October Visa Bulletin–Visa Retrogression
September 22, 2008
The Department of State released its October Visa Bulletin on September 11, 2008, with much worse news on priority date movement than expected. This was particularly true for Chinese and Indian nationals.
For the month of October, EB-2 Chinese nationals face priority date retrogression to April 1, 2004. [This is a 2 year differential from the August 1, 2006 cut off listed under the September Visa Bulletin.] For EB-2 Indian nationals, priority dates retrogressed almost 3 years, from August 1, 2006 to April 1, 2003. All other EB-2 foreign nationals are current for the month of October. All EB-1 (PhD level) foreign nationals remain current.
For the EB-3 category, January 1, 2005 is the cut off priority date which is current for all nationalities except China, now at October 1, 2001; India, now at July 1, 2001, Mexico, now at July 1, 2002 and the Philippines, now at January 1, 2005.
As we have previously related, visa retrogression will continue to be a problem until the government increases its current annual allotment of 140,000 employment-based permanent visas.
