The Department of State has recently issued the January2023 Visa Bulletin. This blog post analyzesthis month’s Visa Bulletin. The FY 2023employment-based immigrant visa limit is 197,000, as compared with 281,507 inFY 2022. These quotas are greater thanthe usual 140,000 employment-based limit because of spillovers of unusedfamily-based immigrant visas in the prior fiscal year. Slowdowns related to COVID caused the allocationof family-based visas to be short of the limit.
Visa Bulletin
Table A: Final Action Dates –Applications with these dates may be approved for their Green Card (PermanentResidency card) or Immigrant Visa appointment.
|
EB |
Worldwide |
CHINA |
INDIA |
PHILIPPINES |
|
1st |
C |
01FEB22 |
01FEB22 |
C |
|
2nd |
01NOV22 |
08JUN19 |
08OCT11 |
01NOV22 |
|
3rd |
C |
01AUG18 |
15JUN12 |
C |
|
Other workers |
01JUN20 |
22JUN13 |
15JUN12 |
01JUN20 |
Table B: Dates of Filing
The USCIS is using the Table B Dates of Filing chart for I-485 employment-basedfilings. See: USCISVisa Bulletin Dates
MU Law Analysis
A retrogression has now happened in India EB1 and China EB-1. This reflects a smaller allocationof employment-based immigrant numbers than in the past two years, along withcontinued high demand in all immigration categories.
All other dates are the same as in the December2022 Visa Bulletin.
The WW and Philippine EB-3 remaincurrent. We expect these categories to be current through much of the currentfiscal year.
EB-3 Other Workers, which is the category foroccupations such as Nurse Aides, remains retrogressed but held steady to June2020 for Philippines and ROW. We do notexpect further retrogression in these two categories. We would not be surprised to see someprogression in these categories throughout this fiscal year.