April 2014 Visa Bulletin Analysis

For April 2014 Visa Bulletin, please click here: http://blog.mygcvisa.com/2014/03/april-2014-visa-bulletin.html

Please see below analysis of April 2014 Visa Bulletin:

EB1: All EB1 categories are current and should continue to remain current for fiscal year. Demand continues to be around 1000-1200 every month (per the latest pending inventory).

EB2 ROW: This category continues to remain current. Demand in EB2ROW continues to be very low at an average of around 400 per month. This is good news for EB2 India and China, as they could get a higher spillover in FY 2014.

EB2 China: EB2 China also moved forward by 3 weeks. It should continue to move forward around 3 to 5 weeks per month. It is still be behind EB3 China which is ahead by more than 3 years.

EB2 India: There was no change in EB2 India movement. As we had mentioned earlier, there was huge retrogression in EB2 India due to large amount of porting from EB3 India to EB2 India. We have added a blog post exclusive to EB2 India movement in fiscal year 2014. Also please see this blog post for updates in EB2 (India, ROW and China) category.

EB3 ROW: As expected this category moved forward by 4 weeks.  According to I-485 pending inventory, demand is very low at around 15,000. The annual quota for EB3 ROW is over 30,000. However, since visas are assigned quarterly, they may have already approved a high number of applications in the last 6 months in FY 2014 in this category. Hence they may stop moving dates forward in the next few months.

EB3 China: EB3 China also moved forward by 4 weeks. It is likely that EB3 China dates would continue to be ahead of EB2 China for this fiscal year. If you are in EB2 China category, you may consider moving application from EB2 China to EB3 China, since EB3 China is more than 3 years ahead of EB2 China.

EB3 China Other workers Category also continues to move at same rate as EB3 China.

EB3 Mexico: Similarly EB3 Mexico also moved forward by 4 weeks.

Dates for EB3 China and EB3 Mexico should continue to be same as EB3 ROW.

EB3 India: EB3 India did not move forward in this visa bulletin. Due to dates in EB2 India retrogressed to 15 November 2004, the volume of applicants upgrading to EB2 India has decreased significantly. Hence the demand in EB3 India is higher than previous months (when EB2 India moved forward). This has resulted in dates staying the same in EB2 India and EB3 India categories.

Unlike China, EB3 India is not likely to move ahead of EB2 India due to huge backlog. Even if everyone ported from EB3 to EB2, their application would be open in both categories (and Charles Oppenheim from Visa Office has confirmed that they are been counted twice).

EB3 Philippines: The biggest jump was in EB3 Philippines. This category moved forward by 6 weeks.   This category is likely to continue to move forward.

Please see this blog post for future updates in EB3 categories.

EB4: This category continues to remain current.

EB5: This category continues to remain current.

Demand in EB4 and EB5 is currently very low per the latest I-485 pending inventory. Hence EB2 category can expect a bigger spillover in FY 2014.

Family Categories:

Following categories did not move forward: F2B Mexico and Philippines and all F2A categories.

F1 Category: F1 Philippines moved forward by 10 weeks. F1 ROW/China and India moved forward by 3 weeks. F1 Mexico also moved forward by 2 weeks.

F2A Category: As expected, there was no further movement in F2A. DOS is holding the dates steady to help them build a "pipeline" of cases after applicants file I-485 applications or consular processing cases.

The demand in Mexico is much higher than other countries. Hence DOS retrogressed dates by around 11 months in earlier visa bulletin.  Please see article for more details for FB category.

F2B Category: F2B ROW, China and India moved forward by 7 weeks. F2B Mexico and Philippines did not move forward.

F3 Category: F3 ROW, China and India moved forward by 4 weeks. Philippines moved forward by only 1 week. Mexico moved forward by 2 weeks.

If you have not done it yet, remember to add your case data to GC tracker: http://www.mygcvisa.com/ tracker/

If your application has been sent to NVC, please see this blog post.

Tip: Charles Oppenheim creates and publishes the monthly visa bulletin. He works at Department of State (DOS) and is the Chief of "Visa Control and Reporting Division".

Did you know: Every year move than 1 million visas are allotted. Family based categories get 66% - whereas employment based categories get only 14%. Learn more statistics here.

Also See:

• April 2014 Demand Data: http://blog.mygcvisa.com/2014/03/april-2014-demand-data.html

• March 2014 Visa Bulletin: http://blog.mygcvisa.com/2014/02/march-2014-visa-bulletin.html

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