In this video, we're going to talk about some visa bulletin predictions
pretty much for the rest of the year. And this is based on the new YouTube series
launched by the State Department with Charlie Oppenheim, the State Department's visa control and
reporting division head. Charlie is responsible for issuing the visa bulletin every single month.
And he provided some key points that you need to know about future predictions and
how it's going to impact visa moments in the next coming months. So, let's jump right in.
Hello, everybody, welcome back to our Immigration channel. This is a place we get the
most up-to-date immigration news, immigration updates, and everything else that you need to
make your immigration journey less stressful. My name is Jacob Sapochnick, and I'm an immigration
attorney based in San Diego, California, and I have clients in all 50 states. If you're here
for the first time, make sure to subscribe to our channel, click the bell to be notified to
make sure that you don't miss any of our videos. And also, give us a big like so YouTube is going
to be able to share this video with more people just like you. As I mentioned at the beginning
of the video, we're going to talk about the visa bulletin and predictions for the rest
of the year. Lots of good things to report based on the new YouTube series with Charlie Oppenheim,
the head of the visa control and reporting unit. He is the one that’s in charge of releasing the
visa bulletin every single month. And we're going to share a short clip later on in this video
that explains exactly how he decides, how visas are going to move forward, and how visas progress,
and why some of them go slower, and why some of them go faster. Pretty interesting explanation
directly from Charlie. I'm going to share that a little bit later in this video. But I wanted
to explain to you the key highlights of what he said and what to expect in different categories.
Let's start with family petitions. First, what he said is that the usage of family-based visas
remains low, it will continue to stay low. And this is specifically because of the pandemic,
and the fact that consulates and embassies remained closed for so long. Remember that 95%
of family immigrant visas are processed overseas, they're not Adjustment of Status, and as a result
of these embassies and consulates remain closed. None of these visas were able to be processed.
And so, we now have low usage of family-based visas. Remember also that unused family visas
are going to be added towards the employment-based categories. But now that embassies and consulates
are starting to reopen. As I mentioned in the previous video that I detailed to you, guys,
NVC processing procedures right now, I mentioned that they are now waiting for embassies to give
them visa slots so they can start sending them cases from NVC to the embassies. Embassies are
going to reopen more slots, expect that in May and June to see a bigger movement in family-based
petitions. And this movement forward will continue probably through the summer as well. So, some good
news for family-based petitions. And this will have a very positive impact on employment-based
visas, specifically from countries like China, India, they have been stuck for many, many years
waiting for those numbers to become available. But let's talk about some specific predictions for the
different EB categories. If we start with the EB1 category for employment-based, this category is
expected to stay current for the entire year, not just a few months, but for the entire year.
According to the prediction of Charlie Oppenheim, if we look at employment-based EB2 and EB3,
we expect also fast movement in those categories. Specifically, EB2 and EB3 for China and India.
Expect, starting from May, a rapid movement forward. And also, remember those downgrade cases
from EB2 to EB3, will currently, according to Mr. Oppenheim, he doesn't have specific statistics on
that. But we're probably going to see it in the next few months. And we'll report more updates
once we get that from the State Department. But expect more information about faster processing of
EB2, and EB3 categories for all countries as well. With respect to the EB5 category, the green card
base investment, China is not expected to advance. They have 9000 cases in the pipeline. For Vietnam,
which was very slow in the past few months, we expect slow movement, month by month towards
the end of the year. Overall, in all other countries, we expect no issues there at all. So,
one interesting point to understand is how does processing capacity influences the advancements
of the dates in the visa bulletin, and let's hear it from Charlie Oppenheim himself. First of all,
I looked at the annual limit, if you kind of think of the annual limits as your household budget,
and if you figure you get your paycheck for the year and you have to divide up your
income accordingly. That's basically what I do. I try... we have quarterly limits imposed
by the Immigration and Nationality Act, which limit numbers use to some extent.
But I look at the overall annual limits for the individual preference categories,
and also the foreign states. And I tried to give out an appropriate amount of numbers each month,
I look at the... again, at the annual limit, how many numbers have already been used to date,
how many numbers are remaining, how many numbers I think might be
needed for emergency cases. And overseas posts or cases that I have not received information on
from USCIS, then also in the information that I've received from our overseas posts
or the Immigration Service in terms of future expectations of their needs. So, as you can see,
we gave you some very cool predictions for the rest of the year. We're going to see
definitely a fast movement on the EB categories for employment-based. For sure,
it's going to keep moving faster and faster, with thousands of visas available for them to fill,
but also some good news for the family petition that was stuck the whole year. And now,
they're going to start moving rapidly, month by month, as embassies and consulates are reopening,
and they increase their capacity of processing to help people get more visas. Again, I've done
two videos, one on NVC and another one on State Department update how they process visa. So,
make sure you watch those videos that are linked in the description of this video to explain to you
how they're going to be working in the backend. So, once again, hopefully, this information was
helpful. If you have questions, make sure you leave them in the comments below. And also,
if you’re here for the first time, make sure you subscribe to our channel, share this video
with somebody that may need to know, and give us a big like so YouTube will share this video
with more people just like you. Thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next video.