We recently wrote about the changes to the visa bulletin at the start of the new fiscal year. The prior update mainly affected the visa numbers available in the EB-2 visa category for Indian-born applicants. Now, as we suspected, visa numbers are limited in the EB-2 category for citizens of all countries.
Until recently, the EB-2 worldwide category has been “current.” This means that applicants born outside of China, India, Mexico, or the Philippines with any priority date under the EB-2 category had a visa number available for a green card. However, the government has received increased demand for the EB-2 category in recent months. As a result, in December 2022, the government announced that there are currently no more visa numbers available in the EB-2 category. This change limits the number of people eligible to apply for a green card. Fortunately, so far the wait for a visa number does not severely limit eligibility. We will continue to monitor visa number availability for our clients and reach out to those who might be affected by the changes.