The November 2018 visa bulletin was released today. Below are the new priority dates. It is worth noting that EB1 all countries is still not current. We have a number of clients in holding patterns and are monitoring this carefully as a result. It will be interesting to see how this works out procedurally.
November 2018
For all countries except India, China, Philippines, and Mexico: F2A category priority date advances 24 days to 15 September 2016, F2B preference advances 40 days to a PD of 1 January 2012, F4 category advances 35 days to 22 March 2005; EB1 remains at 1 April 2017; EB2 is now current; and EB3 is now current.
For India only: F2A category advances 24 days to a priority date of 15 September 2016, F2B preference advances 40 days to a PD of 1 January 2012, F4 advances 31 days to a PD of 1 June 2004; EB1 remains at a PD of 1 June 2016; EB2 remains at 26 March 2009; EB3 remains at a PD of 1 January 2009.
For China Only: EB1 remains at a PD of 1 June 2016; EB2 advances 44 days to a PD of 15 May 2015; EB3 remains at a PD of 1 June 2015; EB5 Non-Regional Center and Region Center remains at a PD of 15 August 2014.
For Vietnam Only: EB-5 Non-Regional Center and Regional advances 31 days to a PD of 1 February 2016.
Can file your immigrant applications if PD before:
F2A 1 December 2017; F2B 22 March 2014 for All Areas, except 22 June 1997 for Mexico and 15 December 2007 for Philippines; F4 1 June 2005 for All Areas except 01 January 2005 for India, 22 June 1998 for Mexico, and 8 April 1996 for Philippines.
EB1 1 June 2018 for all countries except 1 October 2017 for China and India; EB2 All Countries except India and China are current; EB3 All countries except China, India, and the Philippines are current; EB2 India remains at 22 May 2009; EB3 India remains at 1 October 2009 EB2 China remains at 15 June 2015; EB3 China remains at 8 August 2015; EB5 China (RC and non-RC) remains at 1 October 2014. Vietnam is not individually listed and should use the all countries category.
Note from Tahmina:
In light of the recent No-RFE memo as well the NTA memos, it is important that those waiting to receive their green cards maintain their underlying visa status.
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Notes copied from the Department of State regarding Visa availability:
Below is a copy of the bulletin that confirms that both the Religious Worker program and EB5 pilot program hav been extended until December 7th 2018 and
D. EXTENSION OF TWO EMPLOYMENT VISA CATEGORIES
H.R. 6157 — Department of Defense and Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Act, 2019 and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2019 extended both the Employment Fourth Preference Certain Religious Workers (SR) and Employment Fifth Preference Pilot (I5 and R5) Categories until December 7, 2018.