Based on what Charlie said I predicted
that we will continue to see that the
dates for these EB3 categories will
continue moving forward
through the summer though in July there
may be slower movement.
I hope you're ready, I've got lots of
news to cover today. The State
Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs
held their monthly "Chat With Charlie" and
discussed the June
Visa Bulletin to see what sort of
movement we can expect to see in the
coming months.
The Bureau of Consular Affairs also held
a special live stream with the resident
US visa expert to discuss the backlog and
what steps they are taking to resolve it.
Finally, the June Visa Bulletin has been
released and we can expect to see
significant movement across the
employment and family-based
categories. We are going to cover all the
details right now.
Make sure to watch until the end to see
how this news might
impact your case. Also, I spent a lot of
time making this video
and I would appreciate if you can like
this video and subscribe to my page
to help support the growth of my channel.
Okay, so what did the Department of State
have to say
about future movement in the Visa Bulletin?
For those who don't know, every month the
State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs
releases a live stream on YouTube
during which they answer questions about
the Visa Bulletin.
These events are hosted by Charlie Oppenheim,
the Chief of the Visa Control and
Reporting Division of the Department of State,
which is the office responsible for
compiling and releasing the Visa Bulletin
every single month. We're going to talk
about the Visa Bulletin in just a second
but let's hear what Charlie has to say.
The number one question that the
Department of State got this year was
whether or not the fiscal year 2021 family-based
and employment-based
visa limits would be reached. Let's hear
Charlie's response:
No we do not believe that based on the
implications
of the COVID 19 situation and other
issues which
have impacted processing since October,
we do not expect that those limits will
be reached.
The processing of cases at our overseas
posts has resumed in recent months,
but we're still not at the normal
processing levels and my guess is that the USCIS
offices are
facing the same processing issues.
Unfortunately,
US embassies and consulates are not
expected to return to their normal
levels for processing until next year,
so if the employment and family-based
preference category limits are not
reached this year,
what are the expected limits for fiscal
year 2022?
Let's hear what Charlie has to say:
Under the current INA guidelines we expect
that the family-sponsored
annual limit will once again be 226,000.
It has been that way since about fiscal 2000.
And for the employment-based limit I now
expect that the limit will be at least
290,000 for fiscal
2022. That will be another all-time
high in terms of the employment limit.
In addition to all-time high
employment-based visa numbers we can
also expect to see significant movements
and employment dates through the end of
summer
and the beginning of fiscal year 2022,
with the one
exception being the fifth preference
category for China.
So how about family dates? Can we expect
to see the same movement
along preference categories for family
based cases?
The answer was a little bit more
complicated: Originally we had expected
the movement of the family dates to have
slowed
or stopped for the summer months, but
based on
changing conditions at our overseas post
which are allowing
additional numbers to be utilized, there
is an excellent chance that we will be
able to continue advancing
many of the family dates through the
summer.
We do expect that many of the family
sponsored
final action dates will be held for an
extended period of time
once our overseas posts do return to
completely normal operating
status—most likely sometime in next year—
and the reason being that the dates
which have already been established
that will provide sufficient demand to
probably utilize the vast majority of
the 2022 numbers,
at least for the first half of
the year,
potentially moving forward into the
second half again.
So in terms of family movement of dates
they are likely to stop once overseas
processing
resumes full operational status. Charlie
provided more information than we can
cover here
so I will leave a link in my description
to the monthly
"Chat with Charlie." Note that if you want
to submit a question for Charlie
make sure to email the Department of
State at "visabulletin@state.gov"
with the subject line "Chat with Charlie
question."
If the Visa Bulletin is having such a
big impact on the visa backlog
what is the Department of State going to
do about it? On Tuesday the Bureau of
Consular Affairs
held a live stream with the family visa
expert. It was hosted by Neal Vermillion,
the Visa Expert and Division Chief
in the visa office. Neal has been with
the State Department for almost
20 years and is responsible for
providing the consular guidance to US
embassies and consulates abroad. During
this special live stream he explained
what has caused the visa backlog and
what the situation is today.
So let's hear what he has to say: You
know here we are almost June
2021. Those of you that might follow
our immigrant visa processing overseas
know we actually shut down due to the
pandemic—visa processing shut down for
several months
last year at this time—and we really
didn't start
the reopening process until until July
of last year.
Then President Trump signed presidential
proclamation 10014,
which President Biden rescinded in
late February of this year,
but that prevented the issuance—even
when we were open
and our counselor sections were
processing some visas—
that prevented the issuance and travel
of many, many
immigrant visas. Some of you may be aware
or seen on our websites there are—
actually still in effect—"geographic
proclamations" as we call them which
basically
are again presidential proclamations
that have been issued to
help protect the homeland, protect health,
protect and security.
Currently there are proclamations in
effect that cover
33 countries which basically say anyone
that has been present in any of these 33
countries for the last 14 days
can't travel to the United States and
that means we can't
issue visas to them. The good news now
just in the last month however is that
no none of these proclamations currently
stand in the way.
If you follow my channel then all of
this should sound familiar to you.
You will know that we've discussed these
things before. If you are new here then
please consider subscribing to my channel
so that you can stay up to date with
this type of news.
Okay, next so what is the Department of
State going to do about this visa
backlog?
Neal explained their plan: Honestly
keeping everyone informed is part of
that effort. That's one reason why
we're doing this. I also want to
highlight
that we have started posting in the last
month and we'll update monthly
on our travel.state.gov website—
the stats of the immigrant visa backlog.
The National Visa Center, the current number
of immigrant visa applications
that are ready for interviews but not
yet scheduled is 481,965.
If you guys think that's
a big number... Yeah that is a big number.
That's almost a half a million cases
and that frankly is up from 408,255.
In terms of what we're doing,
we're throwing all available resources
that we can in that and we're
specifically telling
our consular sections with respect to
visa services,
the processing of immigrant visa and
fiancé visa is
our number one priority. You know
please understand we're continuing
to deal with circumstances on the ground
that we can talk about as we go through
this session,
and the volume and type of visa cases
will continue to depend on
local circumstances.
You know we're doing our best to to
process these applications
as much as possible, as quickly as
possible and as safely as possible while
we protect
both our applicants as well as our staff
from from further spread of the
pandemic. In my opinion
it sounds like the visa backlog is going
to continue to grow and they don't
really have much of a plan to address it.
As we discussed in a previous video, the
Department of State has also
released a new prioritization schedule for
embassies and consulates to follow in
adjudicating visa applications,
but this will likely not make much of a dent
or a significant impact in the backlog
as it exists today.
What do you think? Leave me a comment
below to let me know how you think the
Department of State should be handling
this crisis!
Neal discussed a lot more than we have
time to cover so if you're interested to hear
exactly what he has to say, I'll include
a link in the description below.
Finally, let's take a look at the June
Visa Bulletin to see what sort of
movement we can expect to see
across the preference categories.
Starting with employment-based visas we
saw significant advancement this month
across the board. USCIS has instructed
applicants
to use the final action dates chart for
June of 2021,
so let's take a look to see what has
changed.
Again, EB1 has remained current for all
chargeability areas.
Last month I predicted that EB2 for
China and India would continue to
advance significantly throughout the
rest of the year
and we definitely saw that this month.
EB2 for China moved forward by five
months to May 1, 2017
and for India by four months to December
1st, 2010.
All other chargeability areas remain
current for this category.
EB3 also saw significant advancement.
Starting with China, EB3 professionals
and skilled workers moved forward by
three and a half months to September 1st,
2018, and the EB3 other workers category
moved by two months
to October 1st, 2009. Both EB3 categories
for India advanced by 10 months to
November 1,
2011, while all other chargeability areas
are current for both EB3 categories.
Based on what Charlie said I predicted
that we will continue to see that the
dates for these EB3 categories will
continue moving forward
through the summer, though in July there
may be slower movement. For the EB4
category,
all chargeability areas remain current
except for Mexico where we saw a big
jump forward of seven and a half months
to November 1, 2019
and Central America where we saw an
advance of two months to November 1,
2018. Finally, the EB5 category has
all chargeability areas current except
for Vietnam,
which moved forward two months to April
15, 2018,
and China which was the only
employment-based category with no
movement at all. And while I don't expect
that we will see the EB5 date for China
advance during the remainder of
this fiscal year, I do think we will
continue to see the EB5 for Vietnam
continue to move forward moving. On to
family-based visas, we saw slight
advancements in all
non-current final action dates for all
categories and
all areas for the F1 categories. China,
India, and other countries
moved forward 10 days to November 1,
2014.
And while Mexico advanced one month to
May 1st,
1998, the Philippines moved forward 21
days to February 22, 2012.
The F2A category remains current in all
chargeability areas.
the F2B category moved forward for China,
India, and all
other countries by one week to August
22, 2015.
Mexico moved forward 24 days to
September 8,
1999, and The Philippines moved forward
one month to October 15, 2011. We had the
biggest
advancements in the F3 category from
Mexico, which advanced
one month to November 15, 1996, and The
Philippines, which moved forward
38 days to June 8, 2002. China, India, and
all other countries moved forward 10
days to September 1, 2008. For
family-based final action dates, the most
significant advancements were in the F4
categories for all chargeability areas.
both China and all other countries moved
forward by one month to December 8, 2006.
India moved forward 23 days to May 8,
2005.
Mexico advanced 24 days to September 1,
1998, and
The Philippines moved forward 38 days to
June 8, 2002.
Next we have filing dates for family
based visa categories.
For these dates we saw some big
advancements in the F1 and F2 categories
for all chargeability areas,
and again this month for The Philippines
in every category. Note that with the
exception of the F2A category,
USCIS has instructed applicants to use the
dates for filing chart for June 2021.
I'm going to cover the areas in which we
saw advancement and we'll pull up dates
on the screen
for those categories that remain
unchanged. For
F1 categories of family-based visa
filing dates we saw
a lot of movement, especially compared to
last month.
India, China, and all other countries
moved forward by five months to March 1,
2016. While last month the F1 category
did not move forward for Mexico at all,
this month it advanced by 75 days to May
15, 2000,
and The Philippines continues to advance,
moving forward six and a half months to
May 15, 2014. For F2A all chargeability
areas advanced
one month to May 1, 2021. The F2B saw
advancements in India, China, and
all other countries by nearly two months
to August 15,
2016, and The Philippines moved forward
almost seven months to August 1, 2013.
In the F3 categories,
China, India, and all other countries
advanced by nearly 40 days to
August 1, 2009, and The Philippines
advanced 38 days to August 8, 2003.
the F4 category only saw advancement in
The Philippines, which again advanced 38
days to August 8, 2003.
I've included a link in my description
below for those of you who want to see
the visa bulletin yourself.
Have you seen the Department of State's
prioritization schedule for embassies
and consulates?
I'll include a link here for my most
recent video where I explain
how the schedule works and how visas
will be prioritized.
I'll also be releasing a video on this
topic as soon as we have more
information,
so make sure to subscribe to my channel
if you have not yet done so.
Check out this video and I'll see you there!