It’s that time again! Charlie Oppenhiem of the Department of State has shared updates on the visa bulletin. Charlie gave us insights into visa number availability for employment-based green card applications. Visa number availability helps applicants figure out their place in line to apply for a green card.
First, the good news: Charlie expects visa numbers to remain available for the first Employment Based (EB-1) category for applicants from India and China for the rest of the year (2022). This category includes individuals of extraordinary ability and multinational managers or executives. Individuals with an approved EB-1 immigrant visa petition in this category will remain eligible to apply for a green card.
The other Employment Based categories are not likely to fair as well. We saw significant advancement for Indian and Chinese visa categories last year. However, we do not expect the numbers to move quite so fast this year.
- EB-2 India and China: We expect the numbers to continue to advance slowly throughout the year. If demand increases, we may see priority dates stop moving forward, and may even move backwards.
- EB-3 India and China: It is unlikely there will be much movement in these categories in 2022.
As we do every time the visa bulletin is published, we will continue to monitor visa number availability for each of our current clients. We will let them know once they become eligible to apply for a green card.