The Department of State’s Visa
Bulletin guru, Charlie Oppenheim, hosts monthly
meetings with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Charlie
Oppenheim is the Department of State’s Chief of the Control and Reporting
Division. He is the officer who is responsible for producing the Visa Bulletin
each month.
This month’s Check In With Charlie
featured predictions about EB2 and EB3, which are the most popular categories
for readers of this Blog. Here are some
of this month’s highlights:
Categories
in which final action dates will remain the same include-
EB-1 China and India;
EB-2 India;
EB-3 China and Philippines;
EB-4 El Salvador, Guatemala and
Honduras, and
EB-5 China.
Categories with modest advancements-
EB-2 China will move forward one
month to September 1, 2014;
EB-3 India will advance three
months to May 1, 2008;
EB-3 Other Workers China and India will
advance one and three months respectively, to May 1, 2007 and May 1, 2008; and
EB-4 Mexico will advance roughly
five weeks to October 22, 2016.
It is likely that most
employment-based final action dates will hold at their May dates for the month
of June with some changes possible in July. What occurs is entirely dependent
on demand that may materialize, and continuing consultations with USCIS. The
wildcard this year that could cause unanticipated fluctuations in the final
action dates is the pace of USCIS field office processing of I-485s.