On late Fridayafternoon the USCIS and DOS issued a revisedOctober 2015 Visa Bulletin.  The newrevised Visa Bulletin has a devastating impact on those in the US and whoqualify as China EB-2, India EB-2, and Philippines EB-3. 

Revised October2015 Visa Bulletin (Changes in bold)
Employment- Based
All Other
CHINA – mainland born
INDIA
PHILIPPINES
1st
C
C
C
C
2nd
C
01JAN13
01JUL09
C
3rd
01SEP15
01OCT13
01JUL05
01JAN10

Original October2015 Visa Bulletin

Employment- Based
All Other
CHINA – mainland born
INDIA
PHILIPPINES
1st
C
C
C
C
2nd
C
01MAY14
01JUL11
C
3rd
01SEP15
01OCT13
01JUL05
01JAN15
The USCIS published a stilted “explanation”for the revision,
Following consultations with the Departmentof Homeland Security (DHS), the Dates for Filing Applications for somecategories in the Family-Sponsored and Employment-Based preferences have beenadjusted to better reflect a timeframe justifying immediate action in theapplication process.
For the most part I stay away from commentaryon this blog.  Not today.

This revised Visa Bulletin meansthat the majority of people who could have filed their I-485s on October 1,2015, now must indefinitely wait.  Allowinglong-suffering workers the flexibility that would come with the filing ofI-485s would have been excellent policy.  Implementing that policy was excellentgovernment action.  Implementing thepolicy and then rescinding the policy is incompetence.

These government bureaucrats aretone-deaf to the actual human beings behind these petitions.   These agencies had tenmonths to implement this system.  Theidea that these agencies only consulted in the last two weeks ispreposterous. 

Many of these immigrant workers spentthousands of dollars hiring counsel to prepare their Applications.  They took time off from their jobs to subjectthemselves to ridiculously unnecessary (and costly) medical examinations. 

Worse than the dollars spent and thetime spent is the crushing of these immigrants’ hope.  These are the immigrants who continually get trashedby an immigration system that cannot get out of its own way. 

There are already rumors that theUSCIS and DOS are being threatened with lawsuits.  There is also a rumor that the USCIS and DOSmay not want to repeat the fiasco that was the Visa Gate in 2007, and thereforemay rescind this Revised Visa Bulletin.