Health Care Blog

The Department of State has just issued the November 2020 VisaBulletin. This is the second Visa Bulletin of Fiscal Year 2021. This blogpost analyzes this month’s Visa Bulletin.

November 2020 Visa Bulletin

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

Employment- based	All Other	CHINA	INDIA	PHILIPPINES
1st	C	01DEC18	01DEC18	C
2nd	C	22APR16	22SEP09	C
3rd	C	01OCT17	01MAR10	C

 

Table B: Dates of Filing

Importantly, the USCIS announcedthat it will allow the more favorable Date of Filing chart forI-485 Adjustment of Status. This means that all employment-based immigrants inEB-1, EB-2 or EB-3 can file their I-485s starting October 1, 2020.  However, if they are natives of India orChina, their priority date must be earlier than these dates: 

Employment Based	CHINA-mainland	INDIA
1st	1-Sep-20	1-Sep-20
2nd	1-Oct-16	15-May-11
3rd	1-Jun-18	1-Jan-15
Other Workers	1-May-09	1-Jan-15

For reasons that remain unclearthe Department of State held back on publishing this Visa Bulletin about 2weeks longer than usual.  Nevertheless,the Visa Bulletin showed continued positive trends. 

Both the Philippines andWorldwide (All Other) EB-3 continue to be current.  We expect these categories to stay currentfor the foreseeable future.  The onlyconstraint to the Philippine EB-3 visas being issued is the capacity at theEmbassy in Manila.  It remains to be seenhow increasing COVID infection rates bear on embassies capacities.

The good news extended to India.  India EB-1, EB-2 and EB-3 all movedforward, ranging from several weeks to several months in all of thesecategories.  Similarly, China EB-1,EB-2 and EB-3 all moved forward at about the same rates as India.

MU expects that future VisaBulletins will continue to have positive news, including continued forwardprogression in the Chinese and Indian categories.  We also expect the Philippine and Worldwidecategories will remain current for the foreseeable future.