The Department of State released the October 2015 Visa Bulletin yesterday evening in conjunction with a joint announcement with USCIS implementing revised procedures for determining immigrant visa availability. D&S provides a monthly Summary of the family and employment based priority dates. For October, employment based priority dates (the “Final Action” dates) for EB-2 and EB-3 India experienced a slight retrogression with EB-2 india moving back 8 months from January 1, 2006 to May 1, 2005. However, under the new system nationals of India in the EB-2 preference category with priority dates on or before June 1, 2011, will be eligible to file the adjustment of status applications starting in October, roughly 6 years earlier than they could have filed under the prior system. For EB-3 India, which retrogressed just over 5 months to March 8, 2004, the difference between the “Application Filing” date and “Final Action” date is less significant, allowing EB-3 Indian nationals to file their permanent residence applications approximately 1 year and 4 months earlier that under the prior system.
There was significant forward movement in priority dates (“Final Action” dates) for EB-2 China, which progressed 6 years from January 1, 2006, to January 1, 2012. Additionally, under the new system, EB-2 Chinese nationals with priority dates on or before May 1, 2014, are able to file their permanent residence applications starting in October, over 2 years earlier than under the previous system. There was also significant forward movement in EB-3 China of almost 7 years with priority dates (“Final Action” dates) moving forward from December 22, 2004 to October 15, 2011. Additionally, starting in October, EB-3 Chinese nationals with priority dates on or before October 1, 2013 will be able to file their permanent resident applications, almost 2 years earlier than under the earlier system.
UPDATE: On September 25, 2015 USCIS and DOS issued a revised visa bulletin which supersedes the bulletin issued on September 9, 2015. For more details on the official announcement please read our D&S summary.