TheDepartment of State’s Visa Bulletin guru, Charlie Oppenheim, hosts monthlymeetings with the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Mr. Oppenheim is the Department of State’sChief of the Control and Reporting Division. He is the officer who isresponsible for producing the Visa Bulletin each month.
Charlieoffered a number of interesting observations about the March Visa Bulletin,which resulted in aretrogression for EB-3.
-Becauseof the potential for USCIS to move resources to EB-1 and EB-2 and theunpredictability in processing times that will be caused by such a resourceallocation, Charlie does not expect any forward movement to the EB-3. The absolute earliest would be the May 2020or June 2020 Visa Bulletin, but EB-3 could remain at January 2017 until the endof the fiscal year. Charlie did assurereaders that
-Whileit is expected that the implementation of the public charge rules may slowUSCIS processing times, any potential slowdown at USCIS has not been factoredinto the March Visa Bulletin.
-DOSwas not surprised that the retrogression happened in March, in spite of theJanuary and February progression of dates in some EB-3 categories. DOS wanted to wait until it was certain thatthe increase in demand was not showing any signs of decline.