USCIS & DOS Announce Revision to Visa Bulletin SystemU.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services (USCIS) and the Department of State (DOS) have announced revised procedures for determining visa availability for applicants waiting to file for adjustment of status to permanent residence, effective October 1, 2015. Please note that this is a new policy, and we anticipate additional guidance to be forthcoming.
As background, DOS publishes current immigrant visa availability information in a monthly
Visa Bulletin. The Visa Bulletin indicates when immigrant visa numbers are available to prospective immigrants based on their individual priority date, the category under which they will be applying, and their country of birth. An individual's priority date is the date on which the labor certification application or, for cases not requiring a labor certification, the I-130 or I-140 immigrant visa petition was accepted for processing by DOL or USCIS. Moving forward, the DOS monthly Visa Bulletin will include two charts per visa preference category (instead of just one):
- Application Final Action Dates (i.e. priority dates for which immigrant visas may finally be issued - the date that has traditionally been listed on the visa bulletin); and
- Dates for Filing Applications (i.e. earliest priority dates pursuant to which applicants may be eligible to file Form I-485).
Under the new procedures, individuals will now be eligible to file Form I-485, Application to Adjust Status to Permanent Residence if their priority date is before the date listed on the Dates for Filing Applications chart. Following are some important notes about this eligibility:
- These I-485 applications will not be eligible for approval until the individual's priority date is current (i.e., the dates on the Application Final Action Dates chart advance to include the priority date), which may take months or years;
- Dependent family members are also eligible to apply; and
- Individuals filing their I-485s based on the Dates for Filing Applications chart should receive all of the benefits of having a pending adjustment application, including:
- EAD/AP combo cards allowing for work and travel authorization, issued within approximately 90 days of application;
- Green card portability, 180 days after filing the I-485 (i.e. the ability to move to a different full-time position within the same or similar job category); and
- Ongoing 3-year H-1B extensions (assuming the applicant holds H-1B status) until the priority date becomes current.
We will be reviewing our records and reaching out to those clients who our system identifies as newly-eligible to file I-485s based on the October Visa Bulletin. However, we would appreciate it if you would forward this information to your employees to provide them with background on the new system.
Why have USCIS and DOS made this change?
The revised procedures will better align with procedures DOS uses for foreign nationals who seek to become U.S. permanent residents by applying for immigrant visas at U.S. consulates and embassies abroad. It will also enhance DOS's ability to more accurately predict overall immigrant visa demand and determine the cut-off dates for visa issuance published in the Visa Bulletin, thereby helping to ensure that the maximum number of immigrant visas are issued annually as intended by Congress, and minimize month-to-month fluctuations in Visa Bulletin final action dates.
