new, and allows applicants to submit permanent residence applications
in advance of visa availability, so that when a visa finally does become
available their application materials will have already been submitted,
shortening the time they receive the actual green card.
Besides the obvious benefit of
being able to apply for permanent residence earlier than expected, applicants
are now eligible for corresponding benefits that come with permanent residence
petitions much earlier in the immigration process. These benefits include the
ability to apply for an employment authorization document (EAD), travel
permission, and, once 180 days have passed, the option to port an underlying
I-140 to a new position or employer, pursuant to the American Competitiveness
in the Twenty First Century Act (AC21).
USCIS believes this revised
process will enhance the government’s ability to more accurately predict
overall immigrant visa demand and determine the cut-off dates for visa issuance
published in the Visa Bulletin. This will help ensure that the maximum number
of immigrant visas are issued annually as intended by Congress, and minimize
month-to-month fluctuations in Visa Bulletin final action dates. Especially for
nationals from China, India, Mexico, and the Philippines this new measure brings
much welcome flexibility, and short of comprehensive immigration reform is a
welcome improvement to the administration of our nation’s immigration laws.
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