JANUARY 2020 VISA BULLETIN: PREDICTIONS AND ANALYSIS

The Department of State has just issued the January 2020 Visa Bulletin. This is the fourth Visa Bulletin of Fiscal Year 2020. This blog post analyzes this month's Visa Bulletin. 

January 2020 Visa Bulletin

Table A: Final Action Dates -- Applications with these dates may be approved for their Green Card (Permanent Residency card) or Immigrant Visa appointment.

Employment- based	All Other	CHINA	INDIA	PHILIPPINES
1st	15OCT18	22MAY17	01JAN15	01OCT18
2nd	C	01JUL15	18MAY09	C
3rd	C	01DEC15	01JAN09	15MAR18

MU Law Analysis

All Other: Although All Other EB-1 has a slight retrogression, the EB-2 and EB-3 categories remained current and are expected to remain current for the foreseeable future.

China: EB-2 did progress by three months.  The EB-2 and EB-3 each progressed about one month.  Over the course of FY2020 we expect EB-2 to catch up to EB-3 and the two categories to stay roughly equal.

India: As with China, the EB-2 and EB-3 dates remain inverted.  There was just three days’ progress in EB-2 and no progress in EB-3.  We continue to expect very little progress in either category in future months.

Philippines:  We remain surprised by the slow progress of EB-3.  The DOS indicates that the Philippine EB-3 will only be moving one month at a time for the next 3 calendar months, which is slower than our internal metric indicate should be happening.  We are no longer predicting as rosy progressions in early 2020.  

FAIRNESS FOR HIGH-SKILLED IMMIGRANTS ACT VOTE TABLED UNTIL 2020

Sen. Lee and Durbin have agreed to postpone S. 386 (Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act) until 2020. It seems that Sen. Lee may not have had all of his Republicans on board with some of the latest amendments.

Musillo Unkenholt's analysis on what is in the current version of Act is on our December 17, 2019 blog post.

FAIRNESS FOR HIGH SKILLED IMMIGRANTS ACT COULD PASS SOON

The Fairness for High Skilled Immigrants Act has been a hot legislative item all year.  On several occasions, the bill has looked to be set into law, until a last minute Senate hold out has blocked the law’s progress.  One of the final holdouts, Sen. Durbin (D-IL), has just agreed to a compromise with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT).  Sen. Lee is bill’s lead sponsor.

The bill, including Sen. Durbin’s amendments, would make these changes to Employment-Based Immigration:

Changes to the Green Card Quota and Process

• Eliminate the per-country visa caps on employment-based workers over a three-year phase in period.  This will speed up processing Indian EB2 and EB3 retrogressed immigrants.
• Allow all nonimmigrants in the US to file an I-485 Adjustment of Status 270 days (9 months) after the filing of their I-140, Petition for Alien Worker.  This will allow more job flexibility and protect Indian and Chinese H-1B and L-1 workers and their immediate families.  These Adjustment applicants must maintain qualifying employment and the entire family will retain their priority dates even if they would otherwise age-out.  This provides a great relief to long-retrogressed families.
• There is a 4,400 visa carve-out for Schedule A workers.  As with current law, their immediate family members also take visas at the same time.  This provision will end in 2026.
• There is also a second carve-out for non-Indian and Chinese nationals who have not worked in the US.  Our sense is that this will largely be used by non-H-1B occupations, such as Registered Nurses.  This provision ends in nine years.

 Changes to the H-1B visa

• Employers with more than 50% H-1B / L-1 workers would be barred from the H-1B program.
• H-1B Cap petitions must be posted on an on-line government job board prior to the filing of the H-1B cap petition.
• Elimination of the B-1 in Lieu of H-1B business visa rule.
• Additional wage protection for H-1B workers.
• Additional protections for H-1B whistleblowers. 

Next Steps

Sen. Lee is expected to try to pass the bill in the Senate this week, perhaps as soon as today.  The bill will need to go back to the House of Representatives, where it is expected to pass, perhaps before the end of the year.  After that the President will need to sign the Bill into law, which is expected.

H-1B CAP SEASON 2020: MUST FILE MARCH 1-20, 2020

The USCIS has confirmed that it will use an electronic pre-registration system for 2020 (Fiscal Year 2021).  Under this program, H-1B petitioners and beneficiaries must be registered between March 1-20, 2020. Accordingly, all MU clients should begin to identify the beneficiaries that they would like to sponsor for the 2020 H-1B cap season. 

The USCIS has not yet announced the specific data that will be required for registration, although they have assured the public that the required information will be “basic.”  There will be a nominal $10 fee for each registration.  After the New Year, MU will hold a webinar teleconference to outline the process for our clients.

PWDs WILL CONTINUE TO TAKE 4 MONTHS (AND OTHER NOTES FROM DOL)

On November 5, 2019 the Department of Labor held a presentation and gave updates to a number of their programs.  AILA has reported on the update.  The updates include:

-DOL expects that PWD processing times will remain at 4 months, despite its goal to get the processing time down to 90 days.

-The Form 9141 (PWD) has been updated and posted to the OMB webpage.  The expectation is that it will go live in mid-2020. Until that time, the current Form 9141 remains valid, even though it lists an expired 10/31/2019 date.

-With the October launch of LCAs on the PERM system, iCert will soon be decommissioned.

-At some point PERM will move to the FLAG system, although it is not expected until 2021 at the earliest.