Visa Bulletin – October 2019

The Department of State posted the visa bulletin for October today.

USCIS advised that it will accept family and employment-based adjustment of status petitions for October based upon the filing date. See https://www.uscis.gov/visabulletininfo for the updated information.

In recent Visa Bulletins, the State Department indicated it hoped to return recently retrogressed categories to cut-off dates seen in July or August, when visa availability began to dwindle toward the close of FY 2019.  At the start of FY 2020 on October 1, many categories will revert to the same or approximate cut-off dates seen in the July Visa Bulletin, as projected by the State Department. However, there are some notable exceptions, including EB-1 China and EB-3 China and India, which retrogressed further than the July cut-off dates. The steep retrogression in the EB-2 China category appears to be unexpected based on prior agency predictions. EB-1: All countries except for China and India will advance by more than one year, to October 1, 2017. China will immediately retrogress to January 1, 2014. India has been unavailable since July.

Immigrant visa availability in the coming months 

In the October Bulletin, the State Department provides projections for visa availability through January 2020. Projections always remain subject to a change in visa demand. The Department predicts the following potential monthly cut-off date movements:

• EB-1: Little, if any, forward movement is expected for India. All other countries could see forward movement of up to three months.
• EB-2: India could advance up to one week and China up to two months. Remaining countries are expected to remain current.
• EB-3: India and China are expected to see little, if any, advancement, while the Philippines could advance up to several months. All other countries are expected to remain current.
• EB-5: It is too early to predict movement for China, India and Vietnam. All other countries are expected to remain current.