The Department of Statejust issued the August 2023 Visa Bulletin. This blog post analyzes this month’sVisa Bulletin.

Visa Bulletin

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

Employment-
based

All Other

CHINA-
mainland 
born

INDIA

MEXICO

PHILIPPINES

1st

01AUG23

01FEB22

01JAN12

01AUG23

01AUG23

2nd

01APR22

08JUL19

01JAN11

01APR22

01APR22

3rd

01MAY20

01JUN19

01JAN09

01MAY20

01MAY20

USCIS

The USCIS is expected touse Table A: Final Action Dates chart for I-485 employment-based filings. ABeneficiary must be current on the above Table A chart to file their I-485, Adjustmentof Status applications. See: USCIS Visa Bulletin Dates

MU Law Analysis

As we explained last month, the DOS has almost exhausted all employment-based visasfor FY 2023.  As a result, almost allcategories retrogressed will retrogress even further in August, essentiallyending visa issuance until the start of the next fiscal year on October 1,2023.  There were some slight improvementsin the Chinese dates probably reflecting strained US-Chinese relations anddecreased demand related to COVID in the 2019-2022 time frame.

These EB-3 retrogressionsmean that the USCIS and DOS overextended priority dates earlier in the year anddid not see the demand for the visa numbers that were there.

The Visa Bulletin includesa Note about EB-3s, indicating that the demand exceeded the expectation.  Accordingly, MU does not expect anyprogression in EB-3 for the rest of the fiscal year.

Even the EB-1 dates wereretrogressed, including the Indian date by 10 years.  The Visa Bulletin does say that the IndianEB-1 dates should return to at least February 2022 at the start of the nextfiscal year.