Thousands of would-be immigrant workers are reeling from the separate announcements by the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and the State Department on July 2, that employer-sponsored green card applications will not be processed until October of this year.
In an unusual revision of its monthly Visa Bulletin on July 9, the State Department said employment visas will be available once again on October 1, the start of the 2008 fiscal year.
This means that the number of visas in all employment preferences allotted for the rest of fiscal year 2007 has been exhausted even before they were supposed to become available.
No further adjustment of status or immigrant worker visa applications will be processed until visa numbers become available at the beginning of the next fiscal year.
Immigration lawyers fear, however, that the widely used employment-based third preference (EB-3) will still suffer severe retrogression in fiscal year 2008. EB-3 petitions cover professionals and skilled workers such as accountants, architects, engineers, IT professionals, teachers, as well as professions that are experiencing shortages such as registered nurses and physical therapists.
The State Department blamed the employment visa unavailability on the “unexpected action” of the USCIS using up 60,000 employment visa numbers.
The USCIS, on the other hand, said that because of the revised July State Department Visa Bulletin, it will be “rejecting applications to adjust status” without current priority dates beginning July 2.
The USCIS and State Department announcements on the exhaustion of employment visa numbers put in question the visa processing and procedures in these agencies.
The revised July State Department Visa Bulletin sharply contradicted the original July Visa Bulletin released two weeks earlier, saying that visa numbers in all employment-based categories (except for the “other worker” category) would be available this month.
Contrary to the State Department’s original Bulletin, the July 2 announcements practically confirm that retrogression has re-occurred and will continue until the end of fiscal year 2007. Retrogression occurs when the demand for immigrant visa numbers exceeds the number available for a given year. In such a case, the State Department fixes a cut-off priority date, and cases with priority dates falling on or after the prescribed cut-off will not be processed.
The availability of visa numbers in July would have ended, at least briefly, the retrogression that has delayed the deployment of immigrant workers, particularly from the Philippines, China and India, since January 2005.
For thousands of Filipino EB-3 workers, the availability of visa numbers would have allowed the processing, which has been put on hold by the retrogression to resume this month.
Meanwhile, EB-3 workers who are in the United States waiting for visa availability, would also have been able to apply for status adjustment this month and the USCIS reiterated that it will increase its filing fees on July 30. The filing fee for immigrant worker petitions will be $475 (up from $195), while the cost of status adjustment will be $1,010 (up from $395), including biometrics fees.
In light of actual damages incurred by persons who relied on the original July Visa Bulletin of the State Department, the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) and organizations of immigrant workers in the United States are contemplating a lawsuit on this issue.
