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Responding to Your Comments on Visa Numbers, Preference Categories, and Spillover
Release Date:
This post is in response to the outpouring of comments and questions on visa number usage, spillover of visa numbers into other preference categories, and the visa number backlog.
Preference Categories
The primary reasons for entering the immigration process in the U.S. are family and employment-based. To manage this process, family and employment-based immigration is broken into preference categories. Congress sets limits on how many individuals may immigrate to the U.S. each year (i.e. visa numbers) and also sets limits on how many individuals may immigrate within each preference category.
Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) sets an annual minimum family-sponsored preference limit of 226,000. The worldwide level for annual employment-based preference immigrants is at least 140,000.
Per-Country Limit
Section 202 of the INA prescribes that the per-country limit for preference immigrants is set at 7% of the total annual family-sponsored and employment-based preference limits, i.e., 25,620. The dependent area limit is set at 2%, or 7,320.
The demand for visas from nationals of India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines is greater than the per-country limit and that is why these countries are listed separately in the Visa Bulletin. The Department of State (DOS) is responsible for reviewing visa number usage and determining how many numbers are currently available. You can check the monthly Visa Bulletin for more detailed information. The monthly Visa Bulletin allows beneficiaries to know where they stand in the immigration queue.
"Spillover"
The chart below shows the visa numbers that are available for each category, as well as how unused visa numbers "spillover" into other preference categories. Because we strive to use the maximum number of visas available each year, there generally aren't any unused visa numbers available to spillover.
Preference Categories
The primary reasons for entering the immigration process in the U.S. are family and employment-based. To manage this process, family and employment-based immigration is broken into preference categories. Congress sets limits on how many individuals may immigrate to the U.S. each year (i.e. visa numbers) and also sets limits on how many individuals may immigrate within each preference category.
Section 201 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) sets an annual minimum family-sponsored preference limit of 226,000. The worldwide level for annual employment-based preference immigrants is at least 140,000.
Per-Country Limit
Section 202 of the INA prescribes that the per-country limit for preference immigrants is set at 7% of the total annual family-sponsored and employment-based preference limits, i.e., 25,620. The dependent area limit is set at 2%, or 7,320.
The demand for visas from nationals of India, China, Mexico, and the Philippines is greater than the per-country limit and that is why these countries are listed separately in the Visa Bulletin. The Department of State (DOS) is responsible for reviewing visa number usage and determining how many numbers are currently available. You can check the monthly Visa Bulletin for more detailed information. The monthly Visa Bulletin allows beneficiaries to know where they stand in the immigration queue.
"Spillover"
The chart below shows the visa numbers that are available for each category, as well as how unused visa numbers "spillover" into other preference categories. Because we strive to use the maximum number of visas available each year, there generally aren't any unused visa numbers available to spillover.
Family-Based (FB) Categories | Visa Number Limits |
Immediate Relatives | Not subject to direct numerical limitations. |
1st Preference (Unmarried sons and daughters of U.S. citizens) | 23,400, plus any remaining FB visa numbers |
2A Preference (Spouses and children of permanent residents) | 87,934, plus a portion of any remaining visa numbers from the FB 1st |
2B Preference (Unmarried sons and daughters of permanent residents) | 26,266, plus a portion of any remaining visa numbers from the FB 1st preference category, and any unused F2A numbers |
3rd Preference (Married sons and daughters of U.S. citizens) | 23,400, plus any remaining visa numbers from the FB 1st and 2nd preference categories |
4th Preference (Brothers and sisters of U.S. citizens) | 65,000, plus any remaining visa numbers from the FB 1st, 2nd, and 3rd preference categories |
Employment-Based (EB) Categories | Visa Number Limits |
1st Preference (Aliens of extraordinary ability, outstanding professors and researchers, and certain multinational executives and managers) | 28.6% of the world-wide employment limit, plus any remaining visa numbers from the EB 4th and 5th preference category |
2nd Preference (Members of the professions holding an advanced degree and national interest waivers) | 28.6% of the world-wide employment limit, plus any remaining visa numbers from the EB 1st preference category |
3rd Preference (Skilled workers and professionals) | 28.6% of the world-wide employment limit, plus any remaining visa numbers from the EB 1st and 2nd preference categories |
3rd Preference (Other workers) | No more than 10,000 |
4th Preference (Certain special immigrants) | 7.1% of the world-wide employment limit |
5th Preference (Employment Creation) | 7.1% of the world-wide employment limit |
We hope this helps our readers better understand how the visa number process works and welcome your comments.
Comments (239)
1. how accurate are the numbers that USCIS has posted about the current state of the backlog?
2. Why is there such a small number of cases being adjudicated in the current year? Does USCIS anticipate wasting visa numbers as it has done in past years? What steps is USCIS taking to prevent wasting these numbers?
3. How many of each category of employment and family numbers have been issued thus far this fiscal year?
4. (for my own interest) Why have the priority dates for EB3 ROW (and EB3 india and China) retrogressed, then stagnated? is it really true that there were so many applications filed in 2001-2003 that USCIS simply can't process these applications?
5. Are the estimates posted by the visa bulletin in january likely to be accurate?
6. (again for my own). I am Eb3-ROW, with a priority date of Mar, 2005, meaning I have already waited five years. Does USCIS have an estimate as to how long I will have to wait?
Please Bring and Accept your Mistakes also.
I am an EB2-India. I think I speak for the majority of EB - India and China, when I say this.
I appreciate the effort you are taking to communicate with USCIS customers, however, I would like to point out some things.
1) We already know what you have posted in this
blog entry in and out! In fact, most of us,
can write this entry. Our questions were
never about how the visas are allocated.
2) What we would really like to know is, if there would be a way to provide relief of some kind to the people stuck in the long backlog. It could be anything from giving EAD cards after I 140 is approved, or allowing people with I 140 approved to change jobs and employers.
3)Please tell us if something like what these two eminement immigration lawyers propose is feasible.
http://www.cyrusmehta.com/news.aspx?SubIdx=ocyrus20103925436
Thank you for your response, but the answers to the above three questions are what would really help us.
To Readers of this blog.
Did any of you commenting here really expect anything else? If USCIS were even halfway competent we wouldn't have this mess. Think about it for a moment. They either know or should know that their massive AOS backlogs are a direct result of their inability to provide the Visa Office with accurate "demand" number. Why haven't they bothered to collect PD, preference, and chargeability information for all AOS cases filed, when they are filed? I mean, how hard can that be? They either don't understand the significance of this data or they just don't care. Most likely, it is both.
You have posted the same information which is already available on USCIS website. This cannot be taken as a response for "comments and questions on visa number usage, spillover of visa numbers into other preference categories, and the visa number backlog".
What we would like to hear from you is any ideas or changes which can be done by USCIS (within its limit) to ease the current backlog situation and also about reusing the wasted visa's over the years i.e., only if you are serious about how you are impacting the lives of countless people stuck in this immigration system.
Nothing is impossible---In the same way i believe USCIS can work through to ease the pain/suffering of people who are stuck in this tunnel (with no end).
Atleast as a interim solution pls allow people with approved 140 to file their I-485/EAD's so that they can have the ability to switch employers.
There is absolutely no discussion or addressing of grievances or solutions to the current mess in EB3 category for nationals of India or China.
So are we supposed to wait another 20 years after already waiting 5 to 10 years in the EB3 green card queue?
So are we going to be stuck in limbo all our life where by we:
- can NOT change jobs
- can NOT move freely
- can NOT buy property because we don't know what will happen tomorrow
- can NOT send our HONORS student children to top universities because they have to pay foreign student fees
- can NOT open businesses
- can NOT enjoy freedom because we slave of one employer forever that applied for our green card
- can NOT realize our American Dream.
So we have to just keep quiet and just keep enduring this slavery, injustice, and stress for another 20 years or so.
What crime have we commited that we have to endure all this?
We LOVE USA, we respect its laws, we pay our taxes on time, and we are so desperate to become part of main stream America.
Our families are suffering way too much.
Can someone really address our issues PLEASE?
We are BEGGING FOR HELP.
PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON US.
May be HONORABLE PRESIDENT CAN PARDON US?
WE ARE WILLING TO PAY ANY FEES OR FINES IF THAT'S WHAT IT TAKES.
PLEASE HELP US.
THANK YOU FOR LISTENING.
WE ARE HOPING FOR SOME ACTION AND HELP, PLEASE.
GOD BLESS AMERICA AND AMERICANS.
We thought this forum is designed to provide solutions not repeating something like CNN news channel.
Put forward a solutions for the problem listed
1. Why can't allow all the application to file for change of Status and wait ( Apply for EAD and AP) wait for the Visa Number until DOS issue one?
2. Why can't you allow to count only primary for the Visa Allocation?
3. Why can't you make the H4 visa (Dependent) Something like L2 Visa where they can work on EAD?
4. Why Can't you put the Chart on monthly basis of USED VISA Number per category to know the current and future prediction?
5. Why can't you provide the Age Old Statistics of USED Visa Number per category and Number of Un-USED Visa Numbers?
6. Why don't you eliminate the Concurrent filling and allow only Approved I-140 Visa application to File For change of Status?
7. Why it is difficult to get the Total Pending Applications at REGIONAL Offices?
8. Why USCIS is delaying in responding to RFE?
9. Why USCIS is not allowing individuals to proceed with Voluntary NAME CHECK and FINGER PRINTING with a PRICE? To Expedite the processing.
FOX Business already made this a big news saying Skilled immigrants leaving USA. We will soon too...
The response you gave us, we can find that in USCIS, we are not unskilled workers, we are IT Profressionals
DESIGN YOUR USCIS WEBSITE WITHOUT THE HELP OF EVEN ONE IMMIGRANT - THEN WE WILL SALUTE YOUR SELF DENPENDENCY AND LEAVE HERE.
NOT BY USCIS FOR USCIS AND TO FAVOUR USCIS ONLY.