July 2008 Visa Bulletin – EB3 Unavailable; Good News for EB-3 India and China

BREAKING NEWS

EB-3 Unavailable.  The July 2008 Visa Bulletin is out.  As we predicted in May, the Employment Based Third Category (EB-3) is now unavailable until the end of the Fiscal Year in October.   This means that no EB-3 cases will be approved until at least October.  It is expected that in October the EB-3 priority dates will return to their May/June level.

Good news for EB-2 India and China.   The July 2008 Visa Bulletin, however, brings good news to EB-2 applicants from India and China.  According to Section 202(a)(5) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the total demand for EB-2 visas from countries other than India and China has been insufficient to meet the number of available visas; therefore, such estimated excess numbers have been allocated to EB-2 India and China.  It is expected that because Indian nationals constitute a larger proportion of the currently pending EB-2 cases, most of the newly available EB-2 visas will go to Indian nationals.